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| SATrends Issue 12 | November 2001 |
NEWS FROM THE DRY TROPICS:
- Sorghum Products: Poised to Take Off
- Cash from Cattle Food
- Empowerment Through Technology
- Outwitting an Unfair Bug
- Highlights of Previous Issues
1.Sorghum Products: Poised to Take Off
It
could as well have been dubbed the World Sorghum Day! There was such a profusion of it at
this year’s World Food Day celebration in Burkina Faso. Participants not only
discussed sorghum, but they also tasted a dizzying array of products made from it –
from snacks, drinks, and syrups to entrées, main courses, and desserts! As one awestruck
Francophone journalist described it, “Sorghum was omnipresent.”The hardy cereal was indeed the focus of all attention during the 4-day celebration. Yet, it is not a crop that often makes headlines. Long considered a poor cousin of rice and wheat, it has been constantly associated with poor people and marginal areas in Asia and Africa.
(Left, lunch at the World Food Day).
Paradoxically, it is in West Africa – where it is the staple food for millions of poor – that sorghum’s image is fast changing into a symbol of prosperity, especially for rural women.
For
example, the nutritious cookie named Sorbis made
of 100% sorghum flour is a great hit with women, as it has opened up exciting
opportunities for them to produce and sell it. The driving force
behind this partnership-based initiative is the West and Central Africa Sorghum
Research Network (ROCARS).
As part of the Rural Women’s Day program, held in Ziniaré – Burkina Faso President Compaoré’s village – 40 women were given training in sorghum preparations, and prizes were distributed for the best product. (Right, lady with sorghum bouquet).
The celebrations were jointly held by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry for Women’s Promotion of Burkina Faso, INERA, PROCELOS, FAO, IFAD, SG2000, and ICRISAT. Several Ambassadors, representatives from CILSS, CIRAD, EU, FAO, the French Cooperation, UNDP, and USAID attended, as well as NGOs, farmers, and processors.The program was so successful that the Government of Burkina Faso is eager to collaborate with the Network on sorghum processing and training of women, and has asked Dr I Akintayo, ROCARS Coordinator, to draft proposals for funding. The Advisor to the French Ambassador in Burkina has also offered her whole-hearted support.
Most importantly, Dr Akintayo has been invited to participate in the FAO’s 2001 TeleFood Program on 24 Nov in Burkina Faso – along with the entire range of sorghum products. Who said that sorghum was only a subsistence crop with little potential?
For more information contact i.akintayo@cgiar.org
2.Cash from Cattle Food
If the food cows eat is good, their milk is good. If they eat bad food, their milk is bad. Seems a simple hypothesis.
Strangely, however,
no written evidence supports this. Seeking a scientific answer to this seemingly simple
question, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) agreed to fund an
ICRISAT project to assess the impact of plant diseases on the quantity and quality of crop
residues, and to develop management strategies to control the diseases that affect them.
Most commercial
milk production in India takes place near towns and cities, where the customers live.
Cattle feed consists mainly of crop biomass, mainly sorghum and groundnut residue.
Plant diseases that affect grain yield of these crops also affects the quantity and
nutritive value of their residue. Farmers’ incomes, more today than ever before,
depend on sales of residues to dairies. In the 1970s, crop residue sold for only one sixth
the cost of grain. Today, when residues are equal in value to grain, farmers stand to lose
significant sums if their residues are infected.
Understandably,
livestock avoid eating diseased fodder, leading to wastage. Their milk quantity and
quality is poor and the farmers earn less. Even a tiny amount of improvement is
remunerative for the farmer. One study indicated that improvements in digestibility of
only a single percentage unit could result in value increases from 3 to 11%.
You rarely find
crop scientists working with livestock researchers and socioeconomists. That’s what
made this study unique. ICRISAT and its partners – the International Livestock
Research Institute (ILRI); the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR); the
National Research Centre for Sorghum, Hyderbad; and the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural
University (ANGRAU), Hyderabad – recorded farmers' perceptions and undertook market
surveys in several southern Indian states.
A pattern of rich
versus poor emerged. The rich sorghum farmers are also those involved in milk sales,
whereas the poor (who own less livestock) depend on income from fodder. On the other hand,
groundnut farmers are involved with both milk and fodder sales. While sorghum stover
markets are large, no commercial markets exist for groundnut haulms – purchases are
made only at the village level.
The results of the collaborative study, which once and for all establishes the importance of plant diseases on crop residues, are applicable to other semi-arid areas of South Asia as well as sub-Saharan Africa.
For
more information contact r.bandyopadhyay@cgiar.org
3. Empowerment Through Technology
Groundnut is both a
food and cash crop; its high-oil, high-protein kernels make for good nutrition, and there
is a ready market to absorb surplus production. ICRISAT and the Indian national program
developed a technology package for rainfed groundnut cultivation. The package was tested
and disseminated in many areas, including Umra village in Nanded district. It
combines various aspects – an improved variety, land management using raised beds and
furrows, the use of seed-dressing chemicals, more efficient water use, and better control
of pests and diseases through environmentally friendly methods.
Many households
re-invested their profits to further improve productivity. Former subsistence farmers are
now viewed as credit-worthy, most are no longer dependent on the usurious informal lending
market, and access to institutional and supplier credit has improved. Impressive benefits – but more was to come. As the community grew its way out of poverty, credit access,
health and sanitation facilities, investments in children’s education, all improved.
Even more remarkable, the sharp caste distinctions that had persisted for centuries, began
breaking down. The economy began changing from semi-feudal to modern semi-commercialized.
The underprivileged class gained not only through higher wages and year-round (rather than
seasonal) employment, but also in terms of political strength and social acceptance. For
thousands of poor families, empowerment became a reality rather than a slogan.
Yet another
entirely unexpected benefit – more marriages! Earlier, outsiders had little to do
with Umra, and this especially made it difficult for villagers to find marriage partners.
Not any longer. Economic prosperity has brought not just more money, but also more
interaction and social ties with families outside the village, and consequently many more
marriage proposals.
Who says
there’s no romance in agriculture?
For more information contact c.bantilan@cgiar.org
4. Outwitting an Unfair Bug
In agriculture, it
is even more difficult because the solution should not only be simple, but affordable for
farmers. Therefore, when scientists based in Mali hit upon an easy and inexpensive method
to control the sorghum head bug menace, they took the solution straight to the farmers.
The sorghum head bug (top), Eurystylus oldi, refuses to play fair. Not satisfied with causing up to 60% yield losses, especially in the compact-headed improved varieties that it finds particularly succulent, it adds insult to injury. In a true case of “out of the frying pan and into the fire,” it leaves the crop vulnerable to subsequent infection by grain mold.
Knowing that poor
farmers in West Africa can rarely afford costly chemicals to fight this decidedly nasty
pest, the scientists built upon past achievements in this area by the Centre de
Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) and
ICRISAT. The researchers had found that the castor plant is an alternative host of the
sorghum head bug and can be used in a strategy to reduce the head bug population and
damage on the sorghum plants.
- Sow one row of castor perpendicular to rows of tolerant/resistant sorghum varieties, and
- Manually remove the castor flowers or spray them with
On-farm trials were conducted in the Kolokani district of Mali, using a farmer-participatory approach to promote the technology. The trial results showed that:
- The new IPM strategies reduced head bug population by over 60% and increased sorghum yields by 25%.
- The manual removal of flowers – a strategy that has the advantage of being environmentally-friendly and cheap – is as effective as the spraying of the castor flowers with Decis® insecticide.
The partners of
this success story are the Institut d’Economie Rurale (IER), Service Local
d’Appui, Conseil, Aménagement et Equipement Rural (SLACAER), Institut Polytechnique
Rural (IPR), CIRAD, ICRISAT, and farmers.
“Collaboration
with the CGIAR System-wide IPM program (SP-IPM) has been initiated to extend the
technologies to more farmers,” said Dr Ousmane Youm, ICRISAT Entomologist and
Regional Coordinator of the ICRISAT-IFAD Project.
For more information contact o.youm@cgiar.org
5.Highlights of Previous Issues:
October 2001: Backing a Winner • More than a Thousand Words • Sowing a New Future for Eritrea • A Casting Coup: Farmers' Day 2001
September 2001: Don’t Get Left on the Shelf • Nigeria Targets ‘Groundnut Leprosy’ • Two Heads Are Better than One • Desperately Seeking Seeds
August 2001: Finding Chinks in the Armour • Brazilian Farmers get a Boost from sthe Sahel • Sahelian Partners Smash the Ivory Tower • What You See is What You Get - Simulation Modeling for Successful Farming
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 Coke®: 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.