ICRISAT – One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?

From research to impact: the stories behind the successes

January 11, 2014 by canwefeedtheworld 1 Comment

A recent Montpellier Panel Briefing Paper, Innovation for Sustainable Intensification in Africa, highlights the need for change in the way we innovate and do research if we are to increase food production while protecting natural resources (in other words sustainable intensification). Added to this need for change is the increasing focus of donors and civil society to measure success as the level of impact. International aid has come under criticism for failing to ensure long-term impact of research investments.

In a new report by Joanna Kane-Potaka of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) entitled The Story Behind the Success, 10 case studies are presented, which exemplify how research for development (R4D) can be translated into real results and uptake by people on the ground. Some broad lessons from the case studies were the need for monitoring and evaluation to feed back into the uptake planning process, the need to design a proactive uptake strategy that is informed by and informs the research itself, and the need for effective engagement, ultimately aiming for stakeholders to take ownership of the research and become ambassadors for the outputs. Effective communication and the integration of cultural factors in uptake planning were also important.

In one case study, farmers in Northern Thailand who use termite mounds on poor quality soils to help them retain water and nutrients, were looking for an alternative as natural termite mounds began to become scarce. International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Khon Kaen University scientists began trialling the use of bentonite clay, found by Australian researchers to help conserve water and nutrients in soil. Researchers found that in Northern Thailand the use of bentonite clay helped reduce crop failure due to drought and increased crop yield by 73%. Three years after the trials around 600 farmers in Thailand and Cambodia had adopted the practice and increased their yields by an average 18%. In this case adoption took a long time but was driven largely by targeting early innovator farmers, in particular members of the Farmer Wisdom Network (FWM), which individuals at Khon Kaen University had previously built a relationship with. Another key relationship, between IWMI and the Thai government, built over time, aided in the early trials, which were conducted on government experiment stations. The government is now developing a plant where waste bentonite from the production of vegetable oils is converted to composting for use on soils. This product is to be free (excluding transportation costs) to farmers. Farmer field trials and Farmer Field Schools were not only used to communicate the technology but to obtain feedback used in the research process. Identifying early innovators, building strong relationships with local farmers and partners and having meaningful engagement with them were key to ensuring this solution actually had impact. [Read more…]

Filed Under: 7 - Appropriate Technology Tagged With: adoption, ICRISAT, impact, innovation, Montpellier Panel, research, sustainable intensification, technology, uptake

The importance of seed diversity

August 2, 2013 by canwefeedtheworld 4 Comments

Seeds might be small, inconspicuous things but they hold a great deal of power. For some, seeds mean survival, ritual, life. They are the basis of much of the food we consume. Perhaps because of their power and their value to the planet’s food security, seeds are a controversial topic. The sale of seeds, the modification of seeds and the saving of seeds are all issues which inspire much discourse and disagreement.

The Gaia Foundation produced a video called Seeds of Freedom, which documents the century’s old custom of saving and selecting seeds best adapted to local conditions, cultural preferences, and resilient to environmental constraints. The film highlights the threat that privatisation of the production and sale of seeds poses to these traditional farming practices.

Cycles of seed saving and the maintenance of agricultural biodiversity have been challenged by the introduction of higher-yielding hybrid and introduced crops that can lose their vitality after the first season, thus requiring farmers to purchase new seeds every year. The video paints the leaders of the Green Revolution as seeking power over the seed value chain. And while many would disagree with this, that scientists were developing high-yielding locally adapted crops with the aim of increasing food production and reducing hunger, there is little doubt that agricultural crop biodiversity was lost as the rise of monocultures and heavy chemical use expanded rapidly. In the Philippines, a poster country of the Green Revolution, only 8 rice varieties out of 3,500 are now grown.

Agricultural biodiversity and the wealth of information and traits it contains is particularly important given the global challenges we face, not least climate change. There are crops and crop varieties that can withstand extremes that would decimate many of the crops we regularly eat. Pearl millet for example, a crop grown annually on more than 29 million hectares in the arid and semi-arid tropical regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America, can survive the most hot and hostile Sahelian conditions. Thus conserving seed diversity both in situ and in seed banks is imperative. A recent blog on Food Tank outlines 15 seed saving initiatives protecting biodiversity for future generations.

For many the concept of saving seeds is firmly entrenched in the ideals of food sovereignty, which is about the right of people to define their own food systems. Few would argue against increasing food production in developing countries and reducing the huge amounts of imports, which can leave poor consumers at the mercy of volatile global food prices. But in the extreme, food sovereignty espouses the restriction of all food trade and corporate involvement which raises a couple of issues.

Firstly agro-ecological methods and traditional farming, while often more resilient than conventional monocultures, have limits to the amount of food they can produce per unit of labour. In Africa, where smallholder farms dominate, maize yields average 1 ton per hectare, compared to Iowa, where farmers have access to the most cutting edge of technologies including GM and get, on average, yields of 11 tons per hectare. The answer is not in transferring an Iowan system of farming to Africa but technology does have the potential to transform productivity and livelihoods. [Read more…]

Filed Under: 13 - Rooted in the Soil, 6 - Sustainable Intensification Tagged With: Biodiversity, farming, food sovereignty, ICRISAT, maize, pearl millet, seed saving, seeds, smallholders

Hidden Hunger: Tackling micronutrient deficiencies

June 7, 2013 by canwefeedtheworld 2 Comments

As we wait to hear from global policy leaders meeting at the Nutrition for Growth summit in London tomorrow, we have been thinking about all the different ways that malnutrition can be tackled, in particular agricultural measures than can be taken to boost nutrition.

In a new video story, Alina Paul of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) outlines the extent of micronutrient deficiency (termed hidden hunger) in India. Looking in particular at iron-deficiency, over 70% of children under the age of 3 and half of women in India suffer from anaemia, often linked to iron deficiency. Such deficiencies affect their development and survival.

In order to combat widespread deficiencies in iron, India is taking steps to promote iron-rich crops such as pearl millet, which is high in vitamin B, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium and zinc as well as being well adapted to drought, poor soils and high temperatures. The Indian government is aiming to reverse the trend of declining millet production by incorporating the crop into school feeding programmes, thereby improving school children’s nutrition and creating market demand. Elsewhere the Home Grown School Feeding programme is making great strides in procuring traditional nutritious food for school children from local farmers.

International donors are also funding research into the development of higher yielding pearl millet with enhanced iron content. HarvestPlus and ICRISAT have partnered with Nirmal Seeds in India to develop and distribute a new conventionally bred, higher iron pearl millet variety. Since May 2012 over 25,000 farmers have bought and planted this seed.

But breeding more nutritious crops is only part of the solution to tackle hidden hunger. Growing a diversity of nutritious crops will help to boost household nutrition. Gordon Conway often references his experiences of Home Gardens in Java (see picture) that grow a wide variety of plants and crops and house different livestock, all of which can be consumed or sold. The M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation has recognised the importance of local people in fighting hidden hunger and has established a programme of Community Hunger Fighters, village volunteers who are trained to address the major causes of malnutrition within their community. [Read more…]