ADOPTION OF AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS, CONVERGING
NARRATIVES, AND THE ROLE OF SWEDISH AGRICULTURAL
RESEARCH FOR DEVELOPMENT?
Draft
Discussion paper, version 2011-01-28
Johan Toborn
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Agricultural Innovations
2.1. Adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations – theories and concepts
2.2. Empirical adoption and adoption impact studies
3. Adoption of specific innovations illustrated
3.1. Illustrative key studies
3.1.1. Embodied exogenous innovations
High Yielding Varieties
GM Crops
Fertilizers
Pesticides
3.1.2. Packages of disembodied agronomic and managerial innovations
Conservation Agriculture
Integrated Soil Fertility Management
Soil and Water Conservation
Integrated Pest Management
Rain Water Harvesting
Agroforestry
Low-External Input Technologies
Sustainable Agriculture/Integrated Natural Resource Management
4. Adoption of agricultural innovations – conclusions
5. Perspectives and narratives on agricultural development
5.1 Historical development of agriculture
5.2 Markets and institutional fixes
5.3. Policy fixes
5.4 Livelihoods is key
5.5 Technology fixes
5.5.1. The Green Revolution in retrospect
5.5.2 The quest for sustainable and multifunctional agriculture
5.6. Emerging, complementary narratives?
5.6.1. Convergence on technology, but with multiple pathways to intensification
5.6.2. Context matters, generalisation too
5.6.3. Towards integrative science
5.6.4. Putting knowledge into use
6. Concluding discussion – new roles and binding constraints for Swedish
agricultural development research?
References
Annex
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ADOPTION OF AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS, CONVERGING NARRATIVES, AND
THE ROLE OF SWEDISH AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH FOR DEVELOPMENT?
1.
Introduction
This paper discusses what contribution Swedish agricultural science, in particular natural science,
could or should make to agricultural development in the south apart from the obvious business as
usual, i.e. current research issues where we presumably have competence and comparative advantages.
The latter is certainly an important role of Advanced Research Institutions in international agricultural
research. Business as usual is in itself a position on agricultural research for development; though not
one that has emerged from deliberation, but rather resulted from the interests of individual scientists,
existing disciplinary and departmental divisions, academic reward systems, the few financial sources
available, and the research approaches they sustain. Research projects making part of the position are
usually small, often acquired in competition through a peer review process, or as commissioned
research (notably Ph.D. training/research). Research has, understandably, a biophysical focus and
usually allows limited opportunities to engage in dissemination and upscaling. Competence can still be
put to use in new contexts, formats, and with new foci, however. From different entry points this paper
purports to provoke reactions on our position on agricultural research for development. The
provocations are subtle, however, and have no simple responses. A marked deviation from business as
usual assumes that considerable individual and collective constraints have to be overcome, and that a
strong will to change is present. This is a tall order, but reflecting on alternative use of competence, or
needs for alternative competence, has an intrinsic value and is seldom done. In the best of worlds, such
reflections could result in a position on how we view agricultural research for development, our role in
that context, and how we would like to change to fill that role. A shared position on agricultural
research for development would increase the appreciation of how different disciplines and approaches
fit in the overall context and create synergistic value added rather than existing in a state of internal
competition.
Efforts to develop agriculture are expected to result in improved agricultural production; “improved”
obviously having multiple interpretations. Better technologies have to be generated and put into use.
Agricultural scientists by training and tradition want to believe that new technologies drive
agricultural development. Research findings are passed through transformative and communicative
stages and finally result in improved production. This default linear model is valid in some cases, and
utterly wrong in others. How we perceive adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations is
therefore a key element in our position of agricultural research for development? Chapter 2 describes
alternative theories and concepts of adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations, and empirical
approaches to study adoption and diffusion. For a private company, high adoption rates and diffusion
of its innovations is a sign of success, presuming sound economics. For public agricultural research,
adoption is a necessary precondition for assessing if the benefits generated by the innovation were
worth the research investment. Benefits range from outcomes at adopter-level to community-level
changes in environmental, economic and social conditions and distributional impacts. This evokes the
intricate question how identification, design, implementation and evaluation of agricultural research
and innovation diffusion can be improved. For composite natural resource innovations much more
sophisticated assessment and learning approaches are needed than represented by the default linear
model.
Chapter 3 illustrates actual adoption of agricultural innovations. Innovation is a deceptively simple
term, but in reality ranges from embodied external innovations (seed, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) to
systems changes building on agronomic and managerial innovations. This division is admittedly
artificial as technology packages in agricultural development often include both categories and
simultaneous interventions of a non-technical nature. For selected innovations under the two
categories definitions and classification schemes are provided, selected studies of relevance
summarised, extent of adoption/diffusion commented on, and illustrative successful cases reported. A
diffuse, yet clear pattern emerges. Adoption of agricultural innovations, with exceptions for early
Green Revolution (GR) success, has not progressed as fast as desirable and projected, in particular not
in Sub-Saharan Africa. What to expect is per se methodologically complex to assess; sometimes based
on mathematical models, sometimes rather airing disappointments. How do we explain the lack of
progress and what could be done differently?
2
Chapter 4 draws lessons from adoption studies with implicit implications for Swedish agricultural
research for development.
Agricultural development is a study area of increasing complexity. Our knowledge has increased,
conditions have changed over time, and additional dimensions are added by growing awareness of e.g.
Man’s influence on ecosystems, water scarcity and climate change, and effects of globalisation. To
make sense of a messy reality, we often resort to narratives or stories. There are several narratives that
from different perspectives are used to explain agricultural development and ultimately adoption of
agricultural technologies. Four common narratives are reviewed in Chapter 5: markets and
institutional fixes; policy fixes; livelihoods is key; and technology fixes with several subthemes. Each
narrative comes in different versions. These narratives are important building blocks of a metanarrative. Then four possible emerging, complementary narratives seen relevant from a research
perspective are discussed: convergence on technology, but with multiple pathways to intensification;
context matters, generalisation too; towards integrative science, and putting knowledge into use. These
are desirable, not mutually exclusive narratives. Each narrative subtly provokes the business as usual
scenario.
Chapter 6 reflects on the implications for Swedish agricultural research for development beyond
business as usual.
2.
Agricultural innovations
“Many technologists believe that advantageous innovations will sell themselves, that the obvious
benefits of a new idea will be widely realized by potential adopters, and that the innovation will
therefore diffuse rapidly. Seldom is this the case. Most innovations, in fact, diffuse at a
disappointingly slow rate” (Rogers 1995).
An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of
adoption. In industrial and agricultural innovation literature, a distinction is made between products,
processes, and social/organisational innovations. Agricultural innovations, as traditionally studied, are
mainly to categorise as products, but with elements of processes. Technology is used synonymously
with innovation.
Agricultural innovations can be classified according to several parameters:
- Genetic, mechanic and chemical innovations (private goods) and agronomic, managerial and animal
husbandry innovations (public goods);
- Individual innovations (individual adopter) and collective innovations (group of persons);
- Continuous innovations, semi-continuous innovations, and discontinuous innovations with increasing
demands for new skills, knowledge and even investments;
- Labour saving innovations and land saving innovations;
- Process innovations and product innovations;
- Endogenous and exogenous innovations (based on Sonnino 2009).
A slightly different categorization is suggested by Sunding (1999):
- Innovations embodied in capital goods or products (“shielded” and “non-shielded”) and innovations
not embodied;
Innovations according to impact:
- New products;
- Yield increasing innovations;
- Cost-reducing innovations;
- Innovations that enhance product quality.
Innovations according to form
- Mechanical, biological, chemical, biotechnical, and informational innovations
For the purpose of this paper a distinction is made between Embodied, exogenous innovations (EEI)
and packages of disembodied agronomic and managerial innovations (PDAMI). In practice the two
categories are often combined. The first category would mainly qualify as continuous or semi-
3
discontinuous innovations, whereas the PDAMI category leans more to the discontinuous category, i.e.
more skill-intensive.
2.1
Adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations – theories and concepts
Diffusion of innovations has been studied by many disciplines (e.g. anthropology, sociology of various
brands, education, medicine, communication studies, marketing, business administration, etc.). From
an initial domination of sociology, economics has gradually taken over, possibly because of a stronger
emphasis on the theoretical basis for adoption, and its policy relevance.
The sociologist Everett Rogers’ seminal work on diffusion of innovations (1995) is a good starting
point into this area of study. An innovation according to Rogers is “an idea, practice or object that is
perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption”. Diffusion is seen as “the process by
which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social
system”. A technological innovation usually has two components: a hardware aspect (the tool,
product) and a software aspect (how to use the hardware). For good reasons studies of diffusion of
innovations have often addressed individual innovations, in practice innovations often come in
packages – clusters – and are interrelated and interdependent.
The characteristics of innovations explain their rate of adoption. Five such characteristics of
importance are discerned: 1) The relative advantage reflects how the innovation is subjectively
perceived superior to the previous idea; 2) Compatibility reflects how the innovation is perceived
“consistent with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters”; 3) Complexity
reflects the perceived difficulty to understand and use the innovation; 4) Trialability is “the degree to
which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis”; and 5) Observability reflects how
the results of an innovation are visible to others. An innovation can further be changed or modified
(re-invented) by a user.
Communication, through channels, provides information to a social system with the purpose to
influence the knowledge and assessment of the innovation. Mass media is often more effective in
creating awareness of an innovation, whereas personal contacts are more effective in forming an
opinion about a new idea. Such interpersonal communication is facilitated if conveyors of information
are optimally similar to the receiver in certain attributes.
Time is a main factor in the decision-making process, innovativeness and an innovation’s rate of
adoption. In the innovation-decision process, an individual passes through the stages: knowledge,
persuasion, decision, implementation (adoption) and confirmation (post-adoption assessment).
Information is sought at the various stages to reduce uncertainty about the usefulness of the
innovation. The decision stages result in adoption or rejection of the idea.
Innovativeness is an expression for how early an individual or other unit of adoption is adopting a new
idea compared to other members of the social system. Adopters are divided into five categories, each
with its own characteristics: 1) innovators, 2) early adopters, 3) early majority, 4) late majority, and 5)
laggards. Finally, rate of adoption is the relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by
members of a social system.
The social system with its interrelated units shares an interest in finding solutions to a common goal,
i.e. to improve their agricultural system to enhance livelihoods. Such a system has a social and
communication structure that facilitates or impedes the diffusion of innovations in the system. Norms,
being part of the social system, are the established behaviour patterns for system members. Often
opinion leaders play a crucial role in influencing system members. Change agents may have the
explicit role to influence members in a certain direction. Both opinion leaders and change agents are
central actors in diffusion of innovations.
Three main types of innovation-decisions can be distinguished: independent individual decisions
(adopt a HYV), collective decisions (soil conservation on hillsides), and authority imposed decisions.
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The accumulated adoption over time, i.e. the diffusion, is frequently found to follow a sigmoid
distribution. In marketing applications, this feature has often been used to predict and influence
diffusion.
Rogers’ account for innovation adoption and diffusion does not give theoretical explanations to how
adoption decisions are actually made. A classic article by Feder (1985) is a frequent departure for
theoretical analysis of decision making. This line of studies is mainly pursued by economists. The
essence of his article and follow-up renderings on the subject include a number of complicating issues.
Often distinct technological options are present. Several decision processes may then run
simultaneously or sequentially. Farmers may therefore rather consider portfolios of innovations.
Further, innovations may be divisible or of a lumpy character, presenting a dichotomous choice, which
could be a deterrent to those interested in trying on a small scale. Lumpy investments may be only
partially recoverable and adoption decisions may at times be close to irreversible. There may be fixed
transaction or information costs associated, that may again deter resource-constrained farmers.
Innovations may be scale-neutral or contain economies of scale, i.e. the innovation may favour better
resourced households. For divisible innovations, the intensity of use is of great interest (e.g. proportion
of land allocated, intensity of use per area unit). Technologies may show improved performance over
time, or become cheaper due to economies of scale, and therefore gradually become more attractive to
farmers, ceteris paribus. Diffusion of technologies is more complex than the spread of influenza.
Potential adopters are uncertain what an innovation may offer. Over time information from different
sources and from the farmer’s own experience reduces this uncertainty. A better base is established for
adoption/rejection and intensity of use decisions.
The decision maker is assumed to maximise the utility of asset use over time, subject to various
resource constraints, usually assuming a concave utility function. This can be expressed by static
models, or by dynamic, sequential models that consider changing knowledge and conditions. In a
dynamic model, new decisions depend on the results of previous decisions and their effect on wealth
and income, and revised subjective knowledge about the utility of the innovation, including production
outcomes, expected costs and revenues. Farmers gradually learn how to make better use of the
innovation. For management-oriented improvements, a better systems performance may also
materialise over time. Hence parameters determining farmers’ choice are continuously updated.
Risk has been included in many models. Production, incomes and costs are not deterministically
known. Farmers have their subjective perception of risks involved, and consider not just the expected
mean outcome but also the distribution of risks around the mean. The subjective perception of risk
may well deviate from the objective reality. It is often assumed that farmers are risk averse with the
extent depending on several characteristics. To the farmer, the riskiness of an innovation compared to
the old idea then matters; also whether the risk varies together with risks in other parts of the system or
moves in the opposite direction. Some models suggest safety-first decision behaviour, implying that
farmers have to be assured of a minimum result, and not base their decision on expected results.
Theoretical models of adoption behaviour have looked into variables that may explain the decision to
adopt or the intensity of adoption. Such factors include farm size, credit and information access,
personal traits of the decision-maker, tenure arrangement, etc.
Theoretical models for the aggregate adoption complement individual adoption models. Alternative
assumptions regarding individual adoption behaviour usually result in S-shaped curves. Cochrane’s
technological treadmill suggests diminishing gains over time due to price declines following increased
production due to adoption.
2.2
Empirical adoption and adoption impact studies
A vast literature of empirical studies has attempted to test the relationship of key variables to adoption
behaviour. The theoretical foundation for selection of variables is sometimes weak; which is
understandable as theoretical models often point in different directions. Early adoption studies had a
heavy emphasis on the GR packages, following the seminal studies of improved varieties in the US.
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Understanding past adoption
Empirical studies attempt to understand and explain adoption. It is an ex post perspective. Obviously,
technology research has to be guided by early analysis of likely adoption of a technology at some
stage of development. Such ex ante analysis may include partial farm budgets to show the economic
attractiveness of the technology, constraint and risk analysis. Should the innovation be selected for
dissemination, the analysis may be repeated when early signs of adoption are available and the trends
extrapolated, constraints focused, etc. The first part of this section deals primarily with ex post studies.
Generalizations (with many exceptions) by Ruttan (in Feder 1985) from early GR technology studies
are illustrative of the possible conclusions from such studies:
-The new HYVs were adopted at exceptionally rapid rates in areas where they were technically and
economically superior;
- Neither farm size nor tenure has been a serious constraint to the adoption of new HYVs of grain;
- Neither farm size nor tenure has been an important source of differential growth in productivity;
- The introduction of HYVs has resulted in an increase in the demand for labour;
- Landowners have gained relative to tenants.
Feder in his article summarises findings on individual adoption with respect to seven major
explanatory variables: farm size, risk and uncertainty, human capital, labour availability, the credit
constraint, tenure, and supply constraints. Considered important at the early stages of adoption, they
may become less significant in later stages.
His conclusion on the significance of farm size is illustrative and with a bearing on the other factors:
“The wide variety of empirical results, interpreted in the context of the theoretical literature, suggests
that size of holding is a surrogate for a large number of potentially important factors such as access to
credit, capacity to bear risk..., access to scarce inputs (water, seeds, fertilizers, insecticides), wealth,
access to information, and so on”. Since the influence of these factors varies in different areas and
over time, so does the relationship between holding size and adoption behaviour. Because the
theoretical literature and analytical interpretation of empirical results suggest that several intervening
factors lie at the root of observed farm-size/adoption relationships, the remainder of this section turns
to consideration of the observed role of such factor”.
On risk, Feder (ibid.) concludes that ...” most of the empirical work on the role of subjective risk is not
yet rigorous enough to allow validation or refutation of available theoretical work”.
Adoption research has moved on in the last 25 years. Still, Feder’s concluding comments should be of
concern. In the words of Doss (2006):
“... research was needed in five areas: (i) examining the intensity of adoption (not just dichotomous
choices); (ii) addressing the simultaneity of adoption of different components of a technology
package; (iii) analysing the impact of incomplete markets and policies on adoption decisions; (iv)
contextualizing adoption decisions within social, cultural and institutional environments; and (v)
paying attention to dynamic patterns of changes in landholdings and wealth accumulation among early
and later adopters” (p 208).
Doss argues that progress has been made in the first two fields (e.g. econometric techniques have
become increasingly sophisticated to deal with issues of endogeneity and simultaneity of decisions).
However, she maintains that “...some of the concerns ... remain unanswered, especially the issues of
how institutional and policy environments affect the adoption of new technologies and how the
dynamic patterns of adoption affect the distribution of wealth and income”.
To Doss technology adoption research has three current foci: econometric and modelling
methodologies to understand adoption decisions, studies of learning and social networks in adoption
decisions, and continued local micro-level studies to understand adoption for policy purposes. Generic
weaknesses of micro-studies of technology adoption, according to Doss, are the lack of dynamics
originating in using cross-sectional data, and the lack of variation within samples. The latter can be
6
rectified by larger (and more expensive) samples or through meta-studies. The latter, in turn, assumes
consistent definitions of variables are used.
For policy purposes we may be interested in how incomplete access to credit or cash, information and
labour markets may affect the adoption of technologies. Doss illustrates how the measures that have
been construed to measure such variables differ markedly between studies, do not necessarily measure
the core contents of the variable, make comparisons between studies cumbersome, and interpretation
of results less effective for policy design.
Ex post impact assessment
Adoption studies have usually been accompanied by assessments of how adopters benefited. This
emphasis has been accentuated over time. Agricultural research has been resource-constrained in
recent decades and research investments have to progressively justify their returns. Research outcomes
and impacts have to be demonstrated to funders. A second purpose of ex post impact assessment is to
provide learning opportunities. These growing demands have gradually extended to consider not only
technical and economic production benefits, but also effects on household incomes, other household
assets, vulnerability, equity, consumption, nutrition, food security, poverty, and environment, etc.
Gone are the also days when agricultural research in practice meant embodied exogenous innovations.
A marked shift to NRM and policy research is noted, with telling evidence seen in the CGIAR system
(Renkow 2010). Outcomes and impacts of NRM and policy research are exceedingly more
complicated to assess. Adoption studies have become part of a much more sophisticated cycle of
impact evaluation.
How to go about this challenge has occupied the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment of CGIAR’s
Science Council. Its Strategic guidance for ex post impact assessment (epIA) of agricultural research
(Walter, T. 2008) is a revealing treatment of how to refine epIA for accountability and learning
purposes. The guideline presents a typology of epIA composed of the primary objective to document
productivity and profitability, or selective high order impacts and the level of assessment (macro or
micro). The principal cases are: 1) aggregate economic rate of return, 2) disaggregate economic rate of
return, 3) aggregate multi-dimensional impacts, and 4) disaggregate multi-dimensional impact. Central
to CGIAR’s rendering of the topic is the notion of impact pathways. Planning of research projects to
be included in CGIAR’s portfolio include describing the most plausible impact pathways from
problem identification to intended ultimate goals of the CG. A generic impact pathway includes:
Inputs (research investments);
Outputs (first/immediate results of a research project);
Outcomes (the external use, adoption or influence of a project’s outputs by next or final level users
that results in adopter-level changes needed to achieve the intended impact);
Impacts (the ‘big picture’ changes in economic, environmental and social conditions that a project is
working toward. Within the CG System, project impacts should be in line with the center’s mission
and vision statement, and with the CGIAR goals).
Impact pathway analyses are part of ex ante planning but, when well prepared, also play an important
role in epIA assessments. The Guidance explores the accumulated experience and best practice of
economic rate of return studies (where obviously adoption is a first step to assess) and
multidimensional impact studies. Generally a range of models and analytical tools have to be deployed
in a judicious manner. Although there has been methodological progress, in particular
multidimensional impact studies still require improvement and additional emphasis.
Livelihood approaches are used with increasing frequency in multi-dimensional impact assessments
(e.g. Adatao and Meinzen-Dick 2007). Policy and NRM research epIAs have a less impressive record.
They are for good reasons more difficult and resource-demanding to conduct. How to address NRM
epIAs has long been a concern with the CGIAR (e.g. Fujisaka and White 2004). Two special
difficulties in implementing epIAs relate to attribution of impact and the counterfactual evidence.
Attribution is about how benefits and impacts can be casually linked to the research in question, when
several stakeholders have been involved in various capacities, and confounding factors may have
played a part. The counterfactual evidence asks what would have happened in the absence of the
research project. Counterfactuals are cumbersome to construe, and seldom look at the merits of
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alternative research investments, as would be standard operating procedure in investment analysis.
Moisture stress, for instance, can be addressed through short maturing and water efficient varieties, but
also through rainwater harvesting or combinations of both. Such counterfactuals may fall under
different research budgets and/or institutional domains, and are therefore, disregarding methodological
problems, in practice precluded. Both these difficulties are more cumbersome in policy and NRM
research. As a guideline, up to 3% of a research institute’s budget should be set aside for impact
assessment with epIAs constituting a sizable share of that amount. It is underlined that epIAs should
be considered part of science, not tack-ons to fulfil donor requirements.
Ex ante impact assessment
Just as epIAs have become more important, ex ante studies are increasingly recognised as vital to
improve allocation of scarce resources to activities that contribute to the development objectives of the
research organisation. A blend of models and tools are required to secure data answering four basic
questions: 1) where is the impact likely to occur; 2) by whom will the impact be felt; 3) which impacts
will be generated; and 4) what is the value of these impacts?” (Thornton et al 2003).
Some 15 approaches to ex ante assessment approaches are illustrated below:
Village workshops/discussions, stakeholder consultations, key informant interviews; community-level
formal surveys; community-level formal surveys for looking at adoption and impact; financial and
economic analyses of the production effects of new technologies; transect walks, aerial photography;
spatial analysis, GIS, satellite imagery; market studies; economic surplus methods; in-depth
anthropological/sociological and characterization studies, farmer assessments; participatory nutrient
flow diagrams; follow the technology, participatory technology development; hard biophysical
simulation models of component processes and interactions; softer biophysical models of component
processes and interactions; multiple objective mathematical programming models of the household;
rule-based (softer) models of the household (based on Thornton 2003).
The constant assessment – learning cycle
Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM, see 5.6.3) research is radically different from
traditional technology research. INRM tries to build the capacity of natural resource managers to
manage change in sustainable ways. This is an inherently indeterminate and complex process.
Douthwaite et. al. (2004) describe the central role of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) through the
different stages of research planning and implementation. Evaluation would change from a focus on
accountability to support learning and adaptive management of stakeholders involved in a project. “…
more emphasis should be placed in the use of evaluation to improve, rather than prove, on helping to
understand rather than to report, and on creating knowledge rather than taking credit” (ibid). Ex post
impact assessments would not quantify impact based on inappropriate economic models but rather use
evidence from many sources that the intervention has contributed to impact. Effective M&E, based on
a shared impact pathway vision, “will identify and describe incipient processes of knowledge
generation and diffusion, the emergence and evolution of innovation networks, and the creation of
organizational capabilities” (ibid). Future impact assessment will have to convincingly show how this
growth in processes and capabilities contributed to wider-scale development changes. New methods
have to be applied to follow the process, including livelihood approaches, simulation modeling and
indicator combinations.
3.
Adoption of specific innovations illustrated
This chapter illustrates studies and findings relating to adoption of specific innovations, when possible
from Sub-Saharan Africa. A total coverage is precluded, which has to be emphasised. Recall is made
of the previous distinction between embodied, exogenous innovations (EEI) and packages of
disembodied agronomic and managerial innovations (PDAMI). This is a fussy and floating distinction.
Under PDAMI there is considerable conceptual overlapping. Some innovation concepts have arisen in
response to the sustainability discourse, others through integrating over disciplinary boundaries to
address broader research questions, still others as marketing branding. Under the respective PDAMI
concept is often an array of different designs and specifications of the respective design. This feature
is also a major obstacle in measuring diffusion of these approaches compared to the more distinct
embodied external innovations.
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PDAMI approaches selected are those frequently figuring in the current discourse. Some of those have
been there for extended period, but with emphasis shift through the years.
Additional approaches could have been included. Organic farming in much relies on agronomic and
managerial principles shared with CA, ISFM, SWC, IPM, RWH, AF, LEIT, SA/INRM, except for the
restrictions on embodied, exogenous innovations. Certified organic farming offers opportunities of
niche products for domestic consumption and export, with associated questions of certification
procedures and costs, premium prices, and self-organised market links or acceptance by larger value
chains. Integrated livestock systems is an important concept, but would add unduly to the paper and in
a sense replicate the crops account: breeds, feed, animal health, alternative management regimes, etc.
Studies of integrated crop/livestock systems innovations is a relatively neglected field where synergies
and constraints posed by different production enterprises are less known.
The innovation concepts covered are the following:
Embodied, exogenous innovations
Packages of disembodied agronomic and
managerial innovations
High Yielding Varieties (HYV)
Conservation Agriculture (CA)
GM crops
Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM)
Fertilizers
Soil and Water Conservation (SWC)
Pesticides
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
Rain Water Harvesting (RWH)
Agroforestry (AF)
Low External Input Technologies (LEIT)
Sustainable Agriculture (SA)/INRM
3.1. Illustrative key studies
3.1.1. Embodied exogenous innovations
These innovations formed the backbone of the original GR. It is thought-provoking to view them in
the light of Rogers’ innovation characteristics important for adoption and try to make a similar simple
analysis of PDAMI innovations.
The utility or relative advantage is here primarily understood as the ability to deliver higher yields or
reduce losses in a single season. This in turn should result in improved economic results, given that
output/input price ratios are favourable. For fertilisers and pesticides, labour savings may materialise
compared with other means to provide nutrients and control pests.
The risk downside of the innovations possibly include higher yield and profit variation caused by
weather and price changes, sudden lack of or uncertainty of timely access to inputs, uncertain credit
prospects; poor, varying or inappropriate input quality and traits; incorrect use of inputs, and
consequences in case of crop failure and economic losses. Non-access to inputs and credit may be
killing assumptions.
Similar reflections can be made on the other characteristics: compatibility, complexity, trialability, and
observability compared to PDAMI cases.
HIGH YIELDING VARIETIES
In Asia HYV diffusion was impressive. In Africa, the success has not been repeated. Africa’s
agroecological heterogeneity puts greater demands on locally suited varieties. Africa also relies on
many more staple crops – orphan crops - neglected by seed breeders who long concentrated on the
main cereals. GR varieties were originally bred to respond to fertilizer application, which with some
exceptions has not materialised (see next section). Part of the discouraging performance lies with weak
seed breeding, industry and distribution capacity, sometimes weak performance of new varieties,
combined with credit constraints.
Studies:
The diffusion and impact of high-yielding varieties have been extensively studied. Hazell et al (1991)
and Evenson (2003) are typical studies.
9
Extent of adoption:
The table below summarises area coverage, variety releases, share of area planted to modern varieties,
CGIAR share of modern variety area, and the contribution of crop genetic improvement to yield
growth by crop and region.
Crop
Wheat
Rice
Maize
Sorghum
Millet
Barley
Lentils
Beans
Cassava
Potatoes
All
Region
Latin America
Asia
Mena
SS Africa
All
Area
(million ha)
in
developing
countries,
1998
120
150
97
39
36
20
3
23
17
9
535
Area
(million ha)
in
developing
countries,
1998
57
337
49
92
535
Estimated
number of
variety releases,
1965-1998
2188
1484
1494
363
123
105
49
642
252
458
7246
Estimated
number of
variety releases,
1965-1998
3146
2229
715
1157
7246
Share area
to modern
varieties,
1998
Share modern
variety area to
any CGIAR
ancestry, 1998
0.82
0.64
0.87
0.44
0.44
0.49
0.23
0.18
0.15
0.88
0.65
Share area
to modern
varieties,
1998
0.64
0.58
0.55
0.38
0.85
0.80
0.90
0.90
0.93
0.17
0.60
Share modern
variety area to
any CGIAR
ancestry, 1998
0.51
0.83
0.56
0.23
0.65
0.55
0.57
0.81
0.62
0.60
Crop genetic
improvement
contribution to
yield growth,
1965-1998
(%/year)
0.96
0.79
0.67
0.50
0.57
0.49
0.28
0.21
0.22
0.74
0.72
Crop genetic
improvement
contribution to
yield growth,
1965-1998
(%/year)
0.66
0.88
0.69
0.28
0.72
Source: Evenson, cited in Renkow (2010)
The table demonstrates the past concentration on the three major cereals. In Sub-Saharan Africa, use
of improved varieties and crop genetic improvement contribution to yield growth 1965-1998 are much
lower than in other regions. Later studies indicate an increased interest in orphan crops in SSA. There
are also reports on use of improved maize in West and Central Africa reaching some 60% of the area.
Improved dual purpose cowpea is progressing in dry savannah regions of West Africa. New varieties
of the common bean have been adopted on about half the total bean area in East, Central and Southern
Africa (Renkow 2010). The so-called New Rice for Africa is commented on below.
Successful examples:
The New Rice for Africa (NERICA) has been praised as a miracle crop for Africa and an illustration
of an emerging African GR. The interspecific cultivar of rice, developed by the now Africa Rice
Center (WARDA), was created 1994 by crossing African rice with high-yield Asian varieties of Orza
sativa. Originally developed for upland cultivation, there are now 18 upland Nericas and 60 low-land
Nericas. Field tests of the varieties show promises for higher yield under varying conditions, more
protein, shorter growing season, and a greater resistance to pests and diseases.
Rice is a neglected crop in Africa with consumption by far exceeding production. The 2008/9 global
food-price crisis triggered production increases in SSA of 16-18% and a further 4.5% in 2009. Across
the Sahel performance was even more impressive – 44%, and a staggering 241% in Benin. These
increases are attributed to the price surge and the success of Nerica dissemination. Success stories
include Nigeria with close to 200 000 ha of Nerica and Uganda with 35 000 ha in 2007. Progress has
also been reported for Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone and Togo (Warda 2010).
Nerica cultivation in uplands of West Africa is estimated at 6.7% (CGIAR/Science Council 2008).
10
Limited studies of adoption have been carried out in e.g. Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, and the
Gambia. As new Nerica variety diffusion and adoption is not random, the Average Treatment Effect
framework has been applied to remove non exposure and selection bias (WARDA 2008). Adoption
rates differ between the countries, as should be expected. Some findings on determinants of adoption
of Nerica tell that in:
Cote d’Ivoire: growing rice partially for sale, household size, growing upland rice, past participation in
Participatory Variety Selection, and living in a PSV-hosting village had a positive impact, whereas age
of farmer and having a secondary occupation had a negative impact;
Guinea: positive impacts were noted for participation in a training program and living in a village with
NGO SG2000 activities;
Benin: land availability, living in a PSV-hosting village, varietal attributes such as swelling capacity
and short growing season were important determinants of adoption; and;
The Gambia: living in a village where dissemination by WARDA, contacts with the NARI, access to
credit, and experience in upland rice farming had a positive impact (WARDA 2008).
Whether the diffusion of Nerica is a success is a matter of judgement. The review panel assessing
WARDA labelled the spread record sobering. It also highlighted the importance of availability of
high-quality seeds at cheap prices, and termed lack of seeds a major factor behind disadoption. A
technical innovation obviously needs a supporting infrastructure. Further, the advantages of Nerica
may not be higher yields per se, but early maturity, tolerance to water stress, good taste and flavour,
and short straw. Effect on yields and determinants of adoption seem to be quite heterogeneous over
countries and farmer categories (CGIAR/Science Council 2008, pp 95-99). Questions have also been
raised about the solidity of claimed Nereica yield benefits: “still, even in places where Nerica has been
introduced, overwhelming evidence from the field of substantial yield benefits are slim (Larsson et al
2010).
Massive partnerships have been formed for research, training, seed production and dissemination of
the Nerica lines. Dangers exist, that top-down initiatives crowd out local initiatives and oversell the
story (GRAIN 2009, CGIAR/Science Council 2008, p 82).
“For institutions that rely only on donor funds to survive, the temptation is strong to oversell potential
products and breakthroughs to donors. Breakthroughs are by definition one-time shots and it is
difficult to maintain the level of interest of donors over a long period. Overselling research activities
have immediate benefits in terms of donors’ support that reward success stories, but it has a long term
cost, which can be the loss of trust of the scientific community if research results do not back up the
initial claims.
Other CGIAR Centers seem, in retrospect, to have succumbed to this temptation, perhaps
inadvertently. The Panel thinks that WARDA too needs to be cautious with the NERICA story and the
way it is sometimes reported, probably by excess enthusiasm” (CGIAR/Science Council 2008, p 82).
GM CROPS
“It is high time that the heroic simplification of the ‘GM crops are good for the poor’ storyline is
finally laid to rest” (Glover 2009).
The role of GM crops in agricultural development and their benefits for poor farmers are hotly
debated. Gene transfers, health hazards, narrowing genetic base, etc. is one line of arguments.
Patenting and increasing farmer dependence on an increasingly concentrated biotech industry, and a
limited capacity of public sector research to innovate in fields of less commercial interest is another. A
third line of critcism argues that there are alternative ways to bring around the effects biotech can
deliver, or more moderately, that approaches should be combined (e.g. Bt GMOs and IPM).
Risks and IPR/market concentration are not expounded on here.
Farmers’ adoption of yield enhancing GM crops (e.g. more nutrient efficient or drought tolerant)
would in many respects not differ from HYVs in general. Crops with increased insect or insecticide
resistance require more knowledge and experience gathering to fit overall IPM regimes. Biofortification, in particular if multiple traits to counter vitamin A, zinc and iron deficiency are
11
combined, presumes some household understanding of the deficiencies, its effects and cures, and
observational skills to judge the benefits of new crops. There are also likely implications for
processing, storing and distributing the food to individual family members that have to be known and
adhered to.
The general debate on GMs has to varying extent filtered down to farmers and consumers, affecting
their initial uncertainty and subjective perception of risks involved. Farmer risks may include new
aspects with respect to e.g. seed price (monopoly pricing and transfer fees/rent), produce price
(consumer reactions), and export potentials affected by the regulatory frameworks in other countries.
Future crops will multiple traits may present even more complex decisions in a production system and
livelihood context. Such GM crops may, from an adoption point of view, be more complex than
traditional HYVs.
Studies:
A growing literature follows adoption, diffusion and impact of GMs. Smale (2006) in a review of 106
ex ante and ex post peer reviewed articles draws interesting conclusions. Most of the studies looked at
farm impact; others covered farm/industry, consumer, consumer industry, industry and trade. From the
review she deduces that due to the limited field research in terms of locations, crops, traits, small
sample size, and scholars involved, findings cannot be generalised. A number of methodological
weaknesses are noted, but are gradually being rectified. Like in many technology studies, the initial
enthusiasm has been superseded by a more cautious weighing of pros and cons. This is in line with
traditional variety studies: 1) where performance will vary across location and time; 2) the net
economic impact on society is not easily measured; 3) the length of the time period of observation
matters (discontinuities in adoption due to changes in external factors); and 4) the institutional and
social context is often more significant for impacts than any particular variety trait. Future studies have
to look deeper into impacts on labour, health, environment, equity and poverty.
It is stressed, however, that GM crops differ from traditional HYVs e.g. in being more knowledge
intensive in development, putting a regulatory framework in place, and make farmers understand the
technology. Pest and disease resistance traits will yield better returns when farmers know better how to
manage secondary pests and disease resistance.
Partially building on and extending Smale’s review of studies of impacts of biotech adoption, Glover
(2009) questions whether these technologies are really pro-poor - a never dying narrative in her words.
Her scepticism is founded in the adoption and impact assessment made of Bt cotton in China, India,
and South Africa, and the orientation and methodological flaws that characterise them. Such claims
about future benefits are not uncommon in technology development in general. To Glover the propoor GM narrative is a classical construct, starting from statements on the poverty, hunger and food
insecurity of the world and the multidimensional challenges of feeding the world. Then a long list of
potential applications of GM technology follows. Typically, no account is taken of technical
difficulties to be overcome, and social and institutional contexts to be considered for the benefits to be
realised, even if the technologies are technically efficient.
“It is high time that the heroic simplification of the ‘GM crops are good for the poor’ storyline is
finally laid to rest. Only when we have driven it out can we hope to give due attention, more calmly
and carefully, to the other aspect of biotechnology’s undying promise – undying, in this case, because
it has never been given the chance to live. The extravagant hype of the GM crop advocates (and not
only the alarmism of anti-GM campaigners) has unfortunately suffocated debate about this important
new technological field. It is a field which, in truth, does indeed hold the potential to help address
some important developmental challenges of the twenty-first century, whether through genomic
techniques, marker-assisted selection or indeed some transgenic applications. But, to realise this
potential, it is not enough to pay lip-service that GM crops will not be a silver bullet against hunger
and poverty, while simultaneously designing impact assessments around the implicit assumption that
such a magical effect is indeed possible. We need to think about how technologies may work in the
dynamic and complex agricultural systems and institutional frameworks of the real world. We need to
understand how farmers actually use technology. And we need to focus on problems to be solved and
12
challenges to be overcome, in all their complexity, rather than focusing on particular types of
technologies and looking for opportunities where they might be deployed. Hopefully, the promise of
biotechnology is really not dead. But a realistic assessment of both its promise and its pitfalls requires
a new set of research questions, different research methods and a rigorous focus on the problems to be
solved rather than a fascination with a quick technological fix” (ibid, p 43).
Extent of adoption:
The International Service for Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications annually publishes its Global
status of commercialised biotech/GM crops. It reports by country how commercialised biotech crops
have diffused in absolute terms, in proportion to the crop area, draws conclusions on the temporal rate,
and narrates other findings and events of importance. ISAAA is sponsored by the industry. Its figures
have at times been questioned.
Global area of biotech crops in 2009: by country (million hectares)
Country
USA
Brazil
Argentina
India
Canada
China
Paraguay
South Africa
Uruguay
Bolivia
Philippines
Australia
Burkina Faso
Spain
Mexico
Chile
Colombia
Honduras
Czech Republic
Portugal
Romania
Poland
Costa Rica
Egypt
Slovakia
25 countries
Area
64.0
21.4
21.3
8.4
8.2
3.7
2.2
2.1
0.8
0.8
0.5
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
<0.1
134
Biotech crops
Soybean, maize, cotton, canola, squash, papaya, alfalfa, sugarbeet
Soybean, maize, cotton
Soybean, maize, cotton
Cotton
Canola, maize, soybean, sugarbeet
Cotton, tomato, poplar, papaya, sweet pepper
Soybean
Maize, soybean, cotton
Soybean, maize
Soybean
Maize
Cotton, canola
Cotton
Maize
Canola, soybean
Maize, soybean, canola
Cotton
Maize
Maize
Maize
Maize
Maize
Cotton, soybean
Maize
Maize
Diffusion of some crops is impressive: “For the first time, more than three-quarters (77%) of the 90
million hectares of soybean grown globally were biotech; for cotton, almost half (49%) of the 33
million hectares were biotech; for maize, over a quarter (26%) of the 158 million hectares grown
globally were biotech; and, finally for canola, 21 % of the 31 million hectares were biotech” (ISAAA
2009). Individual crop/country performance is also impressive, like Bt cotton being cultivated on 87%
of India’s 9.6 m has of cotton.
Progress in Africa, with the exception of South Africa, is less impressive so far. Bt cotton was planted
over 115,000 has in 2009 (29% of cotton area) and enough seed produced to cover 70% of cotton area
in 2010. Egypt planted approximately 1,000 ha of a hybrid Bt yellow maize in 2009.
New varieties with multiple traits are under development. The Golden rice ventures into
biofortification. Drought tolerant, more water and nitrogen-use efficient, and salinity resistant varieties
are also in process; possibly with greater relevance for African contexts. Orphan crops and perennial
cereals are other lines of exploration.
13
Successful examples:
Nutrient deficiencies are common in developing countries. Staple food biofortification by
conventional breeding or using GM technologies could complement improved diet or supplements.
Such use of GM crops are by many seen as more relevant than the herbicide or insect tolerant
approaches originally developed for large scale western agriculture.
Around 3 billion people are dependent on rice for their caloric intake.
“Among cereals, rice has the highest energy and food yield but lacks essential amino acids and
vitamins needed for normal body functions. It lacks beta carotene, the precursor of Vitamin A needed
for sight and cell differentiation, in embryonic development of mammals, and in functioning of the
immune system and of body mucosal membranes. Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a nutritional
problem in the developing world afflicting 127 million people and 25% of pre-school-children.
Currently around 250,000 to 500,000 become blind annually, 67 % of whom die within a month, or
around 6,000 deaths of children day, equivalent to 2.2 million a year” (ISAAA 2009).
Conventional breeding hence cannot be used to enhance beta carotene, contrary to iron and zinc
deficiency (affecting 57% and 71% respectively in South East Asia).
The history of the Golden Rice (GRI) dates back to 1984. An extensive partnership involving
foundations, international and national research institutes and private companies has developed
transgenes, first from daffodil GRI, later replaced by maize transgenes (GR2G). The choice of
varieties to be introgressed with the GR2G event will be based on their popularity and acceptability in
the respective country. In 2012 GR is expected to be introduced in the Philippines and Bangladesh, to
be followed by India, Indonesia and Vietnam. So far GRI has thus not been disseminated. However, it
is interesting to review ex ante anticipation of future adoption.
How well GRI will perform under field conditions still has to be explored. Beta carotene levels have
been substantially increased since the first events and may be even higher under field conditions. Betacarotene content and stability, bioavailability, bioconversion and bioefficacy studies are being carried
out. Studies are also made to measure how typical ways of preparing rice affect the retention of betacarotene (e.g. Tang et al 2009). Possible impact on taste and agronomic performance make another
part of the necessary studies. Summary findings claim that “GR could probably supply 50% of the
recommended dietary allowance of vitamin A from a very modest amount – perhaps a cup – of rice, if
consumed daily. This amount is well within the consumption habits of most children and their
mothers” (ASN 2009).
The developed transgenes are donated to the Global Rice Humanitarian Board that oversees the
Golden Rice Project and the institutions involved in the Golden Rice Network. GR seeds will therefore
be available to poor farmers in countries with adequate biosafety regulations at no license fee, and
with the right to retain seeds. Ex ante studies confirm substantial and cost-effective benefits from GR
introduction, also compared to alternative measures (Dawe and Unnevehr 2007).
Illustrations of initial future adoption indicate 7 to 7.5 million ha planted to GRI in the Philippines,
Bangladesh and India through introgressing the transgenes into the most popular improved rice variety
(3 in the case of India). This assumes, among other things, that traits of the new varieties are
considered equal or better than the existing ones by farmers and markets, and that the value of the
nutritional improvement is appreciated.
The GRI has stirred an intensive debate. Proponents argue that unjustified and impractical legal
requirements have delayed dissemination of GRI and caused unnecessary and considerable suffering
and deaths (Potrykus 2010). Responsibility for informing about GRI has to be shared with the health
sector when biofortification through production now has to be combined with traditional dietary
improvement and supplements. Cooperation over between sectors has to transpire. Opponents of GM
crops raise concerns about biosafety, the presumed presence and interests of large corporations, and
the suspicion that GRI is a commercial conspiracy – a Trojan horse – to gain acceptance for GM crops
in general.
14
On paper GRI could become a successful innovation with further potential to be crossed to also
address iron and zinc deficiency.
Despite several decades of public debate and information campaigns, producers and consumers in
Europe are still at a loss how to view risks and benefits associated with GM food and feed. For farmers
in developing countries with less access to information, future decisions to use GRI can go either way.
Strong persuasion can be made to bear from agricultural and health ministries, agricultural research
institutions, extension services and the seed industry, once biosafety regulations and GRI approval are
established nationally. Large and small NGOs will demonstrate a variety of different stands – for
differing reasons – but are most likely not to come out strongly in favour of GRI. It will be an
interesting study field to follow how farmers will make sense of central and local information for and
against GRI to gather knowledge, form an opinion, and make decisions on whether to try GRI or not.
It is a more complex setting than when the GR was launched. Central mass media is likely to play a
decisive role.
FERTILIZERS
Diffusion of fertilizers has been extensively studied in the era of the GR. In Africa the success has not
been sustained over longer periods. The limited use of adapted HYVs is one explanation to low SSA
consumption figures. Production risks are also more prominent in Africa with degraded soils where
fertilizer has limited response and larger weather variability and moisture stress that deters risk-averse
farmers. Farm gate fertilizer prices are much higher in Africa, and profitability of fertilizer use is often
less convincing. Access to, availability and timeliness of fertilizer delivery discourage adoption.
Elimination or varying and uncertain subsidisation of the input have impacted consumption. Due to
small markets and sales volumes, economies of scale have not been exploited in fertilizer procurement
and distribution. This adds to the importance of using the right fertilizer composition, amount, and
application; requirements that have not always been met.
It is not surprising that many initiatives promote higher fertiliser use in Africa, i.e. the proposed
increase to 50 kg/ha in 2015 from the 2007 9.6 kg/ha (The Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer for African
Green Revolution 2006). There are those who claim this is a golden opportunity not to get dependent
on fertilizer use. This is missing the point, however, as also made clear in many of the background
documents to the Fertilizer Summit. How to increase fertilizer consumption AND simultaneously use
agronomic and managerial innovations to restore/improve the natural resource base is the unresolved
dilemma.
Extent of adoption:
Annex 1 shows fertiliser consumption by country, region, and by developed/developing nations.
African fertilizer consumption is extremely low, and few countries deviate from the pattern; Egypt
being the notable exception. Figures show annual use of fertilizer per hectare, which may be
distributed over two crop seasons. In some countries commercial farming of high value/export crops
significantly contribute to the national figure. Average consumption figures therefore tell little about
the proportion of adopting farmers and intensity of use within a country.
Successful examples:
Two interrelated successful examples are the introduction of fertilizer micro-dosage and improved
profitability and affordability from subsidies, using vouchers, small packs of fertilizer, and a
warrantage system. Micro-dosage is claimed to increase the technical efficiency of fertilizer but is
often promoted in combination with subsidies, vouchers, small fertilizer packs, and warrantage
(collective grain storage with inventory credit enabling farmers to obtain better produce prices through
later sales, see ICRISAT 2009).
Micro-dosage entails precision application of fertilizers to seeds placed in holes. Rates are typically 46 grams per hole, or equal to a full bottle cap or a three-finger pinch. Good yield increments have been
reported in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali) for sorghum and millet (44-120%, ICRISAT
2009, see also Tabo 2007 and 2008, Mateete 2010). Similar results are recorded for Zimbabwe,
15
Mozambique, and South Africa (Twomlow 2010). Even rates as low as 0.3 gram/hole are reported to
yield good increments and cost-benefit ratios (Aune 2007). These rates are substantially below
recommendations aimed at maximizing yields or profits, and seek the best return to the small
investment farmers can afford. Initial success is believed to stimulate to and finance further
intensification.
Advantages may be more pronounced in drought years due to better developed root systems. The
required skills can be acquired through short courses/demonstrations, e.g. by agro-dealers. Labour
demand may increase slightly. Further development of the technology may include fertilizer tablets for
easier and more precise application and seed coating. Possible soil mining in the absence of addition
of organic matter has to be further investigated and could be a possible downside.
Evidence of actual adoption is patchy so far. Some 25 000 farmers have participated in trials in West
Africa and several organisations are involved (ICRISAT, AGRA, USAID, WACARD, FAO). There
are plans to increase this figure to 500 000.
ICRISAT-Zimbabwe has for several years been involved in relief and recovery work in Zimbabwe.
More than 160 000 farmers have received free fertilizers, micro-dose instructions, and access to paired
demonstrations. Yield results have been encouraging. Whether this translates into continued use of
micro-dosage in the absence of free fertilizers is yet to be seen (Twomlow, 2010).
Rather a question of how markets and institutions can stimulate fertiliser use, subsidies for many years
ruled out under structural adjustment programmes, have again been tried in Malawi with follower
schemes in countries like Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania. The Malawi case has been intensively studied
and debated. It involved large-scale distribution of heavily subsidised fertilizers and seeds despite the
stand of several international organisations. Vouchers were issued, using varying targeting principles
(on vouchers, see Minot and Benson 2009). Not surprisingly, maize production increased to the point
where a former national maize deficit was turned into an exported surplus. The fertilizer programme
cost as a share of MinAg budget, national budget, and GDP in 2008/9 reached 74%, 16.2% and 6.6 %
respectively due to the volume of the programme, the level of subsidy, and the soaring fertilizer prices.
Since then the level of ambition has been scaled back, but the economic, financial and political
sustainability has been questioned (Dorward and Chirwa 2010).
The programme has also been criticised for crowding out other needed long-term investments in
infrastructure, agricultural research and extension. In essence, the fertilizer push should be combined
with other integrated soil fertility measures to get better grain/fertilizer efficiency and less reliance on
fertilizer (GRAIN 2010).
PESTICIDES
Increased use of pesticides has been less an objective than e.g. for fertilizers and HYV. Interest was
early focused on using pesticides to limit economic injury rather than spraying by calendar in a move
towards IPM, safe use of pesticides, and use of less toxic substances. Recently, adoption of
biopesticides, and possible reductions from introduction of insect resistant and herbicide tolerant crops
have been the subject of many studies.
Pesticides can be classified by target organism, chemical structure, and physical state. More than 1000
active ingredients are registered as pesticides, and over 16000 pesticide products are being marketed in
the United States. It is hence more difficult to follow use and adoption of pesticides than other
embodied exogenous innovations.
Extent of adoption:
Annex 1 shows the pesticide use in African countries. For many countries figures are not available,
which is symptomatic. Such summary figures do not reveal the toxicity of the substances used, nor
how use and use intensity is distributed between user categories.
16
3.1.2. Packages of disembodied agronomic and managerial innovations
Such packages are proposed in general terms from agricultural textbooks with its headings (e.g. soil
preparation and conservation, nutrient management, pest management, water management) and
hierarchies (e.g. nutrient management – cropping systems – farming systems). Packages are also
suggested based on emerging problems or concerns that emphasise conservation (Soil and Water
Conservation, Conservation Agriculture, rainwater harvesting), sustainability (Sustainable
Agriculture), or less reliance on external inputs (Low-external-input-technologies). Several concepts
use integrated as a prefix to signify a coherent and comprehensive approach to package formulation
(IPM, INRM, ISFM, etc). Some packages are given selling labels to appeal to authorities, donors or
end users (e.g. Evergreen agriculture, Fertilizer trees; all being part of i.a. agroforestry).
Disregarding overlapping between concepts, different roots, trajectories and connotations, there is
nowadays a proliferation of and possible competition between proposed entry points and pathways to
intensification of agricultural production.
Some of the approaches figuring in recent debates are looked at from a diffusion and adoption
perspective: Conservation Agriculture, Integrated Soil Fertility Management, Soil and Water
Conservation, Integrated Pest Management, Rainwater Harvesting, Agroforestry, Low-External Input
Technologies, Sustainable Agriculture/Integrated Natural Resource Management. One could obviously
ask how the concepts relate and are ordered. Although appearing to address different issues, concept
definitions and classification schemes frequently show considerable overlapping. In practice, specific
innovation packages can fall under several of the concepts. Concept entry points differ: soil fertility
management, conservation, agroforestry, water harvesting, pest management, etc; are all essential
components of sustainable land management. Disaggregation of systems may be an expression for
what is manageable, but the current discourses beg the question: what’s in a name?
Some of the concepts come in more sophisticated versions, including multiple scales of intervention,
collective action, social innovations, and combining modern and traditional knowledge (e.g. RWH and
SA/INRM).
These concepts entail methodological difficulties when studying adoption. Each concept comprises
numerous site-specific interpretations of general principles. Approaches generally have several
components, which can be adopted in different combinations, sequences and degrees. Multiple years
of practice are often required to yield full benefits. In the interim, external and household internal
conditions may change, including experiential learning of the household. Decision-making is made
sequentially. Studies of how the approaches have been received therefore often contain contradictory
evidence of success and failure (aggravated by disadoption when promotion projects wind up), and
difficulties to generalize and compare between cases.
CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE
“Despite the publicity claiming widespread adoption of CA, the available evidence suggests virtually
no uptake of CA in most SSA countries, with only small groups of adopters in South Africa, Ghana
and Zambia” (Giller 2009).
Definition:
“CA is a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable
profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the
environment. CA is based on enhancing natural biological processes above and below the ground.
Interventions such as mechanical soil tillage are reduced to an absolute minimum, and the use of
external inputs such as agrochemicals and nutrients of mineral or organic origin are applied at an
optimum level and in a way and quantity that does not interfere with, or disrupt, the biological
processes. CA is characterized by three principles which are linked to each other, namely:
1.
Continuous minimum mechanical soil disturbance.
2.
Permanent organic soil cover.
3.
Diversified crop rotations in the case of annual crops or plant associations in case of perennial
crops (FAO)”.
17
More specific versions of CA are available for instance Zambia where key practices for ox farmers
and hoe farmers are specified. (Conservation Farming Unit 2007).
Studies:
Knowler & Bradshaw (2007) draw interesting conclusions from a review and synthesis of recent
research on conservation agriculture. Based on 130 financial analyses of conservation agriculture and
other soil and water conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America/Caribbean, the authors
conclude that the former produced positive net present value in 90% of the cases, the latter in 58 % of
the cases. Since adoption of CA is still low with some notable exceptions, what other factors are at
play when farm finance impact seems positive. Selecting 31 published ex post studies of adoption of
conservation agriculture fulfilling FAO criteria, 167 variables were used to explain adoption. These
variables were grouped under: 1) farmer and farm household characteristics, 2) farm biophysical
characteristics, 3) farm financial/management characteristics, and 4) exogenous factors. Aggregation
of similar variables and elimination of variables with less than 3 incidences still left 46 variables to be
considered.
The synthesis generated the question if many or any of these influences on adoption can be seen as
universally significant. The ten most frequent variables were re-examined, controlling for four
contextual variables (the statistical method, the locale of the investigation, the quality of the
publication, and the technology bundle). Statistical method, regional difference, and the specifics of
the technological bundle were found to have some influence on independent variables’ explanatory
powers. Still, few if any universally significant variables were found. “Just seven variables revealed
consistent results across all studies (always insignificant or always significant with the same sign),
while just two, ‘awareness of environmental threats’ and ‘high productivity soil’ displayed a consistent
impact on adoption (significant with same sign)”.
“...it is also possible that we as researchers have reached a limit in terms of contributing to a refined
understanding of the reasons for conservation agriculture adoption... then future research should
probably aim to produce results that are meaningful for local management rather than for universal
understanding. Convergence towards a particular universal application is unlikely. The one exception
to our pessimistic conclusion derives from the potential of social capital as a more influential factor in
conservation agriculture adoption”. In conclusion, the findings speak in favour of a targeted policy
approach to promote conservation agriculture.
As one of four cases of sustainable soil fertility management systems, Haggblade and Hazell (2010)
describe lessons learnt from CA in Zambia. Three decades of subsidised high input maize production
were followed by collapse of agricultural parastatals, partially caused by declining world copper
prices; the primary source for government revenue. Serious soil degradation from intensive monocropping had become apparent. A series of further shocks (drought, animal corridor disease,
devaluation, and soaring fertilizer and fuel prices) occurred. An alternative to the old high external
inputs strategy was sought. Conservation farming approaches were developed for hoe farmer and ox
farmers is such an attempt.
CA adoption rates “remain subject to large margins of error”. This, according to the authors, is a result
of the numerous, often short-term projects involved in CA. Adoption rates vary by crop (maize and
cotton), gender, and length of experience with CA. Only parts of the land is put under CA; a
proportion increasing over time. It is also known that disadoption occurs. Reasons for disadoption are
not fully known, but some organisations have barred farmers not adhering to CA principles from
further input credit. Access to inputs on credit otherwise not obtainable may have stimulated some
adoption. Whether use of CA will continue in the absence of project provided inputs is an acid test.
There are also cases where NGOs have stopped their promotion efforts after initial experimental years.
Yield gains (hoe cultivation) are typically reported as 50-100 percent for maize and about half for
cotton. According to one study the incremental yield of 16.5 qt/ha over conventional ploughing (13.5
qt/ha) has several sources: higher input use (5 qts), early planting (4 qts), and water harvesting in
basins (7.5 qts). Budget analysis suggest that hand-hoe CA generates higher returns to both land and
peak season labour.
18
Some interesting conclusions are made by the authors (ibid) based on the case study of CA in Zambia,
the Zai system in Burkina Faso (see summary below under successful examples), two-year improved
leguminous fallows in Eastern Zambia, and 10-month leguminous shrub fallows in Western Kenya:
“In the past, most agricultural research in Africa has focused on developing and delivering yieldenhancing input packages such as new crop varieties, new seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides. The four
case studies ... suggest that increased attention to agronomic practices may offer equally high
productivity gains. But achieving these gains will require increased attention to agronomic
management in both research and extension (p 316). ...The agronomic gains achieved by these four
technologies rely on careful management both during the cropping season and in the dry season. As a
result, they typically take longer to disseminate, leading to slower adoption than input packages of
improved seeds and fertilizer. The case studies uniformly suggest that knowledge-intensive
technologies such as these require greater attention to extension than does the typical release of
improved inputs and plant varieties (p 316-317). ...Given the diversity of farming conditions
prevailing in rural Africa, the processes described here for involving farmers in technology
development and testing may well prove more readily transferable than the individual technologies
themselves (p 317). ...Most agricultural research systems organise technology development around
specific commodities. Yet the case studies ... suggest that cross-cutting research on fundamental
issues, such as soil fertility, may prove a necessary complement to the more prevalent commoditybased research (p 317).... In spite of the often strident “either/or” tone of many fertilizer debates, the
soil fertility work presented in this chapter highlights the complementarities between organic and
inorganic fertilizer (p 318). ...African governments and donors currently spend massive sums on
fertilizer subsidies. Yet they rarely match these resources with the complementary efforts required to
develop and disseminate agronomic practices that will improve soil structure, soil organic matter,
water retention capacity, and soil biotic activity in ways that enhance the effectiveness of mineral
fertilizers. To capture these synergies will require a more balanced future approach to soil fertility
management and research” (p 319).
Extent of adoption:
With some regularity figures are presented on how far CA has spread globally. The reasons behind
adoption vary between countries, including the dust bowl phenomena, improvement of economic
result, often from reduced machinery costs, etc. A number of terms describe agricultural systems’
progress to the ideal mature CA, including how organic agriculture, shifting agriculture, and
agroforestry may apply CA practices (Kassam 2009, Derpsch 2009). The summary in the next table
shows area (‘000 ha) under no-tillage; the definition which comes closest to FAO’s definition of CA
(Kassam 2009). Diffusion of CA in Sub-Saharan countries is on record for at least 14 countries.
19
Country
Argentina
Australia
Bolivia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Finland
France
Germany
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Lesotho
Mexico
Morocco
Total
CA ha 2008/09
19,719
12,000
706
25,502
13,481
180
1,330
102
200
200
354
8
0.1
80
1,300
33.1
0.13
22.8
4
% of
area
crop Country
58.8
26.9
18.4
38.3
25.9
10.3
0.9
2.9
8.8
10.2
2.9
0.2
<0.1
0.8
5.7
0.6
<0.1
0.1
<0.1
Mozambique
Netherlands
New Zealand
Paraguay
Portugal
Slovakia
South Africa
Spain
Sudan
Switzerland
Tunisia
Ukraine
UK
USA
Uruguay
Venezuela
Zambia
Zimbabwe
CA ha
2008/09
in % of crop area
9
0.2
162
2,400
25
10
368
650
10
9
6
100
24
26,500
655.1
300
40
15
17.4
54.5
1.5
0.7
2.4
3.7
<0.1
2.1
0.1
0.3
0.4
15.3
47.4
9.0
0.8
0.4
106,505.23
6.9
Successful examples:
Spielman (2009) describes two cases of successful introduction of zero-tillage: soybean cultivation in
Argentina and rice-wheat cultivation in the Indo-Gangetic plains.
Intensified cultivation of soybean in Argentina expanded in the 1970s. Soybean production followed
wheat or maize production. However, the possibility to grow two crops required a much tighter and
careful management schedule. Crop residues were often burned to minimize the time land was
uncultivated. Erosion problems, water runoff, and loss of organic matter followed. Zero tillage, using
tractor-drawn drillers, was introduced as a solution. Zero-tillage production of soy beans was
accelerated by the introduction of new varieties resistant to the herbicide glyphosate that kills weeds,
breaks down residues, and returns their nutrients to the soil. Glyphosate prices also declined radically.
A third factor behind the expansion was the economic policy regime that eliminated agricultural
export and reduced import duties on inputs and capital goods. “… overall grain and oilseed production
in Argentina grew from 26 million tons in 1988-89 to more than 67 million tons in 2000-01.
Cultivation of grain and oilseed crops using zero tillage expanded from about 300,000 hectares in
1990-91 to more than 22 million hectares in 2007-08” (ibid, p 63). Argentina is now a major producer
and exporter of soybean.
Soil fertility and moisture was improved, halting long degradation, but additional innovations in the
package contributed to a better economic bottom-line for producers. While research and technology
development was part of the success, the entire reorganization of the agricultural sector, and functional
partnerships between diverse actors were other vital explanations.
The Indo-Gangetic Plains was transformed by the GR and led to the advent of the rice-wheat system;
wheat production in the dry, cool winter and rice during the warm monsoon season. Productivity
growth declined since the 1990s as a result of inappropriate soil and water management, and the
tendency to plant wheat too late due to land preparation requirements. Using seed drillers, farmers
saved precious time, minimized soil disturbance and growth of weeds, and avoided drying out the soil.
In the Indo-Gangetic Plains in India about 620,000 farmers use zero- and reduced tillage, covering
1.76 million hectares. Indian results point to increased wheat yields (much attributed to timelier
planting) and reduced production costs. Pakistan studies rather indicate the cost reduction effect.
Future development could include moves to full conservation agriculture: zero-tilling rice, keeping
crop residues, and crop rotation.
20
The spread of zero-tillage was initiated by the awareness of declining yields. Broad engagement of
scientists and private sector was mobilized to develop and make available the technology, in particular
cheap and reliable seed drillers. Moving agricultural experts away from the yield paradigm and rather
concentrate on farmers economic bottom line has proved a challenge to be overcome.
INTEGRATED SOIL FERTILITY MANAGEMENT
“Much has been done in SSA to address issues of declining soil fertility but results remain limited in
relation to the scale of the problem and widely replicable and sustainable approaches are yet to be
identified... The major constraints to adoption of improved soil fertility input recommendations
include lack of awareness of technologies, insufficient adaptation of technologies to farmers
conditions, poor research-extension-farmer linkages, land tenure, labor, unfocused institutional
support, gender considerations, and the absence or perversion of needed national and regional
policies” (Sanginga & Woomer 2009, p 139).
Definition:
Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) has numerous definitions. One of the latest, from a group
of prominent scholars, defines ISFM “as a set of soil fertility management practices that necessarily
include the use of fertilizer, organic inputs and improved germplasm, combined with the knowledge
on how to adapt these practices to local conditions, aimed at maximizing agronomic use efficiency of
the applied nutrients and improving crop productivity. All inputs need to be managed in accordance
with sound agronomic principles” (Vanlauwe et al 2010).
Studies:
ISFM per se is complex. Several articles underline the need for a sequential approach. Typically the
ladder to complete ISFM would start from traditional practices, proceed to use of fertilizer and
improved germplasm, then combine application of organic and mineral inputs, and finally involve
adaptation to local conditions (ibid). The first improvement step presumes that soils are responsive,
germplasm of good quality, correct fertilizer formulation and rates, and appropriate management
practices. Other constraints may also have to be removed. Critical issues are the generation of
sufficient crop residuals and possible use of organic resources to rehabilitate less responsive soils to
become responsive to fertilizer application. This ladder does not necessarily prioritize interventions
but suggest a need to sequence steps towards complete ISFM. Obviously this sequencing, while
presumably building on success, puts additional demands on the dissemination process, and on
farmers’ endurance, gradual learning and adaptation of ISFM. A similar, more context-specific
approach for the Sahel is described by Aune and Bationo (2008).
The Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute (TSBF) promotes a wide variety of ISFM practices,
schematically positioned in quadrants according to their relative productivity increase and adoption
potential, and new applications of ISFM where development work is under way (see figure below
from Sanginga & Woomer 2009). Best fits are analysed for drylands; savannas and woodlands; and
the humid forest zone.
21
Extent of adoption:
ISFM as a concept and approach thus has many place-specific practices with varying productivity and
adoption potential and a sequential build-up of soil fertility. Sanginga and Woomer (2009) give
plentiful examples of the physical and sometimes economic benefits of the practices, but are less
explicit about the diffusion and adoption of these practices, which may fall outside the remit of a
research institute. Some such assessments are partially included under other headings under 3.1. and
3.2.
Successful examples:
Practical examples given of how ISFM works and can be improved include fertilizer micro-dose
technology (commented on under Fertilizer), and improvements in the use of fertilizer nitrogen
through addition of organic inputs in the Guinea Savannah of West Africa. Both examples, however,
should be seen as steps to full ISFM.
SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION
Definitions and classification:
Like other composite approaches to agricultural development, soil and water conservation (SWC) has
numerous definitions. Over time the conception of SWC has changed from an initial emphasis on
structures to reverse soil erosion to an important part of sustainable land management. The World
Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) contributes the following
definition and a classification scheme for SWC. The scheme helps to define what specific type of
SWC is at stake. However, it also demonstrates how SWC overlaps with or includes several other
approaches figuring in this paper: CA, ISFM, INRM, RWH.
22
First the definitions:
Sustainable Land Management (SLM): ‘the use of land resources, including soils, water, animals, and
plants, for the production of goods to meet changing human needs while simultaneously ensuring the
long-term productive potential of these resources and ensuring their environmental functions’.
Soil and Water Conservation (SWC): ‘activities at the local level which maintain or enhance the
productive capacity of the land in areas affected by, or prone to, degradation’.
SWC Technologies: ‘agronomic, vegetative, structural and/or management measures that prevent and
control land degradation and enhance productivity in the field’.
SWC Approaches: ‘ways and means of support that help introduce, implement, adapt, and apply SWC
technologies on the ground’.
The classification scheme build on three sets of data referring to land use, degradation type addressed,
and conservation measure deployed. In WOCAT’s database projects/cases are classified according to
this taxonomy, e.g. C1W2A2. Combinations occur.
Land use
Ci - Crop land (3 categories),
Gi -Grazing land (2 categories),
Fi - Forest/woodland (3 categories)
Mi - Mixed land (5 categories)
Oi - Other land (3 categories)
Degradation type addressed
Wi - Water erosion (6 categories)
Ei - Wind erosion (3 categories)
Ci - Chemical deterioration (4 categories)
Pi - Physical deterioration (5 categories)
Vi - Vegetation degradation (3 categories)
Hi - Water degradation (3 categories)
Conservation measure
M - Overall management (examples)
M1 - Change of land use type (examples)
M2 - Change of management/intensity level (examples)
M3 - Layout according to natural and human environment (examples)
M4 - Major change in timing of activities (examples)
M5 - Control/change of species composition (examples)
A - Agronomic/soil management (examples)
A1 - Vegetation/soil cover (examples)
A2 - Organic matter/soil fertility (examples)
A3 - Soil surface treatment (examples)
A4 - Subsurface treatment (examples)
V - Vegetative
V1 - Tree and shrub cover (subcategories, examples)
V2 - Grasses and perennial herbaceous plants (subcategories, examples)
S - Structural measures
S1 - Bench terraces
S2 - Forwards sloping terraces
S3 - Bunds/banks
S4 - Graded ditches, waterways
S5 - Level ditches, pits
S6 - Dams/pans
S7 - Reshaping surface/top soil retention
S8 - Walls, barriers, palisades
S9 – Others
Studies:
Soil and water conservation in its original format is a good illustration of how technology
dissemination is refocused over time. Soil erosion is not a new phenomenon in Africa. Indigenous
technologies exist. In some cases they have been abandoned due to external driving forces, in other
23
cases they have spontaneously spread (Reij 1991). In some cases abandonment has come about as a
post-independence reaction to coerced works imposed by colonial powers (Mutisya et al 2010). In
Ethiopia the government and World Food Program used a top-down approach, paid labour and rigid
technology prescriptions to decrease vulnerability to the frequent droughts affecting the country.
Achievements were on paper impressive:
“Between 1976 and 1988 conservation and afforestation undertaken by the Ethiopian peasants, under
the WWF program, amounted to some 800 000 km of soil and stone bunds on croplands, some
600 000 km of hillside terraces for afforestation of steep slopes, some 100 000 ha of closed areas for
natural regeneration, and many activities of land rehabilitation” (Hurni, cited in Bekele 2003).
Following a new economic policy and government in 1990/91 most of the conservation structures
were removed and planted trees cut down.
A special problem nexus pertains to the early SWC attempts, relying mainly on establishment of
structures. Is its beneficial for farmers? More solid structures have substantial establishment and
maintenance costs. Usually some land is taken out of production (although e.g. fodder or fuelwood
production may be new products enabled). The productivity enhancement of the structures has to
compensate for this yield loss and also compensate for incurred costs. Productivity increases will
materialise in the longer run but may not be sufficient if the farmers have a high time preference.
Understandably, to farmers future yield trends when adopting SWC structures are uncertain and have
to be experienced. From a livelihood perspective, financial and human resources may in addition be
better allocated elsewhere. Literature gives a varied picture of whether, where and what SWC
structures are profitable (e.g. Nyanena 2006, Kassie et al 2008, Knowler 2004). Most analyses of SWC
profitability also have to deal with methodological problems to eliminate effects from plot
characteristics, history, and household selection effects.
Extent of adoption:
From the WOCAT classification scheme it is clear that SWC is an extremely broad menu of
technologies. What is appropriate depends on the overall context, but also on the site specific context
where different SWC technologies are applied over a landscape or watershed. This per se makes it
difficult to measure adoption on an aggregate level. Intensity of use, adherence to recommendations,
spontaneous adaptation of technologies, maintenance of measures undertaken, and frequent
disadoption after project completion are complicating issues when attempting to measure how
technologies have been disseminated. Often such measures are presented in case studies/project
reports (see e.g. Liniger & Critchley 2007, Loeffen et al 2008).
Successful examples:
A success story by Chris Reij et al (Chapter 7, Spielman & Pandya-Lorch 2009) has some salient
points. It is included under SWC in line with the classification scheme above, but could equally well
fit under other headings, e.g. CA or RWH. The Sahel is a tough place to farm. Droughts in the 70s
brought this fact to full attention. Spontaneous farmer innovation has now changed large areas in
Burkina Faso and Niger into productive land, improving food security for about 3 million people. In
Burkina Faso, foreign conservation projects in 1960/70 tried to introduce earth bunds that did not meet
farmers’ needs. The bunds were not maintained or kept, and the Central Plateau turned into barren
land, encrusted fields, and lost trees. Round 1980 several farmers began to experiment with traditional
planting pits (zai). They increased the depth and diameter of the pits and added organic matter. Water
and nutrients were concentrated where best needed. Termite activity enhanced soil architecture, water
infiltration and retention. Land preparation during the dry season allowed timely planting. Several
farmer innovations were central to promote planting pits at market days, through zai schools, etc. Pits
were improved and adapted to different crop combinations, and pit density/ha, dimensions, and
amount of organic inputs were varied. Stone contour bunds to harvest rainwater were improved
through a simple tool managed by the farmers to ensure correct alignment. The total area rehabilitated
over the past three decades is estimated to be between 200 000 and 300 000 ha. Additional food
produced helps to feed about 500 000 people. Additional diversification into trees, new crops, and
livestock has produced beneficial circles of intensification.
In the 1970s and 1980s Niger lost significant tree coverage due to droughts and population pressure.
Farmers initiated experiments on farmer-managed natural regeneration, using living tree roots under
24
farmers’ cleared fields to regenerate trees. Flexible management of the new trees and patterns of
intercropping emerged. The trees provided multiple benefits. Many villages now have 10 to 20 times
more trees than 20 years ago. Tree intensification is now noted at nearly 5 million hectares. Food
security has increased in areas where land rehabilitation has taken place, and women in particular
benefit from the easier access to fuel wood.
Lessons for policy and practice (include): 1) Innovation by local people (“barefoot science”) is as
important as cutting edge research..., 2) a single technique or practice alone is generally not enough to
achieve meaningful environmental and economic impacts but can act as a trigger of innovation... 3) a
single menu of technical options can be adopted on a large scale, but to achieve this, the menu must be
flexible, adaptable, and testable by farmers under their own social, economic and environmental
conditions...4) in resource conservation, individual farmers adopting innovations on individual fields
or farms can achieve impacts, but when communities work together collectively, they will produce
more sustainable benefits, 5) farmers are more likely to adopt resource conserving innovations if at
least one innovation or component provides significant benefits in the first or second year, and 6)
spreading technological innovations requires coordinated, flexible configurations of actors (ibid, p 57).
INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT
“Nevertheless, despite its successes and multiple benefits to farmers and to society, research and
application of IPM methods is lagging” (Pretty et al 2010).
Definition and classification:
According to FAO Integrated Pest Management (IPM) means the careful consideration of all available
pest control techniques, and subsequent integration of appropriate measures that discourage the
development of pest populations and keep pesticides and other interventions to levels that are
economically justified, and reduce or minimize risks to human health and the environment. IPM
emphasizes the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro-ecosystems and
encourages natural pest control mechanisms.
IPM emphasizes the integration of many pest suppression technologies:
 Biological control - beneficial organisms that manage pests.
 Cultural control - crop rotation, sanitation, and other practices that reduce pest problems.
 Mechanical and physical controls - for example, traps, cultivation, and temperature modification.
 Chemical control - judicious use of pesticides and other chemicals.
 Genetic control (host plant resistance) - traditional selective breeding and newer biotechnology
that produce pest-resistant crop varieties.
 Regulatory control - state and federal regulations that prevent the spread of pest organisms.
IPM has a long history with different stances. Even today interpretations differ from scouting and
judicious use of pesticides, when the economic injury level is approaching, to integration of multiple
pest impacts and control methods within the context of the total cropping system (Kogan 1998).
Sensible use of pesticides has long been promoted in developing countries, i.e. through Farmer Field
School programmes. Other technologies, such as underused natural enemies, biopesticides, resistant
transgenic plant, use of semiochemicals, and area-wide IPM are promising, but still at a research/pilot
stage. Studies of adoption of IPM therefore have to cover a more heterogeneous portfolio than perhaps
any integrated concept. There are also IPM practices where nature handles the diffusion of the
innovation, i.e. biological control of the cassava mealybug and green mite, where natural predators
were identified, multiplied and spread, without involving farmers.
Studies:
Farmer Field Schools (FFS) is a group-based learning process, building on experiential learning
activities in varying fields. It encourages farmers to experiment, make field observations and group
analysis. A FFS is field based and lasts for a cropping season with weekly meetings. Special learning
plots are established. FFS differ from regular extension activities in its choice of learning methods
which are experiential, participatory and learner-centered. Farmers’ research committees as practiced
in Latin America by e.g. CIAT share the same basic philosophy, albeit with a longer-term perspective.
25
The FFS concept was originally developed to address IPM in irrigated rice cultivation in Asia but has
since been applied to several other themes. In 2005 FFS were operated in at least 78 countries and
more than 160,000 FFS had been conducted (Braun 2006). Still, the majority of the schools have been
in Asia, addressing IPM and other aspects of crop management. In Asia more than 2 million farmers
are said to have participated in IPM-FFSs. Heavy FAO promotion of the concept is a contributing
factor.
FFS-IPMs are interesting from a diffusion of innovation point of view. FFSs recognise that complex,
integrated approaches like IPM require deeper farmer agroecological knowledge. It is hoped that
graduates from FFS will serve as change agents/opinion leaders and communicate their knowledge to
other farmers. It is envisaged that FFSs may become institutionalised and add to the rural social
capital.
Given the scope of the FFS vogue, there are surprisingly few solid evaluations of the concept. Debate
further rages over what impacts should be considered and what costs. There is also considerable
controversy over the results (Braun 2006, Berg 2004, Feder 2003 & 2004, Tripp 2005, Davis 2010).
Ultimately, one has to ask whether this is an education investment, or an exercise in technology
diffusion, as the impact assessment would be quite different.
A close to general consensus seems to exist that FFS graduates spray pesticides less frequently. There
is also evidence that graduates have broader agroecological knowledge. There are, however, limits to
what can be theoretically understood and observed in practice. It is debated how far such knowledge is
necessary, and if there are other ways to impart it. Like all efforts to give farmers a broader knowledge
to support adoption and adaptation of more complex innovations or principle, the time requirement
may exclude those less resourced (Tripp in Scoones 2009 on the economics of attention). Evidence
that graduates transmit learning experiences to others is less mixed. Obviously, the acquired
knowledge may be too shallow to transfer convincingly, in particular lacking the learning
opportunities of the FFS. Although there are known incidences where FFSs have lived on, and
diversified into e.g. seed production or marketing, such cases are relatively few. Up-scaling remains a
problem. World Bank has for several such reasons, in stark contrast to FAO’ strong endorsement,
questioned the sustainability of FFS. Community IPM, FFS graduates serving as facilitators, and selffinanced FFSs are some of the up-scaling responses currently promoted.
With the obvious trend to embrace packages of disembodied agronomic and managerial innovations
comes a need for broader skills and knowledge of farmers as the potential adopters to understand and
modify new bundles of innovations. Will commercial channels and package-driven public extension
deliver, or is FFS and similar approaches as part of broader innovation systems called for?
Low adoption of IPM in Africa is often explained by lack of extension, training or technology, but
may rather rest with the needs for IPM among resource poor farmers under current conditions. Orr
(2003) claims that in the absence of GR technology, the marginal benefits from crop protection are
low, and the main problem is rather the low average yields, as GR technologies are expensive, and the
soil fertility declining. “Myths” often advanced include: Staple food crops suffer large, economically
damaging losses from pests; resource-poor farmers favour labour-intensive IPM strategies; farmer
participation will increase adoption of IPM; and IPM is attractive because farmers do not use
pesticides. The fallacies of the myths were illustrated by a Malawi IPM project.
Four strategic foci to make IPM more relevant for resource-poor farmers were outlined: 1) IPM can
offer cash savings for farmers producing high-value costs and already using pesticides; 2) IPM can
focus on pest management strategies such as host plant resistance and classical biological control that
offer benefits but where the full costs do not fall on the farmers; 3) view IPM as a component of
integrated crop management to improve and stabilize yields; and 4) develop pest management
strategies that help link producers directly with markets, where new opportunities are offered by
liberalisation.
Successful examples:
IPM as seen has a wide menu. Frequently cited success stories include biological control of e.g. the
cassava mealy bug and cassava green mite. Both pests originated from South America and lacked
26
natural enemies in Africa. Identifying, rearing and releasing suitable predators was made possible
through large collaborative programmes, spearheaded by IITA. Other successful projects have
followed: e.g. the mango mealybug, the spiralling whitefly, water weeds, cowpea thrips, cowpea pod
bearer, the coconut mite, the banana aphid, the Sri Lanka fruit fly, and the sweet potato whitefly (IITA
2009). From an adoption point of view the cassava success stories are not relevant; the identified
predators diffuse without an active household decision to try the “innovation”. Benefit-cost ratios 170
to 800, depending on assumptions, have been estimated for the mealybug programme, or reducing
crop losses up to 90 per cent and up to US$29 billions in estimated value of crop recovery (Alene
2005, IITA 2009). Economic rate of return to the biological control of cassava green mite in Benin,
Nigeria, and Ghana varies between 101 and 125 per cent. These impact assessments do not include
health and ecological benefits from not using pesticides. Biological control, when implemented well,
is extremely cost-efficient.
Push-pull strategies have attracted great scientific interest, but practical application and farmer
adoption is still at an emerging state. Pests are repelled or deterred (push) from the resource to be
protected (crops or animals) and simultaneously attracted to (pull) other areas (traps or trap crops).
Categories of stimuli for the push and pull components of a strategy are (Cook et al 2007):
Push
Pull
Visual clues
Visual stimulants
Synthetic repellents
Host volatiles
Nonhost volatiles
sex and aggregation pheromones
Host-derived semiochemicals
Gustatory and oviposition stimulants
Antiaggregation pheromones
Alarm pheromones
Antifeedants
Oviposition deterrents and oviposition
deterring pheromones
Methods to deliver the stimuli include: natural products or nature-identical synthetic analogues;
vegetative diversification: intercropping and trap cropping; antixenotic cultivars; plant induction; and
traps. Push-pull strategies are often combined with population control. Application areas are found in
subsistence farming, intensive arable agriculture, horticulture, forestry, veterinary and medical pests,
and urban pests.
“After 20 years since the coin was termed, there are little more than a handful of push-pull strategies
making progress toward commercial use” (ibid, p 390).
For subsistence farmers in Africa, the exploitation of semiochemicals is an attractive alternative to
broad-spectrum pesticides which may be unavailable, nonprofitable or not affordable. Stemborer
attacks on maize are successfully reduced through using trap crops like Napier or Sudan grass and
molasses grass or desmodium to repel the pest. An additional benefit generated is the feed value of the
trap grasses and the striga suppression of desmodium. Field trials have demonstrated attractive
economic returns to such strategies, but added labour requirements may be a concern (Hassanani et al
2008).
This push-pull strategy is being extended since 1997 in several districts in Kenya, Tanzania and
Uganda. The extent of adoption is indicatively known. In Western and Central Kenya more than 500
farmers practiced push-pull in 2000, growing to more than 4000 in 2005. Some 110 farmer-teachers in
12 districts in Western Kenya have taught 2000 fellow farmers push-pull, and have in turn been
mentored by ICIPE technicians,
Up-scaling and diffusion of push-pull is a challenge that necessitates coherent partnerships, continued
monitoring to secure the scientific base of the promotion, and incorporation of push-pull approaches
into broader cropping, farming systems and livelihood frameworks.
27
RAIN WATER HARVESTING
“At the global level, there is no comprehensive assessment of the extent of implementation of
rainwater harvesting technologies for specific uses. Nor is there any summarised information on how
much land is currently under any type of in situ rainwater harvesting” (Barron 2009).
Definition:
Several definitions exist. An example:
“Rainwater harvesting consists of a wide range of technologies used to collect, store and provide water
with the particular aim of meeting demand for water by humans and/or human activities” (Barron
2009).
Technologies are divided into those collecting water in situ and those collecting water ex situ. Many of
the technologies also serve as soil conservation measures. Similar to SWC, technologies may refer to
field/farm level and to community or catchment level. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) has its main
applications in arid and semi-arid areas, where water is the limiting factor. In SSA, 41 % of the land is
classified as arid or semi-arid. RWH has old traditions in many areas; traditions often abandoned due
to external forces (e.g. in India: http://www.rainwaterharvesting.org/rural/traditional.htm)
Studies:
Studies have focused on the technical and economic efficiency of RWH. Adoption constraints include
heavy labour requirements and costs, labour shortage, tenure insecurity, deferred returns to
investments, structures that are not technically appropriate for the local conditions or do not generate
benefits to cover installation costs, and lack of social capital at community level to undertake
collective work (e.g. Barry 2008).
Some common findings regarding success of interventions at mesolevel stress the importance of high
initial social capital and investments in consensus and capacity building, enabling policies and
multiple livelihood approaches, good external change agents, and highly participatory approaches to
build local engagement. Knowledge gaps on what happens outside the intervention area are pointed
out: ...”there appears to be little consistent monitoring of gains and losses of agricultural water
management interventions in mesoscale watershed management both concerning social changes (soft
components) as well as environmental changes within and beyond the watershed subject to
interventions” (Barron et al 2008, pv).
RWH, when fully applied, leads to a package of innovations quite distinct from embodied external
innovations. “Thus it has become increasingly clear that water management for rainfed agriculture
requires a landscape perspective, and involves cross-scale interactions from farm household scale to
watershed/catchment scale and upstream/downstream linkages” (Chapter 1 in Wani et al 2009).
Integrated watershed management can be seen as a fully developed version of RWH (or INRM).
Interesting work has been done by the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Programme with technical
support from an ICRISAT-led consortium. The approach has been piloted in 500 watersheds. A
watershed serves as the entry point. The approach recognises that most farming problems require
integrated approaches, including genetic, management-related, and socio-economic components. A
convergence is required between components to contribute to improved livelihoods and sustainable
natural resource management. This requires a holistic approach.
“ICRISAT’s consortium model for community watershed management ... espouses the principles of
collective action, convergence, cooperation and capacity building (four Cs) with technical
backstopping by a consortium of institutions to address the issues of equity, efficiency, economics and
environment. ... The new integrated community watershed model provides technical options for
management of run-off water harvesting, in situ conservation of rainwater for groundwater recharging
and supplemental irrigation, appropriate nutrient and soil management practices (e.g. micronutrient
amendments, vermicomposting, SOM), waterway system, crop production technology (e.g. IPM,
improved varieties), and appropriate farming systems with income-generating micro-enterprises for
improving livelihoods while protecting the environment” (Chapter 12 in Wani et al 2009, italics added
by author).
28
Extent of adoption:
“At the global level, there is no comprehensive assessment of the extent of implementation of
rainwater harvesting technologies for specific uses. Nor is there any summarised information on how
much land is currently under any type of in situ rainwater harvesting” (Barron 2009).
Successful examples:
Wani et al (2009) in several chapters provide case study examples of impacts on yields, nutrient
stocks, moisture retention, water run-offs, soil losses, and economic impacts from genetic and rain
water management measures compared to controls.
AGROFORESTRY
“Although there are some examples of significant adoption over the past two decades ... Many have
lamented that adoption and diffusion have lagged behind the scientific and technological advances in
agroforestry research reducing the technological advances in agroforestry-based development
projects” (Mercer 2004, p 311).
Definition and classification:
Several definitions of the term ‘agroforestry’ are used in science and practice. Leakey’s (1996)
definition is used most frequently: “a dynamic, ecologically based, natural resource management
system that, through the integration of trees on farms and in the landscape, diversifies and sustains
production for increased social, economic and ecological benefits.”
Like for other complex concepts, classification of agroforestry systems and practices has been
intensively debated. The classification below by Nair (1985) is often used as a reference, but
alternative suggestions have been proposed (Sinclair 1999). System categorisation by nature of
components, arrangement of components, function, agro-ecological conditions and socio-economic
and management characteristics yields an enormous number of possible combinations. A
comprehensive assessment of adoption of agroforestry systems and practices is of course not feasible.
Major approaches to classification of agroforestry systems and practices.
Studies:
The history of studies of adoption of agroforestry innovations has a beginning in the early 1990s;
considerably later than studies of production input technologies making up the GR and analysed by
Feder (1985) and other studies. Mercer (2004) reviews theoretical models and empirical studies on
29
agroforestry adoption along lines similar to Feder. He makes the general observations that agroforestry
innovations are considerably more complex than the production inputs, have few packaged practices to
deliver, are thus more knowledge intensive, and put higher demands on farmer education,
experimentation, and modification to fit a given context. These multi-component and multi-product
systems also take considerably longer time to mature and generate positive returns, which adds to the
uncertainty and subjective risk of potential adopters, and slows adoption. As in traditional agricultural
adoption, household preferences, resource endowments, market incentives, biophysical factors, and
uncertainty and risk are the major influences on adoption with some peculiarities added for
agroforestry. Thus, tenure security has an unambiguous and positive impact in adoption. In general,
farmers ‘perception of and attitude to uncertainty, production and consumption risk is less known and
needs to be better understood.
The high perceived risks associated with new agroforestry systems is one explanation why
investments in agroforestry technologies is minor and incremental, and why much adaptation takes
place. This behaviour limits risks and is important to understand differential adoption. Why intensity
of adoption varies, and the role of agroforestry adoption in relation to other components of farm or
livelihood activities are other areas requiring more research, also making use qualitative research
methods like oral histories, ethnography, etc.
The largest deficit in agroforestry adoption research according to Mercer is, however, knowledge
about the temporal path of adoption. This would require longitudinal studies. – complemented by
historical descriptions and qualitative studies.
Extent of adoption:
Previous estimates of the extent of agroforestry use have varied widely. ”Part of the problem
previously has been in viewing agroforestry as a series of technologies – arrangements of trees and
crops in space and time” (World Agroforestry Centre 2009, p 15).
Rather looking at trees on agricultural land, (Zorner et al 2009) in a study based on geospatial analysis
of remote sensing derived global datasets, estimate that globally 7.5%, 27%, and 46% of agricultural
land had a tree-coverage of more than 50%, 20% and 10% respectively. Applied to the global area
classified as agricultural land, 22.2 million hectares, agroforestry would be much more widespread
than previous estimates suggest. Only a minor part of the area would be from the series of
technologies promoted, however.
Successful examples:
Through time agroforestry has had different foci. Contemporary emphasis is on selling concepts like
green fertilizers, fertilizer trees, improved fallows and evergreen agriculture with slightly differing
denotations. Green fertilizers would include cases 1-3 below, fertilizer trees comprise cases 2-3, and
evergreen agriculture refers to the incorporation of trees through the year as a green cover into annual
food crop systems, notably Faidherbia albida as a case 3 fertilizer tree:
1. Herbaceous green manure legumes
2. Non-coppicing legumes
3. Coppicing woody legumes
rotational fallows
relay intercrops
fallows (improved, sequential or rotational fallows)
relay intercrops
grow as fallow, then cut back biomass, incorporate into soil
Many studies have estimated the yield increments and other benefits of these cases over crops using
natural fallows, or continuous crops fertilized or unfertilized (Sileshi et al 2008).
Maize grown with green fertilizers yields significantly more grain than maize without fertilizer or after
natural vegetation fallows;
Green fertilizers have synergistic effects with mineral fertilizers and produce acceptable yields with
relatively modest expenditures on fertilizer imports;
Green fertilizers reduce production risks relative to maize grown without fertilizer or following
traditional fallows;
30
Green fertilizers work well where they are most needed, on land with low-to-medium potential, which
is typically worked by poor farmers unable to afford mineral fertilizers (World Agroforestry Centre
2009).
Evergreen Agriculture is promoted by the World Agroforestry Center as a reinvention of agriculture.
Arguments, cases and international support initiatives are presented by Garrity et al (2010). It is
obvious, however, that similar arguments are claimed by e.g. ISFM and Conservation Agriculture
proponents. Ownership of practices is hence in a sense contested, and alternative entry points are
chosen to similar pathways of system intensification. Extents of uptake in four case study countries are
also claimed by other approaches, and have to be seen as indicative in any case.
Attributes of Evergreen Agriculture in four African countries:
Country
Evergreen
agriculture
system
Zambia
Conservation farming with
Faidherbia fertilizer trees
Farming system
Maize, cotton
Malawi
Portfolio of
agroforestry species
including a range of
fertilizer trees
Maize
Extent of uptake
>160,000 farms
>120,000 farms
Niger
Assisted Natural
Regeneration of
Faidherbia + other
trees
Millets, sorghum
integrated with
livestock
>4.8 m ha
B Faso
Zai planting pits +
ANR
Millets, sorghum
>200,000 ha
(Garrity et al 2010, p 200)
LOW-EXTERNAL INPUT TECHNOLOGIES
Definition:
The thoughts behind low external input technology (LEIT), gradually subsumed under INRM and SA
concepts, were a belief that there were technologies more based on farmers’ traditional practices, more
pro-poor and more environmentally friendly than GR technologies. LEIT has no strict definition but
prominent innovations are grouped under soil and water management, soil fertility enhancement, crop
establishment, and controlling weeds and pests.
Studies:
Based on literature and case studies of projects in Honduras (hillside farming), Kenya (National Soil
and Water Conservation Programme), and Sri Lanka (Farmer Field Schools introducing IPM and other
crop management techniques), Tripp (2006a & b) draws the following policy conclusions:
“- Although many types of low external input technology (LEIT) are able to make significant
contributions to improving farm productivity and conserving natural resources, there is no evidence
that they are particularly suited to resource-poor farmers.
- The patterns of utilisation for LEIT are quite similar to those for most purchased inputs; betterresourced farmers with better links to market are more likely to take advantage of these innovations.
- LEIT is not generally characterised by rapid farmer-to-farmer diffusion, nor does it lead to
significant improvements in human or social capital unless complementary investments are made.
- The persistence that LEIT is inherently more suitable for resource–poor farmers derives in large part
from inadequate donor investment in monitoring and lesson learning.
- Donor support for any type of technology generation must take better account of significant
variations in agricultural resources between and within farming communities; investments for
agricultural production should be prioritised and coordinated with other programmes for rural income
generation and safety-nets.
- Broad-based farmer organisations (as distinct from ad hoc project-led groups) are required to
stimulate a demand-led approach to technology generation and information provision”.
Tripps’s study is one of relatively few that question the common strategy of funding small pilot
projects , anticipating that spontaneous diffusion of results will emerge, and scaling-up will follow.
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SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE/INTEGRATED NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Definition:
Sustainable Agriculture and Integrated Natural Resource Management are related, ambitious and
ambiguous concepts (further discussed in 5.5.2 and 5.6.3). The concepts are used to cover a holistic
perspective as well as a label for a menu of practices.
Studies:
Barrett (2002, introductory and two concluding chapters) provide good summary of knowledge of
NRM innovations, and areas where research and approaches need strengthening. Major findings on
lessons learnt (chapter 21) include:
-Differing farmer needs/constraints make identification of desirable attributes/functions of NRM
technologies critical;
-There is a dilemma between targeting technologies and the desire to make technology dissemination
more demand-driven;
-The adoption of innovation processes by farmers/groups is often more important than technology
adoption;
-Farmers who recognise NR problems are not always induced to invest in improved NRM practices;
-Capital-related constraints may limit investments in NRM practices. Linkages to high value cashcrops may stimulate such cash investments;
-Farmers often accommodate new NRM technologies if incentives are sufficiently high;
-Concerted, targeted dissemination of NRM practices is needed to reach women and disadvantaged
groups at the same rate as advantaged farmers;
-Water-management practices have surprisingly been little researched;
-There have been few satisfactory studies of the social costs and benefits of resource degradation and
improvement, despite the claimed social desirability of such practices;
-Widespread use of participatory methods in pilot research and development is a key challenge;
-Complementary research at community, landscape and watershed levels has considerable value
added;
-The greatest gaps in knowledge revolve around adoption dynamics, where historical and qualitative
case studies provide important and less costly insights;
- Technology and NRM practice choice are but a part of household decision-making under uncertainty
but the broader livelihood perspective has not been sufficiently addressed;
- Technology adoption studies have considered farmers’ demand side, but focused less on the role of
social capital and stakeholder agencies in informing about and adaptation of technologies to local
conditions.
Extent of adoption:
A well-known meta-study (Pretty 2006) looked into adoption rates, area coverage, and average yield
increases of 286 projects in 57 countries. The sample was purposive of best practices and may not be
representative of all farms in developing countries. The projects made use of a variety of packages of
technologies and practices, including integrated pest management, integrated nutrient management,
conservation tillage, agroforestry, aquaculture, water harvesting, and livestock integration. Results by
FAO farm systems classification are shown in the next table.
FAO farm system category
Smallholder irrigated
Wetland rice
Smallholder rainfed humid
Smallholder rainfed highland
Smallholder rainfed dry/cold
Dualistic mixed
Coastal artisanal
Urban-based and kitchen garden
All projects
* In brackets Standard deviation
No. of farmers
adopting
177,287
8,711,236
1,704,958
401,699
604,804
537,311
220,000
207,479
12,564,774
No. of hectares
357,940
7,007,564
1,081,071
725,535
737,896
26,846,750
160,000
36,147
36,952,903
Average % increase in
crop yields*
129.8 (21.5)
22.3 (2.8)
102.2 (9.0)
107.3 (14.7)
99.2 (12.5)
76.5 (12.6)
62.0 (20.0)
146.0 (32.9)
79.2 (4.5)
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Adoption as here displayed does not measure intensity of use. Yield increases vary between crops. The
area under more sustainable technologies is 3 % of total area under the farming systems. In 68
randomly resampled projects, the number of adopting farmers four years later had increased 56 % and
the area covered 45 %.
“...three types of technical improvement are likely to have played substantial roles in food production
increases: (i) more efficient water use in both dryland and irrigated farming; (ii) improvements in
organic matter accumulation in soils and carbon sequestration, and (iii) pest, weed, and disease control
emphasising in-field biodiversity and reduced pesticide (insecticide, herbicide, and fungicide) use
(ibid, p 1116).
4. Adoption of agricultural innovations – conclusions
Actual dissemination and adoption of innovations are surprisingly little known. EEIs are relatively
better documented. Fewer studies are made of PDAMIs diffusion over time; in particular after
promotion projects are completed. Essential elements of such studies would be to consider partial and
sequential adoption, intensity and quality of adoption, modification of innovation package, and
disadoption. Such studies would be time-consuming, and hard to accommodate within the current
short-term and projectified R&D architecture.
Dissemination of agricultural innovations in SSA is not an overwhelming success, to use an
understatement. What constitutes success in a given situation is far from self-evident, but quotes
relating to selected innovation categories in the previous chapter seem to underline that progress is
disappointing. Lack of progress has many possible explanations:
Some research has despite a long history not been translated into ground-proven technologies. Some
innovations have simply been technically inappropriate. Others may work in the technical sense but
have not been adapted to the place-specific situation.
The so called success stories bring to the fore that several concomitant conditions have to be at hand
for success; factors often taken for granted in developed countries (e.g. functioning markets, credit
facilities, supporting policies, strong institutions). For sustained success, presence and stability of
these factors over longer periods is a further precondition.
Deliberately, the PDAMI innovation concepts analysed previously were described as distinct
approaches to sustainable intensification. This is of course an exaggerated description. As was shown,
many current “conceptual fads” can be placed in more general classification systems and can be
justified as marketing branding. The same technology is put under alternative labels, and “ownership”
of the technology becomes blurred and contested. But one can argue that concept shifts, proliferation
and marketing branding are detrimental to a pluralistic and balanced approach. Cases can be found
where concepts have been oversold.
Concept proliferation and potential competition is accentuated by the complex structure of institutional
actors promoting innovation concepts with limited incentives to seek synergies between innovations
and between actors. Adding to the picture are the numerous short-term and fluctuating opportunities to
fund promotion of innovations, and the frequent donor demands to try new solutions as the previous
have not delivered.
It is often claimed that investments in agricultural research yield good returns (Renkow 2010). The
fact is that many potential innovations emanating from research do not make it, but those that succeed
can have an enormous impact. Addressing the right problem issue, using the right tools is the key to
get the best return to invested resources. Looking at agricultural research and innovation as an
investment choice is nowadays foreign to Swedish academic agricultural research, but is the reality in
international agricultural research. There is no simple formula to get priorities right in the complex
international and national agricultural research infrastructure. To varying degrees scientists have to
take part in processes to describe impact pathways, estimated impact, and possible counterfactuals.
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There are reasons to question a one-sided belief in the transfer of technology model. A “good”
innovation will not automatically be adopted and disseminated. There may be cases when this happens
more easily, like for a vaccine (e.g. HIV), provided at a subsidised cost through the health system.
International agricultural research is, however, gradually elaborating complex planning,
implementation and learning cycles to maximize the returns to investments in more complex
innovations. Policy and NRM innovations are thus more difficult to disseminate, and methodologically
more complex to study than embodied exogenous innovation.
Extensive literature has studied how innovation characteristics, adoption constraints, and adopter
characteristics influence adoption. Obviously, making farm households’ use innovations is a step to
and an indication of impact. Studies of adoption of agricultural innovations began with embodied
exogenous innovations, notably high yielding varieties. Embodied exogenous innovations’ effects on
yields and yield stability, benefits to input costs and returns to labour have attracted special interest.
Numerous studies have also related household characteristics to adoption behaviour. The findings are
often contradictory. The complexity, dynamics and diversity of rural livelihoods, with agricultural
innovations being but one driving force, cannot be fully captured by a few explanatory factors. In
October 2010 a conference was held at the University of Berkeley to revisit the World Development
Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. The “adoption puzzle” was highlighted – there are
technologies available for adoption that remain unused or inefficiently used. This “adoption puzzle”
has been the object of much attention in recent years, including the Gates-Berkeley-MIT ATAI
(Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative), but it remains largely unsolved... An Important deficit
in the understanding of the “adoption puzzle” is availability of a solid diagnostic of the state of
adoption of new technologies such as fertilizer and seeds in Sub-Saharan Africa... This is still largely
missing, in part because it is not so easy to do” (Byerlee et al 2010, Brooks 2010, ATAI 2010).
Understanding and knowledge of PDAMI technologies is even further deficient!
Integrated research approaches to agricultural development are becoming more common. Such
approaches are often overlapping and may, in practice, be competing. They differ from EEIs in several
respects. Packages of disembodied agronomic and managerial innovations involve several interlinked
technologies, usually including EEIs, sequenced over time. Modern knowledge is combined with
traditional knowledge. They may involve social innovations to improve the agroecological knowledge
of farmers, encourage innovation, and strengthen farmer organisations. Innovations may consider
market and policy links. The focus is both at field/farm level and at community level. A longer time
perspective is necessary to reflect that biophysical processes (e.g. in conservation agriculture) take
time to mature. The distinction between research and development becomes blurred. In this setting an
emerging research focus is rather to follow, learn, understand and facilitate multiple innovation
processes. These are important roles for scientists.
Adoption of agricultural technologies, notably in Africa, could be more successful. Agricultural
research for development, with a natural science entry point, comprises quite differing cases of
technology development. One extreme is pre-innovation or innovation research on developing
technology components, where adoption constraints are relatively minor but still have to be
considered in the research process. The other extreme - the integrated approach to innovating
agriculture – puts quite different demands on science to follow, learn, understand and facilitate
multiple innovation processes building on best fit packages or general principles. Both extremes
seek best returns to research investment, and have to consider and learn from impact pathways,
anticipated and actual impact, but the latter case is methodologically more challenging. The
previous chapter hinted at other requirements for successful adoption of EEIs and PDAMIs
than pure technical functionality. This should be matter of concern for natural science.
Agricultural development narrative lenses give different perspectives on what drives
agricultural development. How do our different cases of natural science for agricultural
development relate to these narratives, and what we are prepared to entertain to approach an
elusive meta-narrative?
5.
Perspectives and narratives on agricultural development
Development research is an elusive concept. It is a broader term than development studies and
development economics (using political science and economics as disciplinary platform). In what
34
respect is development research different from “other” research? Internet search for a definition yields
many references to research and development. According to OECD “research and experimental
development comprises creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock
of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of
knowledge to devise new applications.” Organisations with a development research remit view their
role similar to that expressed by IDRC: “The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is a
Crown corporation created by the Parliament of Canada in 1970 to help developing countries use
science and technology to find practical, long-term solutions to the social, economic, and
environmental problems they face”. CGIAR’s vision “to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human
health and nutrition, and enhance ecosystem resilience through high-quality international agricultural
research, partnership and leadership” explains CGIAR’s constant quest to refine its impact assessment
of research. There seems to be a shared concern for science and technology to contribute to actual
impact and solutions. For development research to have a meaning, presumes that such research
addresses problems that are somehow unique to developing countries, perhaps resembling the problem
issues of Sweden 75-150 years ago, when our research profile certainly looked different from that of
today. Still such research problems may have short-term solutions and longer-term potential research
solutions, first requiring establishment of a new scientific base. In innovation terminology, an
innovation often presumes an invention. One could then argue that the role of advanced research
institutes would primarily be to contribute to the stock of inventions. Such inventions would still have
to be identified from a real world problem of some dignity. Similar definitional intricacies are found
the field of research capacity building in developing countries. Is this development research, or simply
research collaboration? Does it imply that doctoral projects have to focus on issues of importance for
poverty reduction as sometimes expressed by Sida, and that curiosity research should not be the
mandate of developing countries? Or can one assume that doctoral projects are wisely directed to the
most pressing problems of the country in question? Obviously, how we understand agricultural
research for development is a key question.
Agricultural development narratives, being part of development narratives, present different versions
of what drives agricultural development and the implicit role and orientation of development research.
“In their simplest form, development narratives are the rules of thumb, arguments, crisis narratives,
“war stories”, and other scenarios about how development has, can, and should proceed. Development
narratives enable decision makers to take action, whether the decision makers be farmers, bureaucrats,
policy makers, agency managers, outside experts, or others. More formally, development narratives
are scenarios, (stories and arguments) that articulate the assumptions that guide decision making about
development in situations of high complexity, uncertainty, and conflict – which is to say, most
situations....
Development is a genuine difficult activity, and one of the principal ways practitioners, bureaucrats,
policy makers and other decision makers (including citizens) articulate and make sense of its
complexity, uncertainty, conflict and unfinished business is to tell scenarios and formulate arguments
that fix and steady that reality enough to make decisions about it” (Roe, in Krech III, 2004).
Stories, themes, paradigms are other terms used.
In rural development, such sequential themes may be modernisation and the dual economy; rising
yields on efficient small farms; process, participation and empowerment; and the sustainable
livelihood approach (Ellis and Biggs 2001). Smallholder versus large scale production is a paradigm
that is constantly attracting interest (Collier 2009, Collier and Dercon 2009, Wiggins 2009).
Major works, like the World Development report 2008 (World Bank 2007), the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment (MA), and the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science
and Technology for Development (IAASTD) try to provide “meta-narratives”, are much debated by
diverse groups of scholars and practitioners, and are open to many interpretations due to their ambition
to make complex sense of a complex reality. Although such meta-narratives have a much more solid
evidence base, they therefore lack the convincing simplicity of more narrow and focused narratives.
35
Narratives tend to live on, even when empirical evidence puts them in question. A well-known
example is Hardin’s tragedy of the commons. Entertaining contradictory narratives simultaneously
may cause cognitive dissonance. Such contradiction is evident in narratives and discourses on science
and technology in world agriculture (Scandizzo 2009). To the individual, rationalising choice of one
narrative or modifying one narrative may be easier than outlining counter narratives, or entertaining
several narratives. Professional background is a major determinant of how we perceive development
narratives. As narratives are hard to refute, it has been suggested that providing a counter-narrative
may best contribute to the evolution of development blueprints (Roe, 1995); an art per se.
After a short reminder of the history of agriculture, major agricultural development narratives: markets
and institutional fixes; policy fixes; livelihoods; and technology fixes (with several subthemes) are
introduced. These narratives, none of which is simple, are important components of the complex metanarratives mentioned earlier. Then four possible emerging, complementary narratives are discussed:
convergence on technology but with multiple pathways to intensification; context matters,
generalisation too; towards integrative science, and putting knowledge into use. These narratives all
contain grains of truth and not mutually exclusive.
5.1.
Historical development of agriculture
Agriculture developed roughly 10 000 years ago at several sites with planned sowing and harvesting
of plants, and has rapidly expanded since then. New technologies and crops have been integrated.
Long ago developed practices have made great strides in the last centuries. Global exchanges of local
crops and breeds have opened new opportunities.
By the 1800s yields per area unit were considerably higher than in the Middle ages. Mechanization in
the 19th and 20th centuries, introduction of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, often irrigation, and the
gradual emergence of high yielding varieties of major cereals have contributed to impressive
production increases that matched or exceeded population growth. Production increases were the
combined outcome of expansion of cultivated area and productivity enhancement; the latter often
associated with the term the Green Revolution.
Growth in yield potential of major cereals and actual productivity increases are now tapering off.
Following the great attention to climate change, agricultural price spikes and energy concerns, future
global food security has again become an issue of concern. The production increases made possible by
the GR are widely credited to have avoided Malthusian hunger scenarios and allowed the world
population to grow to current 7 billion. By 2050 crop, livestock and meat production would in value
terms have to increase by 66, 75 and 85 % respectively compared with 2005/07 (Amply illustrated in
the FAO Expert meeting on How to feed the world in 2050) to meet the growth of demand from
higher population (9.1 billion, medium variant, UN 2009) and income. This per se is a challenge,
compounded by altered production prospects caused by climate change (higher temperatures, altered
precipitation level, and seasonal distribution), competition for land and water, and uncertainties about
future energy availability and costs.
Part of the production increase would result from marginal expansion of cultivated area, but with
qualifications regarding type of production such areas can sustain. Analyses of how actual
productivities of major crops can approach attainable yields, and how potential yields can be further
augmented breath a cautious optimism (Fischer et al 2009). However, considerable investments and
radically new approaches are required for agriculture to deliver.
5.2. Markets and institutional fixes (based on World Bank 2007)
After heavy emphasis on getting the prices right through structural adjustment programmes, market
and institutional fixes (or market fundamentalism as some prefer to call it) have in recent years been
seen as the most promising driver of agricultural development. Market access, favourable prices and
well-functioning institutions are believed to encourage smallholders to invest in enhanced
productivity. Private sector development is at the core of the paradigm, with entrepreneurs and new
value chains providing the market pull. The rural setting is changing. The market and institutional fix
will allow some farmers to intensify and specialise, whereas others in marginal areas with
36
unfavourable market access will not be reached, and have to diversify in or outside of agriculture – or
exit agriculture. Obviously, transition dynamics are at play here for some 4-500 million smallholders.
For some farming is a business, for others it will remain a way of life.
Food staple markets, often characterised by high transaction costs and risks, may partially be made to
function better through establishing commodity exchanges, market information systems, warehouse
receipts, and market-based risk management tools. Effective social safety nets may be needed to
safeguard those not being able to access markets.
For traditional bulk exports, new roles are foreseen for government to regulate fair and efficient trade.
Domestic or international high-value markets are growing, much stimulated by the emergence of value
chains, usually dominated by supermarkets. These markets demand exacting produce qualities,
standards, and delivery performance. Stringent phytosanitary rules in developed countries can be real
obstacles to smallholders in developing countries. Although great hopes are pegged to value chains to
create new opportunities for smallholders through contract farming, advisory services, and credit,
other arguments favour large scale producers due to economies of scale in procurement and quality
enforcement. Mixed evidence is evidently at hand (Regoverning markets 2008). Government can
facilitate high-value value chain development through introducing systems for disease surveillance.
Input market failure is seen as major constraint to productivity enhancement in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Access to inputs is poor, and costs are high due to small markets and inadequate infrastructure.
Encouragement of skilled agro-dealers to improve access to inputs has met with some success in some
countries. Market smart approaches, not undercutting the private sector establishment, are advocated
to integrate smallholders into the market. Reform of the seed sector is needed in many countries.
Lack of finance to purchase external inputs is a frequent constraint. The banking system is still
reluctant to provide agricultural credit to individuals. Micro-finance, with considerable progress in
other activities, has still not been fully applied to agricultural activities. There are interesting emerging
services in savings, money transfer, insurance services, and leasing enabled by IT solutions.
Exposure to uninsured risks from price or weather variation remains a major deterrent to smallholders.
Previous schemes with state managed reserve stocks have shown mixed results. New ideas, like indexbased insurance schemes, are still at a pilot scale.
Producer organisations, at least in Sub-Saharan Africa, can considerably improve smallholders’
market integration through lower transaction costs, achieving some degree of market power, and
giving voice to farmer opinions There is a great variation over the continent with some countries
having a high proportional membership in producer organisations, and others with remaining state
affiliation and low membership. Legal restrictions, low managerial capacity, elite capture, and
exclusion of the poor remain constraints to overcome.
Driving agricultural development through market and institutional pull will remain a major
study field for social science, notably economics of different shades. However, to generate new
technologies with good market prospects assumes constructive communication between
technology developers and scholars of market opportunities and constraints. Technology
development has to target farms with differing prospects to enter markets, including those
barred from participation. How to do this in a situation of market, institutional, and broader
rural transformation is a complex optimization problem of concern also to natural science.
5.3. Policy fixes
WDR 2008 argues for required policy conditions and changes. A stated precondition is a favourable
socio-political climate, adequate governance, and sound macroecomic fundamentals. That is, of
course, a tall order, somehow assumed already attended to through structural adjustment. Other policy
areas relate to increasing the asset base of the poor. Access to land, including land markets, property
rights, contract enforcement, land reform, have a policy element. So has better rural education and
health, seen as essential for productivity enhancement. Elimination of historical policy biases against
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agriculture has come a long way, but further scope for improvement exists. Subsidies that distort the
market prices, e.g. for irrigation and electricity, may rather favour agriculture but should be removed
to make resource allocation more efficient. Full trade liberalisation, including removal of OECD
subsidies in various forms, is reiterated to bring impressive global welfare gains. The local impact will
find both winners and losers. “The state – through enhanced capacity and new forms of governance –
corrects market failures, regulates competition, and engages strategically in public-private partnerships
to promote competitiveness in the agribusiness sector and support the greater inclusion of smallholders
and rural workers” (p 8). Public investment in infrastructure, institutions and support services are
needed and require policy backing. Research falls in this category. Investments in R & D have not
kept up as a consequence of global and national failures of market and governance. Partnerships
between public and private sector and other actors offer opportunities, not least in high value chains.
This is all in keeping with World Bank values, and as usual supported by ample analysis and as such
hard to refute. There is, however, a deep concern about the prescriptive nature of fixes, including the
policy one. “There is of course no magic bullet for the problems of African agriculture, no technical,
market, institutional or policy fix... Possible solutions include some very old ideas, but, importantly,
these old ideas are qualified in new ways... Central to all solutions are social, cultural and political
factors. Rather than an expert-driven, technocratic approach, a more politically sophisticated stance is
required. A new emphasis needs to be on understanding and influencing processes of innovation,
intervention and policy, not just their technical content... It also required a thoroughly grounded
approach, rooted in context-specific constraint analysis, allowing for scenarios and options to be
elaborated and debated by multiple stakeholders involved in the future of African agriculture” (IDS
2005).
Effective evidence-based policy formation is the domain of e.g. economists, political economists,
and political scientists. There is, however, a role for natural science and environmental
monitoring and assessment to actively inform policy on the status of and trends in natural
resource utilisation, productivities, sustainability, and trade-offs between sustainability
dimensions at different scales, and in collaboration with social science trace the impact of policy
on such status and trends.
5.4. Livelihoods is key
Agriculture is an activity carried out by people; be they smallholders or engaged in commercial
enterprises. For smallholders agriculture is but one activity and as such has to fit a broader livelihood
context. Somewhat pointedly, we often ask what smallholders can do for agriculture, and often forget
to ask what agriculture can do for smallholders in a livelihoods context.
Rural livelihood approaches have been central to rural development thinking for decades. It is
basically about understanding and relating to how different people in different places live, and the
portfolio and diversity of activities that are used to make the best of the existing situation. Livelihoods
is a bridging perspective between many disciplines and with multiple roots. It is also a reaction to
mono-disciplinary perspectives, be they crop production science or neoliberal economics. Old roots
include village studies; the actor-oriented approach of the Wageningen school; field studies of rural
change; household and farming system studies; Rapid Rural Appraisal/Participatory Rural Appraisal
methodologies, and the seminal works of Robert Chambers; long time concern for livelihood and
environmental change with key concepts such as coping strategies and adaptation; political ecology;
and sustainability, local priorities and livelihoods including discourses such as social-ecological
systems and resilience, and sustainability science.
An often used definition tells that: “A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both
material and social resources) and activities for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it
can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets,
while not undermining the natural resource base” (Scoones 2009)
In poverty alleviation interventions sustainable livelihood approaches are now a well established way
to conceptually understand poverty dynamics in a contextual and institutional setting. The Sustainable
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Livelihood Framework (SLF) developed by IDS and DFID is best known, but alternative frameworks
exist.
DFID’s SLF, often graphically displayed, is built around five livelihood asset categories: natural,
physical, financial, human and social capital. The individual or household form strategies to use these
resources to achieve the best possible multidimensional livelihood outcomes. In doing so they have to
take into account their general contextual vulnerability setting (e.g. shocks, trends, seasonality) and the
transforming structures and processes that determine access to assets and define what strategies are
open and attractive. Livelihood outcomes influence the asset base and may be sustainable or
unsustainable.
The DFID guidance sheets underline the normative positions of the SLF:” Firstly, the approach is
‘people-centred’, in that the making of policy is based on understanding the realities of struggle of
poor people themselves, on the principle of their participation in determining priorities for practical
intervention, and on their need to influence the institutional structures and processes that govern their
lives. Secondly, it is ‘holistic’ in that it is’ non-sectoral’ and it recognises multiple influences, multiple
actors, multiple strategies and multiple outcomes. Thirdly, it is ‘dynamic’ in that it attempts to
understand change, complex cause-and-effect relationships and ‘iterative chains of events’. Fourthly, it
starts with analysis of strengths rather than of needs, and seeks to build on everyone’s inherent
potential. Fifthly, it attempts to ‘bridge the gap’ between macro- and micro-levels. Sixthly, it is
committed explicitly to several different dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic, social
and institutional” (DFID 1999).
Livelihood analysis, beyond serving as checklist, is resource demanding. Criticism of SLF and its
applications require further sophistication, but also tempt the danger to resort to mono-disciplinary
perspectives (Scoones 2009). Livelihood analysis, to develop further, should be re-energised to : 1)
engage with processes of economic globalisation; 2) pay more attention to power and politics and the
failure to link livelihoods and governance debates in development; 3) rigorously deal with long-term
secular change in environmental conditions; and 4) grapple with the debates about long-term shifts in
rural economies and wider questions about agrarian change.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the diversity and dynamics of rural livelihoods. Households with
similar assets may choose quite different strategies. Changing internal and external conditions are
reflected in adapting livelihood strategies, often aiming at moving targets. Old “truths” that farmers
prefer higher productivities or cash incomes are qualified. Resource allocation between farming, offfarm employment and exiting agriculture show a diversity of patterns. Investment in agriculture is not
always the first choice.
Rural livelihood analysis is the domain of e.g. sociologists, anthropologists and reformed
economists. Technology development and dissemination cannot take place isolated from
livelihood concerns. It has to relate to rural livelihoods in identifying, designing, implementing
and evaluating natural science research through an experiential and mutual learning paradigm.
This broadens the necessary interface of natural science.
5.5. Technology fixes
A double or triple GR is needed for Africa! It is a slogan heard from many quarters and with
diversified views on what this means in terms of technologies, and how it is different from the Asian
GR. In all fairness, the Asian Revolution, closely associated with technology packages for intensified
production of major cereals in favourable (usually irrigated) areas, also had a conducive market,
institutional and policy environment. Conversely, the relative failure of GR in Africa may be attributed
to less favourable natural conditions and weaker technology packages, but possibly even more to a
non-supportive market, institutional and policy environments.
5.5.1. The Green Revolution in retrospect
Economic and social impacts of the GR have been studied extensively. Adoption, adopter
characteristics, and impact are well documented for the GR in Asia, though interpretations still differ.
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Negative environmental effects of agricultural development, with the GR being one of many driving
forces, have become increasingly evident but vary between different farming systems. Effects include
pesticide use affecting health, biodiversity, and building up resistance; nutrient leaching from
excessive fertilizer use; deterioration of soil health, emergence of erosion, sedimentation, and
deteriorating water quality when GR was not combined with sound agricultural practices; salinization
and water logging (irrigated fields); decreased resilience of crops and narrowing genetic base.
Efforts to repeat the GR in Africa, were less successful. Some of the reasons are: 1) African weak
governance, corruption and insecurity; 2) the diversity of the African agroecological situation and
farming systems, often with higher production risks; 3) GR in Africa had less to offer for traditional
staple foods under varying, rainfed conditions; 4) market imperfections are more pronounced; 5) lower
population density in Africa has implications for market access, infrastructure and service provision;
6) the profitability of the input packages declined as a result of comparatively high and increasing
input prices and stagnating produce prices; 7) whereas GR in Asia was heavily state supported and
governed, the same support did not come forth in Africa, partially as a result of weakened price
incentives, subsidies, credit access, research and extension support, etc following structural
adjustment.
5.5.2. The quest for sustainable and multifunctional agriculture
A series of international conventions and summits have addressed the utilization of the Earth’s
resources. The insights that the Earth’s resources are finite and heavily exploited are expressed in the
quest for sustainable development, with sustainable agriculture as one of the components.
There are hundreds of definitions of Sustainable Agriculture (SA), often reflecting different
ideological stands:
“Sustainable Development is the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the
orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment and
continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations. Such sustainable
development (in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors) conserves land, water, plant and animal
genetic resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and
socially acceptable” (definition adopted by FAO 1989).
Or another example from FAO:
“FAO defines SARD (Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development) as a process which meets the
following criteria:

Ensures that the basic nutritional requirements of present and future generations, qualitatively
and quantitatively, are met while providing a number of other agricultural products.

Provides durable employment, sufficient income, and decent living and working conditions
for all those engaged in agricultural production.

Maintains and, where possible, enhances the productive capacity of the natural resource base
as a whole, and the regenerative capacity of renewable resources, without disrupting the functioning of
basic ecological cycles and natural balances, destroying the socio-cultural attributes of rural
communities, or causing contamination of the environment.
 Reduces the vulnerability of the agricultural sector to adverse natural and socio-economic factors
and other risks, and strengthens self-reliance” (FAO 1995).
J. Pretty, an influential scholar on sustainable agriculture, describes key principles for sustainability
and how to interpret the principles:
“i. integrate biological and ecological processes such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, soil
regeneration, allelopathy, competition, predation and parasitism into food production processes;
ii. minimise the use of those non-renewable inputs that cause harm to the environment or to the health
of farmers and consumers;
iii. make productive use of the knowledge and skills of farmers, so improving their self-reliance and
substituting human capital for costly external inputs;
iv. make productive use of people’s collective capacities to work together to solve common
agricultural and natural resource problems, such as for pest, watershed, irrigation, forest and credit
management.
40
The idea of agricultural sustainability, though, does not mean ruling out any technologies or practices
on ideological grounds. If a technology works to improve productivity for farmers, and does not cause
undue harm to the environment, then it is likely to have some sustainability benefits. Agricultural
systems emphasizing these principles also tend to be multi-functional within landscapes and
economies. They jointly produce food and other goods for farmers and markets, but also contribute to
a range of valued public goods, such as clean water, wildlife and habitats, carbon sequestration, flood
protection, groundwater recharge, landscape amenity value, and leisure/tourism. In this way,
sustainability can be seen as both relative and case-dependent, and implies a balance between a range
of agricultural and environmental goods and services” (Pretty 2008).
It has been argued that sustainability defies definition. Obviously, e.g. “causing harm to the
environment” has multiple interpretations. Durable employment, sufficient income, and decent living
and working conditions for all those engaged in agricultural production is certainly desirable, but gives
little guidance in trade-offs between contemporary producer categories, or between current and future
welfare in a dynamic and transforming sector.
Many terms associated with but not synonymous with SA illustrate the range of conceptual and/or
methodological approaches. Some of the approaches were discussed previously in Chapter 3.
Concepts
Agroecology,
Agroforestry,
Alternative
farming/alternative
agriculture,
Biodynamic
agriculture/biodynamic farming, Bio-intensive gardening/mini-farming, Biological farming/ecological
farming, Biotechnology, Community based, Conservation tillage/farming/agriculture, Ecoagriculture,
Ecologically intensive farming, Genetic improvement, Grass farming, Holistic management,
Integrated farming systems/integrated food and farming systems, Integrated genetic and natural
resource management, Integrated natural resource management, Integrated pest management,
Integrated soil fertility management, Integrated soil and water resources management, Integrated water
resources management, Intensive/controlled grazing, Land rehabilitation, Landscape approaches, Low
external input agriculture, Natural farming, Nature farming, Nutrient management, Organic farming,
Pest control, Precision farming/agriculture, Regenerative agriculture, Resource conserving agriculture,
Soil and water conservation, Sustainable land management, Sustainable production intensification,
Tillage, Water harvesting, Water management.
In the end, any claims that one type or the other is sustainable, or more sustainable, have to start off
from clarifying “what is being sustained, for how long, for whose benefits and whose cost, over what
area, and measured by what criteria” (Pretty 1995).
The concept multifunctional agriculture (MFA) has similarities to sustainable agriculture. It has many
definitions and interpretations with different disciplinary entry points. OECD’s definition of MFA
(also used by IAASTD) states that:
“Beyond its primary function of producing food and fibre, agricultural activity can also shape the
landscape, provide environmental benefits such as land conservation, the sustainable management of
renewable natural resources and the preservation of biodiversity, and contribute to the socio-economic
viability of many rural areas.
Agriculture is multifunctional when it has one or several functions in addition to its primary role of
producing food and fibre” (OECD Declaration of Agricultural Ministers Committee).
The elaboration of agriculture’s environmental, economic and social functionality is indicated in the
well-known IAASTD graph below:
The inescapable interconnectedness of agriculture’s different roles and functions
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Technology matters but has few silver bullets. SA and MFA concepts extend the demands on
combinations of external inputs and improved practices/systems that may improve agricultural
performance, and add emphasis to the necessity to study and modify systems through adaptive
management over longer time. The concepts also add dealing with trade-offs between
dimensions of sustainability over areas, groups and time. Some of the dimensions still fall within
natural science. Others require collaboration with social science to ensure best impact.
5.6
Emerging, complementary narratives?
5.6.1 Convergence on technology, but with multiple pathways to intensification
The fierce debate on Organic farming can feed the world – Organic farming cannot feed the world is a
good example of two narratives with considerable cognitive dissonance (e.g. Badgley 2007, Connor
2008). There are obvious methodological difficulties to prove and disprove either stand on a global
level. Choice of technologies will be both place-, producer- and time-specific. This narrative maintains
that there are valuable lessons to be drawn from alternative technology options and the possible
synergies between options.
Finding the right balance between and combination of modern technologies (EEI) and improved
agronomic and management innovations (PDAMI) has been a constant debate in the CGIAR system.
There are, however, also signs of convergence as illustrated by some system-wide approaches,
Challenge, and emerging mega programs. One expression of such a wish for convergence is found in
the quote below:
“Traditionally, crop improvement and NRM were seen as distinct but complementary disciplines.
ICRISAT is deliberately blurring these boundaries to create the new paradigm of IGNRM (integrated
genetic and natural resource management). Improved varieties and improved resource management are
two sides of the same coin. Most farming systems problems require integrated solutions, with genetic,
management-related and socio-economic components. In essence, plant breeders and NRM scientists
must integrate their work with that of private- and public-sector change management to develop
flexible cropping systems, which can respond to rapid changes in market opportunities and climatic
conditions. It is time to stop debate on genetic enhancement or NRM and adopt the IGNRM approach
converging genetic, NRM, social and institutional aspects with market linkages” (Wani et al 2009, p
11).
Many examples in chapter 3 illustrate approaches where EEI and PDAMI technologies are combined.
It is clear from the examples that multiple entry points and pathways to intensification exist in a given
context. The science base differs between the pathways; some having been on the agenda for many
decades, others being more recently explored. Pathways have different characteristics with respect to
42
technical performance but also in terms of knowledge, skills, resources, and time requirements;
constraints and risks, and cost/benefit streams. Crossovers between pathways are less researched. A
high degree of coordination and cross-learning is required of the national and international science
communities to have a balanced approach to intensification pathways and not oversell some concepts.
Why then are these comparative studies and synergies not explored further? Several speculative
reasons come to mind:
1) PDAMI packages are still relatively under-researched. What they deliver when fully developed
(which takes time and resources) is less known. Synergies with EEIs hence rest on a weak knowledge
base.
2) Most likely, there is a great deal of pathway dependency in agricultural research that conserves past
research orientation.
3) Several, powerful parties endorse the EEI paradigm: politicians seek to demonstrate quick results,
scientist still want to believe in the magic bullet, and commercial interests are keen to supply inputs.
4) The institutional divide between mainstream research and extension, agro-dealers and credit
institutions delivering EEIs, and the add-ons or even opponents trying to convince households to learn
to apply agronomic and management principles for long-term build-up or restoration of healthier
production systems.
5) Comparative on-farm studies of alternative pathways to intensification, and possible synergies
between pathways, are resource-demanding, methodologically difficult and may lack a natural
institutional base.
6) Proliferation of concepts and actors may be a problem, although pluralism is on paper welcome.
Approaches to improved production were originally phrased in neutral, textbook nomenclature. A
contemporary technology like improved fallows can be promoted by advocates of CA, ISFM,
ecological farming, and SA. Order and relation between concepts is often ambiguous. Resource
conserving, ecological, and sustainable carry positive connotations and imply some superiority over
other terms, more relying on disciplinary nomenclature. Old project approaches are relabelled to
appear more appealing. New concepts result in evermore new projects and supporter groups.
Advantages of such new concepts may be promotional, or systems-emphasising, as preferred by
farmers. Concept proliferation, school divisions and institutional divides do not facilitate learning from
each other!
Convergence on technologies seems deceptively simple and logical but may run counter not only
to ideological schools but to scientific traditions. Scientists developing EEIs may lean more to a
linear model of transfer of ready technology and expectations of quick returns. NRM scientists
may have more of a holistic, multiscale approach, and believe in adaptive management over
longer periods. Both sides have to find common ground, rather than competition, and explore
the obvious synergies between their contributions. Comparative and synergy studies, and
synthesis and meta-research are warranted but have methodological challenges. A high degree
of coordination and cross-learning is required of the science communities to have a balanced
approach to alternative intensification pathways and not oversell pet concepts.
5.6.2. Context matters, generalisation too
On paper and in practice, the importance of context specificity in agricultural research is increasingly
recognised. Examples range from the broad brush to the fine lines.
IBRD’s WDR 2008 recognises context specificity in its division of agriculture into three different
agricultural worlds, and in turn, the fertile areas with good market access and the marginal, less
connected areas. Dorward (2009), exploring how neoliberal and civil society stances can find neutral
ground for debate, speaks of three categories of households or higher level groupings: those stepping
up (intensifying, market-orienting), stepping out (into non-farm economy), or hanging in (improved,
diversified staple food production, social safety nets). Policy implications for the three groups are
quite different. In a similar vein, the report on farming systems of the world and poverty Dixon et al
(2001) describes 8 major systems and 72 subsystems, based on the natural resource base and socioeconomic conditions, dominating farming system, livelihood pattern and technology utilisation, with
respect to coverage, population, trends, production, potentials and constraints as a point of departure.
Prospects for the main strategies open for farmers: to intensify, diversify, or exit agriculture as part of
43
rural livelihood strategies are analysed. In a meta-analysis of the potential of organic and resource
conserving agriculture (ORCA) to improve livelihood, Bennett (2009) distinguishes between ORCA’s
potential for conventional and traditional/organic by default systems, and proceeds to outline a
framework for site-specific evaluation, including natural resource characteristics, but also features of
physical, financial, human, and social capital. Work by the African Highlands Initiative (Amede 2006)
describes experiences of processes for place-specific, sequential intensification pathways.
Qualitative livelihood analyses have demonstrated how diversified and dynamic household livelihood
strategies are even in confined areas and among seemingly similar households.
On a technical note, former fertilizer blanket use recommendations are found severely wanting, when
soil fertility gradients and their causes in a village or even within a farm have become better known.
Yields vary between fields and between farmers (Sanginga and Woomer 2009). Whatever agricultural
recommendations science may forward will have to fit the complex local situation. The efficiency of
recommendations can be improved through soil testing but at a cost (that can possibly be reduced).
Defining technical recommendation domains will be helped by tools such as the Global Soil Map. Best
bets or fits can presumably be improved by a variety of models and simulations at different scales to
increase the precision of domain recommendations, and to follow and guide implementation. One can
argue that economies of scale would favour joint efforts rather than proponents of specific
intensification strategies pursuing their interests in isolation.
Context-specificity also means a deepened understanding of the socio-economic realities, constraints,
opportunities, and driving forces for better targeting of recommendations. Such targeting tools are less
well developed, less accurate and presumably less stable over time. Probably the methods and
processes used are more transferable than targeting results as such.
Agricultural science is faced with a dilemma. It has to become more sensitive to local contexts
and at the same time increase the “hit rate” of best bets and fits geographically and socioeconomically. Best fit recommendations should arise from sequential, non prescriptive decision
tools with sufficient flexibility to include local context. Context-specificity and generalisation
have to encompass social and economic best fits targeting, which calls for collaboration over
scientific borders. Skills like systems analysts, modellers, scenario builders, participatory
process facilitators, action researchers, and synthesis researchers have important roles to play;
none of these skills figuring strongly in traditional academic disciplines.
5.6.3. Towards integrative science
Disciplinary research will still make a contribution to agricultural development. Genetic improvement
for drought tolerance, water and nutrient efficiency, climate change adaptation, and pest and disease
resistance are contemporary cases of strategic importance.
However, ...”Many of the challenges facing agriculture currently and in the future will require more
innovative and integrated applications of existing knowledge, science and technology (formal,
traditional and community-based), as well as new approaches for agricultural and natural resource
management” (IAASTD 2008). Few are questioning the need for more and better interdisciplinary
research. But how? Advanced research institutions grapple with fitting interdisciplinary research to
disciplinary and department structures, and how to ascertain research quality on top of traditional
disciplinary criteria.
In the CGIAR system integrative science is a conceptual and operational framework often used to
structure research programmes. These frameworks ostensibly have a biophysical focus: pests (IPM),
soils (ISFM), agriculture (IAR4D), or natural resources (INRM) but often include livelihood, market
and policy issues. The INRM definition and framework are guiding principles for larger research
programmes, like the challenge programmes Integrated Agricultural Research for Development
(IAR4D) and Water and Food, and many of the future systems-oriented mega-programmes. The
definition of INRM indicates a sophisticated (and complicated) understanding of inter- or
transdisciplinarity:
“INRM is an approach to research that aims at improving livelihoods, agroecosystem resilience,
agricultural productivity and environmental services. In other words, it aims to augment social,
44
physical, human, natural and financial capital. It does this by helping solve complex real-world
problems affecting natural resources in agroecosystems. Its efficiency in dealing with these problems
comes from its ability to:
 empower relevant stakeholders
 resolve conflicting interests of stakeholders
 foster adaptive management capacity
 focus on key causal elements (and thereby deal with complexity)
 integrate levels of analysis
 merge disciplinary perspectives
 make use of a wide range of available technologies
 guide research on component technologies
 generate policy, technological and institutional alternatives” (CGIAR/INRM home page)
A keynote paper to the IAR4D elaborates the conceptual framework and the operational learning
wheel (Campbell and Hagmann 2003). Some specific issues under the three cornerstones of the
conceptual framework are indicative of this paradigm:
What type of science to do: the importance of wider systems thinking is stressed;
Adapting and learning: managing knowledge, evaluation of impact, and towards action research;
Social organisation of science: burying the research-development continuum, realigning scientific
culture and organisation, and leadership and facilitation.
As this type of research presumes multidisciplinary research teams and participation of non-research
stakeholders, implementation has to be carefully guided, as outlined by 11 spokes of a learning wheel,
collated from INRM experience.
The paper and paradigm claims it is a new way of doing business! So it is, but as experience has
shown, it is not easy to manage such research processes. Programmes are usually large and certainly
complex. Many scientists and science institutions have demonstrated an inclination to return to a
default mode. Larger INRM research programmes represent an attempt to consolidate research but
may not solve the dilemma of scaling up and out. Difficulties encountered are indicative of the
complex challenge to institutionalise new paradigms in research and education.
Integrative science is needed but faces increasing conceptual and operational obstacles the more
comprehensive the approach chosen. INRM, as an example advanced integrative science, may
on these grounds be easy to discard but suppose it is valuable in the overall portfolio of research
approaches! In practice it means longer-term, larger research programmes with explicit mix of
disciplines, including action research, team-building including participants outside academia,
pilot implementation for validation, knowledge management, and experiential learning from
identifying and following impact and impact pathways. Progress of INRM research depends
heavily on key competencies seldom found in traditional research institutions: team-builders,
facilitators, people skilled in participatory methodologies (e.g. qualitative methods, action
research, soft systems thinking), synthesis researchers, etc. INRM is happening, but how do we
relate to it?
5.6.4 Putting knowledge into use
It is opportune to reflect on the use of science and the role of scientists in development. In the
introduction it was premised that R&D/development research implies achieving practical results,
solutions, impacts. How will then science translate into impact? Has available science been put to
practical use, or are there still “technologies on the shelves that have not been disseminated”?
Over time alternative perspectives have been applied to how research results become used:
National agricultural research systems (NARS)→ agricultural knowledge and information systems
(AKIS)→ agricultural innovation systems (AIS) (Assefa in Sanginga 2009), or,
Transfer of technology→ Farming systems research→ Farmer first/Farmer participatory research→
People-centered innovation and learning (Scoones 2009, p 6).
45
Innovation system thinking has a long history in the industrialised world, and is now also in vogue in
low-income countries. It is applied to developing countries in general and to agricultural innovations.
It recognises that technological change does not follow a simple linear model, that science is but one
knowledge form, is not the only driver of innovation, has to consider the demand side; and that other
stakeholder categories are involved in innovation. One of many definitions describing the concept:
“An innovation system can be defined as a network of organizations, enterprises, and individuals
focused on bringing new products, new processes, and new forms of organization into economic use,
together with the institutions and policies that affect their behavior and performance. The innovation
systems concept embraces not only the science suppliers but the totality and interaction of actors
involved in innovation. It extends beyond the creation of knowledge to encompass the factors affecting
demand for and use of knowledge in novel and useful ways” (World Bank 2006).
In practice there are many innovation systems – innovation system diversity. The transfer of
technology perspective – somehow always the default model – has its clear relevance for some types
of innovations. Long-term, skill- and labour-intensive improvement of production systems, applying
principles rather than fixed technologies, is an entirely different case.
A similar sequence of perspectives is also found in extension approaches, where traditional package
approaches practiced by state extension, T&V and Sasakawa Global 2000 have been complemented by
demand-driven alternatives, such as farmers’ research committees and Farmer Field Schools. They try
to encourage farmer experimentation and to impart agroecological knowledge through social learning
to enable farmer adaptation to current and future situations.
Innovation systems thinking has made inroads into research programming. Challenge and
megaprogrammes mentioned above have an explicit innovation system perspective. Lessons from
DFID’s Renewable Natural Resource programme, now continued as the Sustainable Agriculture
programme, suggest framing research in innovation systems terms. Different categories of
stakeholders are involved. Communication between stakeholders before, during and after the research
process is vital. Analysing and realising impact pathways is becoming a standard operating procedure.
DFID, as a part of the SA programme, implements the Research Into Use programme with the
ambition to bring promising previously developed technologies one step further to use.
CGIAR has a constant need to change with the expanded agenda from a centre-of-excellence model to
one of effective participation in innovation systems. Such a change is not least institutional and
individual. Initially, ILAC (Institutional Learning and Change in the CGIAR system) was established
as a reaction to CGIAR’s impact evaluations. They were seen as over-emphasizing successes,
attributed to research, and not enough encouraging learning. ILAC, housed by Biodiversity
International, has since broadened its focus on increased contribution of international agricultural
research to sustainable poverty reduction by looking into practical new knowledge on innovation
processes, strengthening capacity of collaborative programmes to deliver, fostering leadership for propoor innovations, and facilitating effective communication and knowledge sharing among
stakeholders in innovation processes.
Selected issues, concepts and methodologies pursued by ILAC are: Perspectives on Partnership;
Accountability framework for technological innovation; Participatory Market Chain Approach;
Participatory decision-making: The core of multi-stakeholder collaboration; Institutionalizing impact
assessment; Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis; Engaging scientists through institutional
histories; Human resources management, knowledge sharing and organizational learning; Building
multi-stakeholder innovation systems through learning alliances; Outcome mapping, Appreciative
inquiry; Innovation histories; Learning-oriented evaluation.
The innovation system perspective reiterates thoughts expressed i.a. under adoption and
integrative science but with a less explicit entry point in research. It asks important questions
about the role of science, scientists, and scientific institutions in the national innovation systems.
The consequences may be far-reaching and possibly not easy to combine with traditional
academic performance criteria. Parallels can be seen in e.g. the discussion about Mode 1 and
Mode 2 production of knowledge (Gibbons et al 1994). Interest in national innovations systems
46
in developing countries has further brought to the fore how national agricultural research
organisations relate to such systems and, ultimately, how it would be reflected in bilateral
research collaboration involving Swedish agricultural scientists.
6.
Concluding discussion – new roles and binding constraints for Swedish agricultural
research for development?
The paper has from entry points summarised in the figure below attempted to stimulate reactions on
our position on agricultural research for development, notably from a natural science perspective. This
is a way to put the business as usual (BAU) position under scrutiny for possible clarification and
enrichment. BAU has not resulted not from explicit deliberation, but rather from the interests of
individual scientists, existing disciplinary and departmental divisions, academic reward systems, and
the few financial sources available. Bold-faced punchlines at the end of each entry point illustrate
issues to consider in the business as usual scenario. Punchlines have bearings both for individual
scientists and the departmental and overall collective. One possible insight from the discussion may be
an increased appreciation of how diverse and scattered competencies could jointly generate value
added, if given the opportunity.
The technology
fix
Livelihoods is
key
Policy fixes
Markets and
institutional fixes
“Perception of adoption of
innovations”
Business As Usual?
Putting knowledge
into use
Towards
integrative science
Context matters,
generalisation too
Convergence on
technology, but
with multiple
intensification
pathways
There are arguments in favour of BAU position:
Academic. BAU has a high return in terms of traditional scientific quality and rewards. Scientific
quality is assuming increasing importance in the Swedish academic context both at the institutional
and individual level. From a technology generation perspective, advanced research institutes have an
important role in supporting research (“inventions”), necessary in later technology development.
Attempts to introduce relevance and impact as performance indicators are more rhetoric, subject to
measurement problems, and often linked to commercialisation and patenting. Evidence demonstrates
that wishing for more interdisciplinary and impact-oriented approaches is easy; successfully doing it in
practice is much harder. Our departmental structure and academic assessment system is one
explanation. Enhanced diffusion and adoption of improved technologies require both biophysical and
social, economic and political part-solutions. Swedish agricultural science and social science scholars
seldom display coherent and simultaneous engagement in common research issues. Some of the
47
complementary research approaches require not only interdisciplinarity, but also combining hard
science with action research, communication, and considering uptake and uptake pathways. This in
turn implies team research and multistakeholder settings, including actors outside academia. Such
traditions and practices emerge only over time. The value of such research is appreciated but in a few
disciplines, and scholars may hesitate to assume the process facilitation role often necessary.
At least in natural science all this seems relatively neglected compared with nations leading
development research (e.g. DFID programmes on Renewable Natural Resource Management,
Sustainable Agriculture; and Putting Research Into Use mentioned earlier, and Wageningen
University).
Financial. Sweden is a small country and cannot sustain major development research programmes. In
practice, external funding is limited to Sida, providing opportunities for bilateral research cooperation
(i.e. research capacity building) and support to Swedish development research. Both financial
windows have consequences for what kind of research can be funded. Swedish Development Research
(Sida), with some late exceptions, funds smaller three-year projects. Bilateral cooperation prioritises
doctoral projects, with a given format and so far limited opportunities for follow-up research and
dissemination. With the establishment of Sarec, Swedish research councils have withdrawn from
funding development research (Formas a late exception). Long-term research/development
programmes of INRM-character are extremely cumbersome to finance within the Swedish
Development Research system (and elsewhere). Direct support to SLU from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs may mark a changed attitude. There are also sign that Swedish Development Research is
recognising the value of putting research into use.
Swedish universities to a varying but small extent fund agricultural research for development.
Arguments for such funding can be found in the disciplinary character (e.g. international economics,
political science) or in the Swedish value added (e.g. contagious diseases, possibly entering our
country). External, complementary funding is frequently a must.
Transaction costs when seeking new and less certain financial sources, and adapting to other types of
research and research environments, may be prohibitive. Considerable international finance is
available. For larger grants Swedish researchers have to pay the entry ticket to international consortia
who have sufficient track record, lobbying capacity, and proposal writing skills adapted to the standard
asked by the funder. In case of major inputs to such research grant proposals, a faculty or university
chief lobbyist/proposal writer is a precondition. Such a talent is difficult to identify within the
university system.
Organisational. Development research will most likely be a secondary priority in the Swedish
university system. Few scientists are able to engage full-time in development research. For
geographically neutral frontier research (e.g. biotechnology) this may be less of a disadvantage. For
research where context matters (e.g. tropical cropping systems or tropical soil fertility), it is a definite
disadvantage. Agricultural research for development is distributed over many departments in the
country, and few have a critical mass of development researchers. A comparison with the UK and the
Netherlands is inevitable. Deviations from BAU make research institutes, NGOs, and specialised
consulting companies potential participants in research consortia. Sweden has a relatively weak
institute structure. Links between academia and NGOs/consulting companies could be better. Our
links to international agricultural research programmes are less well developed than those of leading
nations, partially because no buy-ins have been supported by the authorities concerned.
Summing up, there are many heavy arguments for remaining with the business as usual. What are the
counter-arguments?
Arguments for modification of business as usual:
The past analysis has in some length argued that agricultural research for development in various ways
has to be partially re-oriented and reorganised, as has gradually but slowly happened. But the changing
perception of agricultural research for development is based on experience and needs assessments, and
should hence be of concern for the Swedish contribution to agricultural research for development.
48
Although many references in the text were made to the CGIAR, there are also implications for
agricultural research in national universities and research organisations. It is therefore thoughtprovoking to consider if available competence can be put to more and better use, needs to be modified,
and what it would take. This analysis is rarely held by Swedish universities or by the concerned
authorities.
Although the current research portfolio is fragmented, it is also fair to say that considerable synergies
could emerge, if development researchers in the country had stronger incentives to cooperate. Such
cooperation would have the additional benefit to create appreciation of other disciplines and skills
when put in a programmatic context. The current emphasis on research networks illustrates one
possible instrument, but also the inherent difficulties.
A clarified and enriched BAU could open access to new international finance. Agriculture and
agricultural research for development has attracted new interest, but there is a strong tradition not to
earmark Swedish development cooperation resources to use of Swedish competence. An expansion of
activities would have to build on coalition building with international partners to access new finance.
What does it take?
Several measures may contribute to modification of the business as usual scenario:
Universities can clarify and enrich their university strategies, become explicit on their position on
agricultural research for development, encourage establishment of fixed development research posts,
and a programmatic approach;
Authorities also have to become clear on how they view such development research, what role
Swedish research has in this context, and what programmatic support there should be. Ideally, one
could wish for a major and long-term initiative similar to the Norwegian support of rainforest
conservation in an area like “sustainable land management and livelihoods” with buy-ins from
Swedish researchers.
Our fragmented research in this field is in general embedded in disciplinary departments. A critical
mass is supposed to emerge through networking. It may be interesting to learn from alternative
approaches at Wageningen, various UK universities and institutes, Noragric at UMB, and forestry at
Helsinki university. Critical mass through drinking coffee together has some obvious advantages!
The narratives in previous sections suggest the need for individual scientists, research collective, and
bridging champions who appreciate other disciplines, multiple narratives, convergence on
technologies but with multiple intensification pathways, improving best fit procedures, move towards
integrative science, and putting knowledge to use. The skills and knowledge requirements have been
indicated. Such requirements may marginally affect some categories of scientists but also indicate lack
of competence in other categories. Are there institutional and personal incentives nowadays for
pursuing such a development? Change management to move in such directions is arduous and
presumes a well-designed strategy and perseverance. Greater exposure to how international
agricultural research for development is carried out is an effective influential factor.
Many of the desirable proficiencies and skills may not be rewarded by the individual or institutional
merit assessment system. This is by no means unique to development research and requires creativity
to be overcome.
A key success factor to a clarified and enriched position on agricultural research for development is
closer links with international organisations, networks and funders. Many individual scientists work on
linkages. Institutional linkages at higher levels take dedicated champions from top management or
appointed in special order; and lobbyists, diplomats, skilled proposal writers, etc. Compared to some
other countries, special measures may be needed as such “infiltration” skills are not a Swedish
speciality!
Scientists should still live curious, with eyes open, and be encouraged to do so!?
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Annex
Fertilizer and pesticide use in African countries (WDR 2008)
Country
Fertilizer use,
kg of nutrients
per ha of arable
and permanent
cropland 2003/5
Algeria
Angola
Benin
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Central A. R.
Chad
Congo, D.R.
Congo, Rep.
Cote d’Ivoire
Egypt
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Ghana
Guinea
Kenya
Madagascar
Malawi
13
3
0
7
1
8
Na
Na
Na
Na
10
572
1
3
4
2
44
3
23
Pesticide use,
hundreds of
grams per ha of
arable and
permanent
cropland 2000/2
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
0.9
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
0.6
0.1
Na
3.5
0.3
Na
Fertilizer use intensity by region (kgs/ha)
Asia, excl. ME
Central America & Caribbean
Europe
Middle East and North Africa
North America
Oceania
South America
Sub-Saharan Africa
Developed countries
Developing countries
Source World Resources Institute
222.2
68.1
152.3
144.3
161.0
167.3
195.0
9.6
165.3
180.1
Country
Fertilizer use,
kg of nutrients
per ha of arable
and permanent
cropland 2003/5
Mali
Mauritania
Morocco
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierra Leone
South Africa
Sudan
Tanzania
Togo
Tunisia
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Na
Na
52
5
2
0
6
Na
22
Na
49
4
13
6
26
1
Na
30
Pesticide use,
hundreds of
grams per ha of
arable and
permanent
cropland 2000/2
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
0.9
1.6
15.6
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na
Na