Sustainable Intensification of Maize Legume cropping

systems for food security in Eastern and Southern Africa

SIMLESA : Initial Experiences and

Lessons to Asia

Geographic focus Ethiopia Kenya Malawi Mozambique South Africa Tanzania

Mulugetta Mekuria, Shiferaw B, Prasanna B.M, Rodriguez D and

Dixon J

Problem setting Why SIMLESA and Origins of Program idea

• Persistent hunger & poverty in east and southern Africa

* droughts and famine; food (price) crisis; global financial

crisis (GFC)

• History of Australian contributions to global food security since

the middle of the last century: establishment of FAO; and

ongoing support to establishment of CGIAR; and ongoing

support

• During 2008 additional budget allocations sought for specific

food security programs in Asia and Africa (including one

part focused on maize-legume systems )

• consultations and scoping studies to initiate a food security

initiative in ESA- Hence SIMLESA in March 2010

Clusters of food insecurity SIMLESA Countries

http://apsrunet.apsim.info/simlesa/

Potgieter, Davis and Rodriguez, 2010

Low productivity of maize-legume cropping systems

Lack of functioning input and output value chains

Poor availability of improved seeds

Scarce agricultural research capacity

Why are we where we are?

Dual Challenge to SSA

To double food production, and significantly increase incomes and livelihood opportunities, while

• Ensuring resilience and sustainability of farming systems on essentially the same land area,

• Adapting to climate change and the increases in costs of fertilizer, water, and labor.

SIMLESA goes right to the heart of this challenge

Vision of Success

• To increase maize and legume yields by 30% for benefitting farmers

– through improved maize and legume varieties and associated management practices,

– with adoption enabled and motivated through the development of markets and value chains, from input supplies to output markets.

• To reduce downside yield risks by 30% To benefit 500,000 farm households within 10 years.

More productive, resilient and sustainable

smallholder maize-legume practices,

tactics and strategies

SIMLESA aims at increasing farm-household food security and productivity, in the context of climate risk and change, through the development of more resilient, profitable and sustainable

maize-legume farming systems

Mainstreaming Gender, M&E , Spill overs, Scaling out

and capacity building

Socio-economic characterization

Input and output

value chain

Whole farm resource allocations

Improved range of maize and legume varieties available for smallholders

30% increase in maize and legume yields and 30% reduction in risk 500,000 households over the next 10 years

3 Is

INTEGRATION (SYSTEMS) INNOVATION PLATFORMS IMPACT ORIENTATION

Farmer-to-farmer exchanges SIMLESA, 2010

Baseline surveys, and SE studies

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Arumeru Karatu Hanang

Reported Farmers' Sources of Income

other

craft

petty trade

beer brewing

self-employment

remittance

hiring-out labour

livestock sales

vegetable sales

crop sales

Farming systems modelling

Researcher and extension training

Researcher managed trials

On-farm trials Farmer-

managed trials

Farmers experimenting

Community awareness meetings

Governance and Organization

Project Steering Committee

Project Management: CIMMYT

EIAR Ethiopia

KARI Kenya

MoAMalawi

IIAM Mozambi

q

MoATanzania

ASARECA CIMMYT

ICRISAT-TL2

Australian Partners

South African Partners

Objective 1: Major achievements-2010

Household baseline survey • Baseline survey completed in all the five countries and on-going in Malawi

• Interviewed 4600 farm households randomly selected

• 29 districts located in two agro-ecological zones and maize-pigeon pea, maize-beans, and maize-groundnuts , maize-soya beans cropping system

• More than 580 villages

• Community survey data collected from these villages

Achievements in Objective 2 (CA) • Ethiopia: Second season 2011/2012 progressing vey

Field days ongoing

• Kenya and Tanzania Season two crops mid season stage-Field days being organized

• Malawi and Mozambique-First Season results reported

Field Day –Hawassa –Ethiopia 16 August 2011

Objective 2: Establishment of on-farm exploratory trials by farmers

Country Farmer groups # of Exploratory trials

Ethiopia 12 58

Kenya 8 48

Tanzania 8 48

Malawi 6 36

Mozambique 6 36

Total 40 226

Australian partners contributions

• Innovative relay & intercrop cropping systems tested for Queensland

• Stress characterisation for Queensland • Capacity building

• APSIM Training • NARS trained on BNF

• African graduate student supervision at

Australian universities

• Support publications

Achievements in Objective 2 (CA) :

Field Visit Kenya 16 June

Ethiopia Kenya Malawi Mozambique Tanzania

Hybrids BH661 BH543

KH500-39E KDH3 WH105 KH500Q KH631Q H624 H520 KH533A KM0406

MH26 MH27

CZH0511 Olipa

Selian H308 Selian H208 SAH779 SAH638 SAH636

OPVs Melkassa 2 Melkassa 6Q Gibe 2 Gibe 3

KDV1 Embu Synth KKSynth2 WS303 KM0403

ZM523 ZM623 ZM309 ZM721

ZM523 Tsangano Chinaca

SA523 SA525

Identification of pre-release (within NVMTs) or newly released hybrids and OPVs with potential suitability for the targeted farming system

Objective 03

Farmers’ assessment of newly released and pre-released maize varieties

• Assessment was done for newly released varieties, pre-released varieties, and farmer maize varieties

• Evaluation involves socio-economists, maize breeders and agronomists in collaboration with farmers and extension staff

Capacity building

• Graduate level training/scholarships -AusAID and ACIAR – 5 PhD enrolled in 2011 in Austrian Universities

– 30+Msc,3 PhDs registered in local Universities

– 2012 Candidates being selected

• Specific short term training in

– CA Principles for research ,extension, NGO,staff and farmers

– socio economics, M&E, Impact assessment for NARS

– breeding and seed systems

– Gender Mainstreaming; APSIM

For SIMLESA to succeed, it must align with realistic

value chains

• Seed supply

• Fertilizer supply

• Equipment for CA based technologies

• Postharvest technologies

• Insurance providers

• Price information providers

• Traders and processors …

Do you know them? Are the appropriate providers involved?

For SIMLESA to succeed, it must draw on

appropriate component technologies

• CA based practices

• Drought tolerant maize

• More productive legume varieties

• Postharvest technologies

• Improved integration of livestock options

• Cell-phone managed insurance approaches

The Challenge:

How do we combine them so they optimize food security, incomes, resilience and sustainability?

What are we targeting?

– Farms that strongly base their food and income

security on maize and legumes

What do we do? –

Interventions that maximize farm-level productivity,

income, resilience and sustainability in these farming

systems, based on farmers own resources and long

realistic value chains.

How do we work? – Innovation systems approach which

means strong partnership with relevant actors

Looking at the bigger picture:

African Maize systems are different than Asian Systems

“In east Asia, if you invent an improved rice variety, every farmer for hundreds of

miles around can use it because the land and climate are much the same. In Africa, soil and climatic conditions are much more diverse and farmers a few hundred yards apart may need different seeds.” Larson, World Bank on The Economist Feb 24 issue

2011

The African maize system

• Maize is a major staple food

• Characterized by mostly uni- modal rainfall

• Maize- legume intercropping and rotation is common system

• Production of single crop per year.

• Small scale irrigation development is at stage of infancy

• Average yields less than 3t/ha,

• Seeds and fertilizer access and availability is a major constraint

• Maize-legume intercropping system with maize as main crop

clearly revealed the yield advantages (over sole maize cropping) as

well as soil nitrogen enrichment

• Maize dominated cropping systems were found in the mountain

and hill regions of Nepal, whereas paddy dominated the cropping

system in the plain (terai) region

• The drivers of Asian maize production systems are the increased

demand for maize for feed

• system is most dynamic in the low land rice based systems(Gulati

and Dixon, 2008) where rice is the cultural crop as maize is for

Africa.

• . Research undertaken in some of the Asian countries also led to

identification of specific legumes that fit well as an intercrop in the

maize-legume systems.

• In Asia the constraint might be inputs quality rather than access

Asian Maize Systems

• The systems and participatory approaches - are not new for

Asia

• Recognizing management of system integration is a

necessary condition to properly implement maize legume

intensification

SIMLESA’s 3Is are relevant to an Asian SIMLESA in a different

way: How can we to develop it?

• Adopt the value chain approach from the start; link together

input value chains, farmers, output chains

• Implement a systems diagnostic process as early as possible

• Start the project by including the private sector early- because

you need them to develop and agree on a seed road map

Initial Lessons from SIMLESA

Initial Lessons from SIMLESA

• Undertake PVS and farmer evaluation methods to

enhance and speed up release of farmer accepted

and preferred maize and legume varieties and

• Promote sustainable agronomic practices including

CA options

• Cognizant that input access and availability is not a

major constraint in Asia, there is a need insure that

farmers use the right/optimum amount and quality

of inputs.

• Conduct studies on the economics of input use

What could an Asian SIMLESA look like?

• Maize-rice collaboration projects base on

SIMLESA framework

• Maize-rice-legumes + livestock in some places?

• Maize-legume System opportunities: South Asia

(Bangladesh- Nepal-eastern India under CA)

• Mekong (Laos-Cambodia-Vietnam-Thailand)

Philippines; Indonesia

Conclusions

SIMLESA’s initial findings reveal that and an integrated

systems approach in designing and promoting technologies in

partnership with a range of stakeholders using innovation

platforms framework, supported by science and partnerships,

would contribute to a productive, sustainable and resilient

maize –legume production systems.

For an ASIA SIMLESA to succeed we need to:

• Anchor it on a stronger leadership from agribusiness

• Support role of public sector and

• Ensure that it is farm income oriented to lead to

poverty reduction.

“This particular project is helping to develop drought and disease-tolerant

maize and legume varieties and to educate farmers about new farming

technologies in conservation agriculture in five African countries. In the first

eighteen months of the program, we’ve helped train more than 150 agricultural

researchers from Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania and

trialled conservation agriculture in 215 fields owned by local farmers. It’s on

track to reaching its target of increasing crop productivity of maize and

legumes by 30% on around half a million African small farms within 10 years.”

“We need a new Agricultural Revolution of the 21st century if we are to feed a

further 3 billion members of the human family. As a responsible global citizen,

Australia stands ready to play our part” Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister

praises SIMLESA achievements in Africa

Addressing the 5th WCCA Brisbane 26-29

Sept.2011