Western and Central Africa
Learning by Doing – and Succeeding
Will his experiment be a success or a failure? Namakan Keita waited eagerly for the result, anxious at times when things seemed to go wrong, but the excitement of his discovery at the end made up for all the worries he had felt during the experiment.
Namakan is not a scientist, but a
farmer from Gonsolo village in the Mande region in Mali. But like most farmers, he is also
a researcher in his own right, experimenting with new crop varieties and ways of growing
them. This time, Namakan was trying out a new sorghum variety as part of a research
project on participatory breeding jointly conducted by ICRISAT, the Institut
d’Economie rurale (IER), and the Institut Polytechnique rural (IPR) with the help of
Adaf Gallé, a nongovernmental organization.
Out of the 15 new sorghum varieties that Eva
Weltzien, ICRISAT sorghum breeder showed him, Namakan chose ICSV 901, a short-duration
improved variety belonging to the caudatum race
(short-stemmed plants with an
erect panicle). As the farmers in that region grow traditionally the guinea (long-stemmed)
race, this variety was completely new to Namakan.
He planted the new variety in a plot next to his own short-duration guinea so that he could compare the two. He was happy when the seedlings of the new variety emerged well. However, insect damage made him worry, as some seedlings started to die. Fortunately he could fill the gaps in the field by transplanting plants from spots that were not damaged.
The plants of the new variety grew quickly and formed grains before any other sorghum in the village. Namakan began to worry once again – what if the grains matured while the heavy rains continued, what if the birds attacked since this was the only plot, which had grains?
Despite all these threats, the new variety produced a grain yield that he had never seen before: 117 kg from only 100 g of seed. He was thrilled with the bumper harvest, but he had to still find out if the variety tasted good. His wife found that threshing was very easy, but dehulling the grains was tough. However the taste of the to and the couscous – popular local preparations – was superb, and made up for the extra labor.
Namakan is pleased to have discovered this variety, which yields
well and matures at a time when his grain store is usually empty and the cost of the grain
is high in the market. He has carefully saved seeds of the new variety that he has
nicknamed Kessniyoni, for sowing in the next season. But to avoid problems of rain
and birds, he wants to sow it a little later next year. It seems that even
farmer-researchers can’t resist the urge to tinker, as they seek ways to improve the
welfare of their families and the security of their future.
