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| SATrends Issue 9 | August 2001 |
NEWS FROM THE DRY TROPICS:
1. Finding Chinks in the Armour
In Botswana,
farmers say they’re a punishment from the gods. Setotojane, the armoured bush cricket (left),
is a sporadic but deadly pest that can devastate sorghum and millet – the subsistence
food crops of eastern and southern Africa. But the armoured cricket isn’t fussy. It
also gobbles pigeonpea, sesame, maize, soybean, cowpea, sunflower and even wild grasses.
“Its outbreaks have become more frequent because of recurrent droughts in this region”, says Dr Eli Minja, ICRISAT entomologist and one of the participating researchers in the Setotojane Armoured Bush Cricket Project. Dr Minja and her colleagues aim to develop simple control methods and early warning systems to forecast outbreaks. In other words, they seek chinks in their antagonist’s armour.
The cricket is decidedly unpopular. Arrayed against it is a battery of adversaries that includes the UK’s Natural Resources Institute (NRI), Botswana’s Department of Agricultural Research (DAR), the University of Pretoria, South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC), the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR) at Rothamsted, and ICRISAT. The Project is supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and operates out of Botswana.
Adopting
a farmer-participatory approach, the Project first surveyed farmers’ perceptions of
the pest and the indigenous methods used to control it. The results were frightening. Most
farmers do not even attempt to control it. Convinced the cricket is invincible, they
simply watch in horror as their crops and livelihoods are devoured before their eyes.
(Right,
millet head under attack by crickets).
But the Project scientists, refusing to believe that setotojane is as indomitable as it appears, have developed a simple defense strategy. Their recommended methods include placing carbaryl bran baits at intervals along field borders, digging trenches around fields, spraying field borders or panicles, and destroying pods where cricket eggs have been laid.
The Setotojane Project, which benefited from research in the early 1990s by ICRISAT scientists and their partners in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, has found chinks in the armour.
For more information, contact e.minja@cgiar.org
2.Brazilian Farmers Get a Boost from the Sahel
Nobody eats pearl millet in Brazil. Not even cattle. Fifteen
years ago the crop was essentially unknown there. Yet today over 2 million hectares are
sown and the area is growing exponentially. Why? Because
pearl millet is ideal for sustaining soybean production in Brazil’s cerrado, the vast upland region between the Atlantic and the
Amazon. Why does pearl millet do well there? For the answer, look at a map of the South
Atlantic. The Brazilan Shield is the hump that a billion or so years ago used to fit into
West Africa. It is therefore no accident that the soils of the two regions are similar.
Both are easily eroded, highly leached and characterized by low fertility and toxic levels
of aluminum. What’s more, the cerrado is
plagued by prolonged droughts. The bottom line: most plants haven’t got a chance of
survival here. Enter pearl
millet. Nothing stands up to drought better than this tough old trooper of a crop, because
its roots will grow up to more than 2 meters in pursuit of water and soil nutrients. So,
because it originated on similar soils in West Africa about 40 million years ago, pearl
millet should be expected to do well in Brazil. And it does!
What
happens is this. First you sow your millet. When the crop is about half grown, you simply
knock it down. Then you sow your soybeans. The dead millet protects the soil from erosion,
smothers weeds, and holds slow-release nutrients for use by the soybeans. Next thing you
know you have a robust soybean crop.
The introduction of pearl millet into Brazil has revolutionized no-till soybean production. Agronomic studies show that millet mulch increases soybean yields by about 15%. What’s more, the mulch provides nitrogen and phosphorus to the soybean, reducing fertilizer costs.
Says Dr CT Hash, ICRISAT pearl millet breeder, “We have sent over 500 pearl millet materials to Brazil for testing. One improved population has been released by the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria (EMBRAPA) for the no-till soybean production system.
”Dr Hash was involved with a collaborative project between the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and EMBRAPA to improve productivity in the cerrado. As part of the project, Japanese and Brazilian researchers have been trained at ICRISAT in pearl millet breeding.
If soybean, which is now grown on over 10 million hectares in Brazil’s cerrado, remains the king of cash crops, pearl millet will be largely responsible for ensuring its reign.
For more information, contact c.t.hash@cgiar.org
3. Sahelian Partners Smash the Ivory Tower
For the past 5 years, a quiet revolution has been transforming the millet world in West and Central Africa through an initiative of ROCAFREMI, the sonorous French acronym for the region’s millet research network. The word ‘network’ is sometimes misused to describe organizations set up to work together but don’t. Not ROCAFREMI. This is the real thing, an honest-to-goodness network with farmers, processors, and NGO workers sitting side by side with scientists and technology exchange specialists as equal partners, deciding the long-term future of a crop that sustains life for hundreds of thousands of the world’s poorest people.
Millet
is a hardy cereal that produces very well in the region’s poor soils and low
rainfall. Indeed, in many areas it is literally the only
crop that will grow at all. It is the main source of calories and proteins in the poor
Sahelian diet. (Left,Sahelian woman farmer collecting millet for a meal.) Despite
efforts to breed new varieties and increase productivity, however, the crop’s
performance has remained far below potential. And disturbingly, in urban areas millet
consumption is sharply dropping in favor of easy-to-cook and non-indigenous crops like
maize and rice.
To tackle this problem, ROCAFREMI decided to smash the ivory tower surrounding agricultural research by bringing in farmers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and technology exchange specialists to jointly establish a research agenda throughout the 14 member countries of the network. These round-table discussions are called FORUMIL (Millet Forum). The program has been very successful, notably in Senegal. According to Dr O Ouendeba, ROCAFREMI Coordinator, “FORUMIL has been very successful at establishing an exchange between the network and its partners and the strength of the concept resides in its participatory nature.”
The first FORUMILs were held in 1997 in Niger and Burkina Faso with strong support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Since then the concept has greatly expanded, and a National Forum on Millet and Sorghum is planned in Niger 12-14 September 2001.
With SDC fuel driving the ROCAFREMI engine, the network operates in close partnership with the national agricultural research systems of its member countries under the umbrella of CORAF, the regional agricultural research organization, as well as with various farmer organizations. International partners include INTSORMIL, Sasakawa Global 2000, Winrock, World Vision, and GTZ. The Network’s Coordination Unit is based at the ICRISAT Sahelian Center in Niger.
For more information, contact o.ouendeba@cgiar.org
4. What You See is What You Get – Simulation Modeling for Successful Farming
Poor soils, erratic rainfall, high risk. For smallholder farmers throughout the semi-arid tropics, the combination is deadly. Several technology options are available for improving soil fertility, but many are expensive and therefore risky. ICRISAT, CIMMYT, Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services, and Australia’s Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit are using a new approach in Malawi and Zimbabwe, combining simulation modeling with farmer-participatory research. This approach enhances the effectiveness of soil fertility research by analysing the climatic risks associated with different technology options.
Computer models can simulate yields,
profitability, and changes in soil properties for different management options under a
range of climatic conditions. Particularly in environments where rainfall is highly
variable, simulation can greatly reduce the time and expense of field experiments.
Researchers use the model to compare management alternatives and ultimately identify a
basket of options to test on farmers’ fields. Researchers and farmers work together
to evaluate these options, and farmers discover for themselves which are most profitable
– even which option is better suited to a particular field. (Right, ICRISAT's
John Dimes explaining the modeling to farmers in Zimbabwe.)
A series of workshops in Zimbabwe and Malawi has helped strengthen the ability of national research staff to use simulation modeling. The workshops explored various scenarios that factor in such data as household size, location, farm size, soil quality, planted area, sowing dates, weed pressure, labor availability, even the effect of stubble grazing by livestock. Even external factors like income from remittances were considered. Farmers with limited resources living at the mercy of an unpredictable climate want to know, “On average, which allocation of resources offers me the best prospects of an acceptable return?” Modeling helps to answer this question.
As expected, yields were low and variable. But simulation foretold how the effect of weeding would increase yield. What’s more, it calculated the net benefits from specific amounts of fertilizer applied in different ways – high concentration on a small area, or vice versa. It predicted the profitability of different management practices as well as the risk involved in each case, given the long-term rainfall pattern for the area. The most profitable investment proved to be purchasing two bags of ammonium nitrate and distributing it on two hectares of early-sown land. But another option – buying a single bag of fertilizer and hiring labor for weeding – was almost as profitable, and much less risky.
The message: risk less and earn more – through simulation modelling!
5 Highlights of Previous Issues:
July 2001:Balaji Makes IT Waves• A Hot Date in the Sahel • It All Adds Up • More from Less • That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles
June 2001: Space-Age Partnership in West Africa • Bad Taste is Good • Out of Africa • Seed Priming: Rhapsody in Simplicity
May 2001: Dodging Drought in Kenya • Vietnam and ICRISAT Save Watersheds • Farmers Enrich Malawi's Soils • Groundnut Mystery Disease Identified
April 2001:Women Farmers Guide Scientists in Namibia • Ashta Puts it Faith in IPM • Sahelian Farmers Place Their Bets • China and Pigeonpea: Love at Second Sight
March 2001: Agriculture: an Ally Against Global Warming? • Breaking the Spell of Witchweed • Groundnut Taking Root in Central Asia and the Caucasus • Zimbabwean Smallholders Drive the Research Agenda
February 2001: Somalia: Seeds Deliver Hope Amidst Chaos • The CGIAR Fights Desertification in Africa • Creating the World's First Molecular Marker Map of Chickpea • Aflatoxin and Cancer: Cracking a Hard Nut in Developing Countries
January 2001: Things Grow Better with CokeŽ: Micro-fertilizer System Sparks 50-100 Percent Millet Yield Increases in the Sahel • Groundnut (Peanut) Production Accelerates in Vietnam • Pigeonpea Broadens Farmer's Options in Sudan • Private Sector Invests in Public Plant Breeding Research at ICRISAT.
December 2000: International Symposium on SAT Futures • Centers Team Up to Help East Timor • Spatial Variability in Watersheds • World's First Cytoplasmic Male-Sterile Hybrid Pigeonpea • Groundnut (Peanut) Variety Boosts Malawian Agriculture • National Researchers Persevere in El Salvador • ICRISAT Celebrates India-ICRISAT Day • ICRISAT and World Vision International Work Together in Southern Africa.
