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1 Humphreys, E.; Tuong, T. P.; Gomez-Macpherson, H.; Tabo, R.; Awulachew, Seleshi Bekele; Bediako, J. 2009. Increasing the productivity and sustainability of rainfed cropping systems of poor, smallholder farmers: overview of recent findings from the Challenge Program on Water and Food. In Humphreys, E.; Bayot, R. S. (Eds.). Increasing the productivity and sustainability of rainfed cropping systems of poor smallholder farmers: proceedings of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, International Workshop on Rainfed Cropping Systems, Tamale, Ghana, 22-25 September 2008. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food. pp.1-21.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: 631 G000 HUM Record No: H042438)
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/PDF/Outputs/WaterfoodCP/CPWF_Proceedings_Rainfed_Workshop%5B1%5D.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H042438.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H042438.pdf
(0.58 MB) (8.92MB)
The majority of the world’s rural poor people depend on rainfed crop and livestock systems for their food and livelihoods. However, the productivity of these systems is often low, leading to hunger and poverty, and land and water degradation often prevail. As this review of the findings of many CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food and other projects shows, there are many well-known technical options to enable better use of rainwater and nutrients by crops. These include the use of improved varieties, improved fertilizer and agronomic management, in-field water harvesting, conservation agriculture, and supplementary irrigation from ground and surface water sources. For maximum benefit, integrated crop, nutrient, soil and water management is essential. However crop yield response to these technologies is variable, depending on site, cultural practices and seasonal conditions, affecting adoption by farmers. The challenges to achieving widespread adoption of the improved technologies include identifying the optimal or “best bet” technologies for local situations, taking into account the local agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions, plus institutional and policy factors at local to national levels. Systematic approaches, with detailed process monitoring, combined with the use of crop simulation models, are needed to develop generic guidelines to match technologies to agro-ecological conditions, together with analyses of risk in terms of productivity and profitability. The improved technologies must be used by very large numbers of poor farm families if they are to make a substantial difference to rural food security and quality of livelihoods. However, widespread uptake of technologies also requires good understanding of farmers’ socio-economic conditions and perceptions, and the presence of enabling policies and institutional arrangements. These include investment in dissemination strategies, improvements in access to micro-credit and input and product markets, fertilizer subsidies, and investment in infrastructure such as roads. Widespread adoption of technologies to increase land and water productivity of rainfed cropping systems will affect patterns and quality of runoff to surface water bodies, and deep drainage to groundwater systems, with possible consequences for downstream water users, including surface and groundwater dependent ecosystems. Therefore a focus on integrated land and water resources management is important, and this must be done across scales, from groups of small fields to communities, to sub-catchments and catchments, and ultimately to whole river basins. Unfortunately, this has not been adequately addressed.
Based on the findings of this review, five key recommendations are proposed to further progress the adaptation and adoption of improved technologies to improve food security and livelihoods of poor, rural smallholders. These are:
Recommendation 1 – systematic evaluations of water harvesting
and conservation agriculture technologies, integrated with crop and nutrient management, and with good monitoring of crop and soil water dynamics to develop generic process understanding
Recommendation 2 – use of crop simulation modeling to inform the systematic evaluation in recommendation 1; this will also require significant investment in good data sets for model calibration and evaluation
Recommendation 3 – development and application of models and other approaches for assessing the impacts of widescale adoption of improved crop/water management technologies in farmers’ fields at a range of scales from micro-catchment to basins
Recommendation 4 – longer term trials with the warrantage (inventory credit) system to assess its sustainability and impacts, and factors leading to successful implementation
Recommendation 5 – significant investment in understanding farmers’ conditions and perceptions, and in the development of institutions and policies that enable widespread uptake of improved technologies by farmers, and that promote integrated land and water resources management. This should include policies that enable the tremendous potential for fertilizer to greatly increase production in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Based on the findings of this review, five key recommendations are proposed to further progress the adaptation and adoption of improved technologies to improve food security and livelihoods of poor, rural smallholders. These are:
Recommendation 1 – systematic evaluations of water harvesting
and conservation agriculture technologies, integrated with crop and nutrient management, and with good monitoring of crop and soil water dynamics to develop generic process understanding
Recommendation 2 – use of crop simulation modeling to inform the systematic evaluation in recommendation 1; this will also require significant investment in good data sets for model calibration and evaluation
Recommendation 3 – development and application of models and other approaches for assessing the impacts of widescale adoption of improved crop/water management technologies in farmers’ fields at a range of scales from micro-catchment to basins
Recommendation 4 – longer term trials with the warrantage (inventory credit) system to assess its sustainability and impacts, and factors leading to successful implementation
Recommendation 5 – significant investment in understanding farmers’ conditions and perceptions, and in the development of institutions and policies that enable widespread uptake of improved technologies by farmers, and that promote integrated land and water resources management. This should include policies that enable the tremendous potential for fertilizer to greatly increase production in Sub-Saharan Africa.
2 Birhanu, B. Z.; Traore, K.; Gumma, M. K.; Badolo, F.; Tabo, R.; Whitbread, A. M. 2019. A watershed approach to managing rainfed agriculture in the semiarid region of southern Mali: integrated research on water and land use. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 21(5):2459-2485. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-018-0144-9]
Rainfed farming ; Watershed management ; Participatory management ; Water use ; Water conservation ; Soil conservation ; Contour bunding ; Runoff water ; Soil moisture ; Satellite imagery ; Land use ; Land cover mapping ; Semiarid zones ; Agricultural productivity ; Economic analysis ; Stakeholders ; Development programmes / Mali / Kani Watershed
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048703)
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10668-018-0144-9.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048703.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048703.pdf
(5.40 MB) (5.40 MB)
Soil and water conservation (SWC) practices like that of erosion control and soil fertility measures were commonly practiced in the semiarid region of southern Mali since the 1980s. The SWC practices were mainly meant to increase water availability in the subsurface, reduce farm water runoff and gully formation and improve nutrient content of the soil, thereby increasing crop yield. Despite such efforts to promote at scale SWC practices, the landscape of southern Mali is still affected by high rates of runoff and soil erosion and low crop yield in farmers’ fields. Data are lacking on previous beneficial SWC practices that could be adapted for wider application. In this paper, a watershed approach to managing rainfed agriculture is presented to show potential benefits of SWC practices at field and watershed scales. The approach included (1) community participation in establishing and monitoring new sets of hydro-meteorological monitoring stations and field experiments; (2) studying the dynamics and consumptive water uses of different land uses over time; and (3) evaluating the biophysical and economic advantages of SWC practices implemented in the watershed. Results showed that over a period of 34 years (1980–2014) cropping area and consumptive water uses of crops (sorghum and cotton) increased at the expenses of natural vegetation. However, the yield of these crops remained low, indicating that soil fertility management and soil moisture were insufficient. In such cases, implementation of more SWC practices can help provide the additional soil moisture required.
3 Akinseye, F. M.; Birhanu, B. Z.; Ajeigbe, H. A.; Diancoumba, M.; Sanogo, K.; Tabo, R.. 2023. Impacts of fertilization management strategies on improved sorghums varieties in smallholder farming systems in Mali: productivity and profitability differences. Heliyon, 9(3):E14497. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14497]
Fertilization ; Strategies ; Organic fertilizers ; Inorganic fertilizers ; Smallholders ; Farming systems ; Small-scale farming ; Sorghum ; Agricultural productivity ; Profitability ; Benefit-cost ratio ; Crop yield ; Rainfall ; Soil fertility ; Farmers / Mali / Bamako / Bougouni / Koutiala
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051835)
https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2405-8440%2823%2901704-8
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051835.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051835.pdf
(2.68 MB) (2.68 MB)
Sorghum is an important cereal crop cultivated by smallholder farmers of Mali, contributing significantly to their food demand and security. The study evaluated different fertilization strategies that combined organic and inorganic fertilizer applications with three sorghum varieties. The experiments were conducted over three cropping seasons (2017–2019) in three sites (Bamako, Bougouni, and Koutiala respectively) within the Sudanian region of Mali. Our results showed a significant effect of season, variety, and fertilization strategies on grain and stalk yields. Grain yield increased by 8–40% in Koutiala, 11–53% in Bougouni, and 44–110% in Bamako while the average stalk yield was above 5000 kg ha- 1 with fertilized treatment compared to unfertilized treatment in the three sites. Fadda performed the best variety, mean grain yield was 23% and 42% higher than that of Soumba and Tieble, respectively. Similarly, there was a progressive increase in grain yield with an increasing level of poultry manure (PM) from 0 to 150 g/hill and cattle manure (CM) from 0 to 100 g/hill. However, the application of 100 g/hill of CM and PM plus 3 g/ hill of Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) increased yield by 8% and 12% respectively compared to only CM or PM treatments. The results further revealed higher yield gain by 51% (Bamako), 57% (Koutiala), and 42% (Bougouni) for T10-[PM (100 g/hill) + Micro-D_DAP (3 g/hill)] equivalent to 73 kgNha- 1 than others (T2-T9), but not proportionate to the highest value-cost ratio (VCR). Radar charts used to visualize sustainable intensification (SI) performance in the three domains (productivity, profitability, and environment) showed that the environmental variable has a direct influence on productivity, meanwhile profitability across the strategies ranged from low to moderate value across sites and different fertilizer strategies. Our study, therefore, recommends the use of multiple-choice fertilizer strategies includingT2-CM (50 g/hill)+PM(50 g/hill), T5-DAPMicro-D (3 g/hill), T6-DAP41:46:00 and T9-PM(50 g/hill) alongside with improved sorghum varieties tested, for higher productivity and profitability across the region.
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