dec 2001 quark text · parkia biglobosacan be easily propagated from seed, cuttings and air layers....

Page

Arrangements for this year’s AGM ........................2

Biennial Residential Seminar—‘Agriculture andforestry for arid lands’:

The Centre for Arid Zone Studies(Tony Chamberlain)..........................................3

Natural resource research in less developed countries (Robert Brook) ..................................4

The DfID Plant Sciences Research Programme(John R. Witcombe and Dave Harris)..................6

‘On-farm’ seed priming—an update (DaveHarris and Phil Hollington) ..............................7

Development and promotion of salinity andwaterlogging tolerant wheat for India andPakistan (P.A. Hollington, K.S. Gill, A. Rashid,G.S. Buttar and A.P. Singh) ..............................8

Improvement of Crop Yields in North West FrontierProvince, Pakistan (Mike Long) ........................12

Transplanting sorghum and pearl millet as a means ofincreasing food security in semi-arid, low-incomecountries (Einir Young and Andrea Mottram) ....14

Sustainable community rangelands and theircommunities in southern Africa (Gareth WynJones and Einir Young) ....................................18

Pastoralism in South Sudan (Tim Fison) ................21

Sheanut (Vitellaria paradoxa) in the farmingsystems of the Sudan and Guinea Savannahvegetation zones of sub-Saharan Africa(R.W. Smith and N. Haq) ................................24

Poster Presentations:

Physiological Responses of Cotton to WaterDeficit in Pakistan (J. Gorham, J. Bridges, M.N.A.Malik and I.A. Khan) ......................................28

Salt Tolerance in Rice (John Gorham andNasim Akhtar) ..............................................28

A Novel Approach to Rice Breeding: CombiningParticipatory Plant Breeding (PPB) and MarkerAssisted Selection (MAS) (K.A. Steele and J. R.Witcombe) ....................................................29

Scottish & Borders Region—Crops for AfricaTraditional and Exotic:

Perennials for Tropical Agriculture(N.W. Simmonds) ..........................................30

Page

Livestock as food for pastoralists in Africa(J.M. Suttie)....................................................31

The Kitale Maize Agronomy Programme, 1963–75(Alister Allan) ................................................34

Obituary:

Geoffrey Masefield (Garry Robertson) ..................36

Letters:

New Honduras Bananas (N.W. Simmonds) ............36

Colour Slides (J.G. Taylor)....................................36

A farmer’s viewpoint of agriculturaldevelopment in India… (Inder Dan Detha ) ......37

Facts and Fiction about InternationalDevelopment (John K Coulter) ........................38

Book Reviews:

Hay and Straw Conservation for Small-scale Farming and Pastoral Communities byJ. M. Suttie (Denis Fielding) ............................39

Beekeeping and Honey Producing Plantsin Bas Congo and Democratic Republic of theCongo and Umalila in Southern Tanzania(Laurie Robertson)..........................................39

‘Bibliobits’ (GenSec) ..........................................40

TAAF Awardee Update:

Launch of TAAFNET Group (Marisa Goulden) ......41

Simon Badrock—Peru..........................................41

Neil Johnson—Ghana ........................................42

Jane Bryden—Nepal: Community ForestryDatabase Creation in Nepal ............................43

Adverts and Notes:

Access to On-line Newsletter ................................17

Cartoon: Genetically modified Organic Whimseysby Hugh Brammer & Tony Smyth ....................40

Nominations for Honours ....................................17

tropical

agriculture

association

uk

taa Newsletter December 2001 1

Contents

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—Arid Zone Studies Centre

tropical

agriculture

association

uk

2taa Newsletter December 2001

AGM/Accounts

Origins. The Centre owes its existence to a series of events initiated by Sir William Roberts of

Anglesey who in 1916 became the first Principal of thePunjab Agricultural College (now Faisalabad Agricul-tural University). In 1955 he established a scholarshipfoundation that had strong links with Pakistan andenabled postgraduate students to come to Bangor forfurther education.

In the 1970s a successful experimental farm was runby university staff at Hofuf in Saudi Arabia on behalfof the local Ministry of Agriculture and Water andOverseas Development Administration (ODA) ofLondon. As a result of this work staff of the naturalresources department at Bangor became interested inproblems of the arid and semi-arid lands. There was adevelopment of an interest at Bangor in plant stressphysiology (originally salt tolerance), forestry andaspects of animal husbandry. These interests evolved from within a scientific community that contained

teachers and researchers who had a general involve-ment in wider aspects of agriculture and forestry,supported by specialists in the agricultural sciences(soil science, plant ecology, parasitology, and so on)and with a wide range of tools available on site.

As a result of Margaret Thatcher’s 1984 pressure onuniversities to develop their own income-generatingactivities, it was decided to establish a self-fundingunit, drawing on our experiences in Pakistan andSaudi Arabia, and so the Centre for Arid Zone Studies(CAZS) was born. We had to attract income as wereceived no UFC money as of right and this situationapplies today. In the early years we were fortunate toattract financial support from Sheikh Yamani andfrom Robertson Research that allowed us somelatitude in the activities we decided to engage in.

Objectives. Since inception we have had one over-riding objective, namely to contribute to the equitabledevelopment of rural areas. At the start we concentrated

As intimated in the Yellow Pages of the Septemberissue of the Newsletter, the 2001 Annual General

meeting will commence at 4.00 pm on Thursday, 13thDecember. (See the Yellow Pages for further details of theMeeting, Memorial Lecture and Reunion). As this year allthe ExCo office holders are still within their allottedperiod of office, there will be no need for elections tobe included in the programme and the larger part ofthe time available can be devoted to consideration ofthe future direction of the Association.

To this end, the earlier start will be located in theRefectory, situated just past the Reception Desk and

Members are requested to proceed there directly onarrival. We will move into the main lecture hall asconvenient for the Memorial Lecture. The proceed-ings will commence with a review of the response tothe questionnaire sent out by the 2010 Working Partyand Members will be given the opportunity to give fullvent to their views on the matter.

This is an important occasion with the future of theAssociation at stake and Members are urged to makea particular effort to attend and if they have not alreadydone so, to send in their forms and cheques with alldispatch. I can be contacted by telephone in extremis.

Arrangements for this year’s AGM

From the General Secretary

Subscriptions and Membership

It has been Association policy for some yearspast to continue distributing the Newsletter tonon-payers until the end of the calendar year,in the hope that those concerned wouldrectify the situation in the interim. Therefore,as usual, this is the last issue that will go tonon-payers but they will not, this year, receivethe current Membership List. In addition thisyear, this procedure will also be applied to theunder-payers (there are more than 50 in thisgroup), most of whom have persisted, despitenumerous reminders, in remitting their sub-scription at the old defunct level of £14 (thiswas increased to £20 in 1995!). They now havean outstanding balance to the TAA of £42 (i.e.£6 × 7 years).

The Membership Secretary will transfer allsuch Members to a ‘Suspended Category’.This designation will be indicated in theMembership List. However, all who contacthim before 31 December 2001, and put theiraffairs in order, will appear in the Member-ship List in the normal way.

Pertinent statistics on the state of themembership will be included in the 2002Membership List.

GenSec.

Extract of Audited Accounts for Financial Year 2000-2001As at 30th June 2001 £ £Fixed Assets 1,968Less depreciation 493 1,475Current Assets

Bank Current Ac. (3702)Deposit 23092

Award Fund 5948Cash in hand 20 25358Deduct Current liabilities (329)Net Current Assets 26504Acc. Funds Balance, b/f on 1/07/00 31620Net Surplus(deficit) on the year (5116)

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNTIncomeSubscriptions 22807Award Fund Donation 3200C.V. Directories 2398Functions 1607Advertising 123Interest 989 Total Income 31124

Charitable ExpenditureMembership Maint/List 3007Newsletter 14208C.V.Directories 2620Shows/Functions 1245Regional Subvention 1000Award Fund + Expenses 8606 30686

Management ExpenditureInsurance 318Auditors Fees 371Depreciation 493Exco/Meetings 1449Administration 2923 5554Total Expenditure 36240

Deficit on Year’s Operations (5116)

Biennial Residential Seminarheld at the University of Wales, Bangor 15th & 16th September 2001

in cooperation with theCentre for Arid Zone Studies and the School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences

‘AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY FOR ARID LANDS’

PARTICIPAN

TS

The Centre for Arid Zone Studies

Tony ChamberlainChairman of the Board of CAZS

tropical

agriculture

association

uk

taa Newsletter December 2001

Principal areas of tropical researchMost projects are multi-disciplinary, so it is difficult toassign individual project to specific disciplines. Majorareas in which research is conducted and where wecan claim to have an international standard of expert-ise include:

❑ Forest ecology, management of forest margins❑ Nutrient management/soil science❑ Indigenous tree genetic resources (production of

monographs; e.g. Vitellaria paradoxa, Parkiabiglobosa)

❑ Watershed management❑ Tree-crop interactions (above and below ground)❑ Indigenous knowledge❑ Peri-urban interface

Research led by SAFS has a number of characteristicfeatures, typically including a perennial component(forestry or agroforestry) and often incorporation oflocal (indigenous) knowledge. In addition, in com-mon with many other similar institutions, we adopt asystems approach and there is an increasing emphasisupon including a livelihood component and povertyreduction.

Locations of research are too numerous to make thelist interesting to read, so to reduce it to digestibleproportions, main areas where grant funded researchis conducted include:

❑ South Asia (Nepal, India, Sri Lanka)❑ West Africa (numerous)❑ Indonesia❑ Central America and Colombia❑ Jamaica

This does not include countries where research stud-ents conduct field work, which is usually their countryof origin.

Sources of funding:

DfID, particularly the following Renewable NaturalResource Research Strategy Research Programmes, inorder of importance:

❑ Forestry❑ Plant Sciences❑ Natural Resource Systems❑ Livestock Production

Major projects have also been funded by the EuropeanUnion (INCO-DEV) and under the Darwin Initiativeprogramme, which used to come under DETR, but isnow managed by DEFRA.

Research programmeThe majority of the research has been located in humidzones, but as this meeting is concerned with semi-

arid areas, the following two examples from ourresearch programme relate specifically to the semi-arid areas.

Parkland systems of West Africa

There have been two substantial research projects inthis area funded by the EU, and both were led by DrZewge Teklehaimanot, one of our agroforestrylecturers. The first project, which finished in 1996,studied the status of an important tree in thatecological system, Parkia biglobosa, otherwise knownas ‘néré’. Main findings were:

❑ The population study of Parkia biglobosa revealedthat it was in decline and that the average age oftrees is increasing due to lack of regeneration.

❑ Genetic study based on electrophoretic analysisrevealed that Parkia biglobosa possesses very highgenetic diversity both at intra- and inter-populationlevels.

❑ In order to rescue Parkia biglobosa germplasm, seedwas collected from 100 provinces in 11 West Africancountries and is now being kept in cold storage inBurkina Faso.

❑ Parkia biglobosa can be easily propagated from seed,cuttings and air layers.

❑ Parkia biglobosa, although leguminous (member ofthe Fabaceae), does not fix nitrogen but showedsignificant amelioration for soil nitrogen andpotassium.

This was followed by another research programme on‘Improved management of agroforestry parklandsystems in Sub-Saharan Africa’. This started 1998, andits duration will be four years. Besides Parkia biglobosa,Vitellaria paradoxa, (the shea butter tree) is also beingstudied. It is a much more extensive project, encom-passing 15 African and European partners.

Peri-urban interface in India

This project is based around Hubli-Dharwad twin city,northern Karnataka, which has a combined popula-tion of 900,000. It is located in a semi-arid area (meanannual rainfall 740 mm) on the westerly edge of theDeccan Plateau. Soils to the east are vertic in nature,and to the west are alfisols.

The research is funded by DfID Natural ResourceSystems Programme, and comprises several individ-ual projects, the overall objective being to understandthe effects of urbanisation upon natural resource-based production systems and livelihood strategies ofrural communities influenced by urban growth, andhow livelihood strategies might be enhanced for thepoor. The author of this article has been responsiblefor leading several of these projects.

5

Arid Lands—Natural Resources

on those zones judged to be arid, semi-arid, or arid atcertain times of the year, but in recent years we haveexpanded the list of countries where we work.

Scope of Activities. Originally, in 1984, the Centrefocused on technical aspects within the agriculturalscene, concerning itself with pure and appliedresearch in specific aspects of crop and livestockproduction. However, it soon became apparent thatwe would have to widen our scope if we were to grow,and therefore we used our cash resources to recruitexpertise in soils and water management, crop breed-ing and in general tropical agriculture. This hasallowed us to offer a range of services that can broadlybe classified under the six headings of research,research management, integrated natural resourcedevelopment, institutional development, teaching andthe provision of advice through consultancies.

The Centre’s research and development activities arewide-ranging: biosaline investigations includingwaterlogging tolerance, stress physiology, soils,agronomy, plant breeding, and so on. Plant breedingincludes the application of modern moleculartechniques and biotechnology, and in this respectCAZS is involved in chromosome mapping of pearlmillet and rice.

In the field of institutional development CAZS hashelped to establish information databases and reviewson relevant natural resource research in Sudan,Tanzania, Zanzibar and Kenya, and this has facilitated

the work of scientists working in those countries aswell as providing a firm basis on which research plan-ners can make priority decisions. In India, informa-tion on cereal varieties has been collated, againstrengthening the work of scientists and extensionworkers. In Pakistan, Morocco, Ethiopia and SriLanka we have been instrumental in creating newfaculties and departments (of agriculture andforestry), and establishing new laboratories; in addi-tion we have a number of British Council links withinstitutions in Asia and Africa.

On the teaching front the Centre is responsible forthree one-year Master’s courses: Overseas RuralResource Development, World Animal Production,and Water Resources, but in addition to these we offershort courses on a range of subjects. I would particu-larly like to draw your attention to the Water ResourceMSc, which has been established for eight years andwhich provides a thorough training in the manage-ment of this increasingly important basic commodity.

Our Staff. We have a core staff of around 30, of whomsome 20 are science professionals. When the needarises we can call on our colleagues in the regularacademic cost-centres and, as is common these days,we recruit others on short-term contracts for specifictasks. When appropriate we try to recruit youngpeople from our own postgraduate courses or fromoutside Bangor, and we are conscious of the difficul-ties faced by European postgraduates in obtainingoverseas experience in development-related fields.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—Natural Resources

Introduction

This presentation will deal with the role of mydepartment, the School of Agricultural and Forest

Sciences (SAFS), University of Wales, Bangor, in tropi-cal research in the natural resources area. The Schoolwas formed in 1988 by an amalgamation of theprevious Departments of Agriculture and Forestry.This led to new developments, such as the commence-ment of the only undergraduate degree in agroforestryin Britain, which was joined a few years later by a MScin the same subject, and a very active worldwideresearch programme.

The current academic staff complement of the Schoolis 25, of which seven or eight specialize in tropical

issues, and several others have some experience ofresearch in the tropics. Subjects taught include forest-ry, agriculture, agroforestry, economics, materialsscience (wood), soil science, conservation and ruraldevelopment. We currently have about 200 under-graduates and 80 MSc students.

Little consultancy is undertaken, whereas there is astrong emphasis upon research, both grant fundedand research by higher degrees. Annual grant incomeis approximately £1 million, the majority of this beingfor research in less developed countries (LDCs). An-nually 15 to 20 PhDs and MPhils are awarded (mostlyPhDs), the great majority being students from LDCs.In the last research assessment exercise, the Schoolscored 4.

Natural resource research in less developed countries

Robert BrookSchool of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Inadequate crop establishment is common in manyfarming systems throughout the developing world.

Poor farmers in marginal areas lack the resources toachieve good crop stands, yet good stands are vitallyimportant because most of the world’s food is grownfrom seed every year.

Once sown, seeds spend significant amounts of timejust absorbing water from the soil. By reducing thistime to a minimum seeds can be made to germinate,and seedlings emerge, more quickly. The easiest wayto do this is to soak seeds overnight in water beforesowing. This ‘on-farm’ seed priming:

❑ Is low-cost, low-risk

❑ Improves crop stands

❑ Promotes vigorous, healthy growth

❑ Reduces risk of crop failure

❑ Increases poor farmers’ options

❑ Increases yields

❑ Improves the livelihoods of poor farmers

‘On-farm’ seed priming is also:

❑ Simple—seeds are soaked overnight in water,surface-dried then sown as usual

❑ Effective in a wide range of countries

❑ Gives benefits in most of the major world crops

❑ Is popular and readily adopted by farmers

Since 1995, the Plant Sciences Research Programme(PSP) of DfID has been supporting research to test,develop and promote ‘on-farm’ seed priming in arange of crops, countries and agro-environments(Table 1). The work has involved a combination of invitro, on-station and farmer-participatory research.The technology is currently being tested in Bangla-desh, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana,India, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone,Thailand and Zimbabwe with PSP funds. TheProgramme also provides technical backstopping fororganisations in these and other countries that aretesting on-farm seed priming in various crops usingtheir own resources. Increasing resources are beingtargeted towards dissemination.

7

Arid Lands—Seed priming

Projects conducted so far:❑ Use of urban solid waste as a soil ameliorant

(completed)

The main finding was that sorted and composted solidis a good soil ameliorant, but the cost of the sortingprocess puts it beyond the reach of poor farmers.

Other projects recently or currently being funded byDfID are:

❑ Consolidation of existing knowledge about theperi-urban interface (completed)

❑ Research to fill gaps in knowledge identified inforegoing project (just finishing)

❑ Participatory development of action plans (inprogress)

Other projects

Another aspect that has been studied by research stu-dents (i.e., not funded by DfID) has been the practiceof sewage irrigation of vegetables. Use of this sourceof water is a response to shortage of water in the dryseason, and to the high prices of vegetables in thesummer. As would be expected, there are severalnegative aspects to irrigating with polluted water,which include:

❑ Sewage contamination of produce❑ Severe attacks from insect pests and high weed

infestation levels

❑ Excessive use of organo-phosphate insecticides tocombat severe pest infestations

However, there are positive aspects, too, whichinclude:

❑ Holders of small areas of land are able to make agood living—it moves them out of poverty

❑ Off-season vegetable production fills a gap in themarket during the dry season

In the future (now until March 2005), three plans ofaction will be implemented in a series of peri-urbanvillages, particularly aimed at the poorer sector of thepopulation. Many of the areas of concern identified byperi-urban farmers during the participatory develop-ment of action plans revolve around the semi-aridcontext of the project, and include:

❑ Poor access to and/or degradation of waterresources

❑ Catchment rehabilitation❑ Amelioration of effects of use of sewage water for

irrigation❑ Shortage of wood resources and fodder❑ Raising production from dairy farming systems❑ Alternative livelihood strategies for farmers with

little land, landless people and womenRob Brook is a lecturer in crop production, and has worked at the Universityof Wales, Bangor since 1993. Prior to that he had a series of agronomicallyrelated jobs in various locations, including six years in Papua New Guinea.E-mail: [email protected]

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—DfID Research Programme

The DfID Plant Sciences Research ProgrammeJohn R. Witcombe and Dave Harris

Centre for Arid Zone Studies, University of Wales, Bangor

The Centre for Arid Zone Studies manages the PlantSciences Research Programme (PSP) on behalf of

the Department for International Development. ThePSP is one of 10 research programmes that make upthe DfID Renewable Natural Resources ResearchStrategy.The PSP funds research with organisations in the UKand overseas. Work is organised into five themes(‘outputs’):❑ Output 1—novel methods of aiding conventional breeding.

Examples are projects to support marker-assistedselection in pearl millet and rice, and work to de-velop new sources of cytoplasmic male sterility forhybrid rice production.

❑ Output 2—methods to genetically modify crops. Projectsaddressing this output include the development ofrice resistant to rice yellow mosaic virus and varie-ties of rice, potato and cooking banana resistant tonematodes.

❑ Output 3—improved soil fertility and crop nutrition.These are generally field-based projects such as thetesting and promotion of green manures and meas-ures to improve the use of legumes in croppingsystems.

❑ Output 4—optimising cropping systems. This outputincludes all PSP work to develop, test and promote‘on-farm’ seed priming, together with research topromote legumes in rice-fallows and intercroppingstudies, e.g., bananas and rubber trees.

❑ Output 5—participatory methods for varietal selection andbreeding. Examples are the development and releaseof drought-resistant upland rice varieties in Indiaand Ghana, new varieties of rabi sorghum in Indiaand farmer-preferred varieties of wheat, mung-bean, maize, cassava and finger millet in India,Nepal, Pakistan, Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria.

Further details of the Programme may be found in a recent edition of the Newsletter,i.e., Witcombe, J.R. and Harris, D. (2000). The DfID Plant Sciences ResearchProgramme. Tropical Agriculture Association (UK) Newsletter 20 (3): 18-20.

‘On-farm’ seed priming—an updateDave Harris and Phil Hollington


Table 1. Summary of crops responding positively to on-farm seed priming.

Crop Soaking Countries Yield benefitsTime (hours) (%)

A. Crops in which benefits have been repeatedly confirmed

Wheat 12 India, Nepal, Pakistan 37Barley 12 Pakistan, Bangladesh 40Upland rice 12 - 18 India, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Cameroon,

Ghana, Thailand 70Maize 12 - 18 India, Nepal, Pakistan, Zimbabwe 22Sorghum 10 Pakistan, Zimbabwe 31Pearl millet 10 Pakistan 56Chickpea 8 Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan 50Lentil 12 (2) Nepal 34Mungbean 8 Pakistan 206

B. Crops in which preliminary research has shown benefits

Finger millet 8 India 18Cowpea 8 ZimbabweBambaragroundnut 8 ZimbabweLinseed 8 Bangladesh 24Pigeonpea 8 IndiaGroundnut 8 India, Vietnam, Pakistan

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


and of the North West Frontier Province, Peshawar,and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council), andlasts until October 2001.

Work ranges from identifying markers and QTLs fortolerance through laboratory studies and controlledand uncontrolled field conditions to farmer-partici-patory trials. This paper describes some of the farmer-participatory and on-station trials carried out underthis programme.

Methods and Materials

Salinity and waterlogging

Field trials at the Goniana Cotton Research Station ofPAU at Muktsar in SW Punjab investigated the effect ofwaterlogging for different durations and at differentgrowth stages on wheat. This is an area withwatertables close to the surface (1 m) and poor qualitygroundwater, and crops are frequently subjected towaterlogging. Normal (ECe = 1.0 - 2.5 dS m-1) and

saline (ECe = 2.5 - 10.0 dS m-1) plots were selected.

Twenty wheat genotypes, from PAU, the Central SoilSalinity Research Institute (CSSRI) Karnal and fromPakistan, and one triticale (TL 1210) were sown. Aswell as non-waterlogged controls, waterlogging wasapplied for 6, 12 or 18 days at ear emergence, anthesisor at the grain-filling stages.

Participatory work

IndiaIn the first year, 5 farms in village Bhandi, BathindaDistrict, SW Punjab were used. This is an areairrigated with poor quality water (average EC 7.35 dSm-1, RSC 33.25 meq l-1). Before the project, farmerswere unaware that genotypes with enhanced toleranceto salinity or sodicity had been developed by the CSSRIat Karnal in India. This work was repeated in a secondseason, and further trials were sown in salinewaterlogged land close to Goniana. These followed asimilar format, and some farmers were also givengenotypes from Pakistan.

In both cases the local genotypes were PAU-developedlines, predominantly PBW 343. Paired t-tests wereused to compare yields from the improved andfarmers’ own genotypes.

PakistanWork in Pakistan was at 3 villages in NWFP: Gundheri(Nowshera district), Kass Kali (Mardan) and SheikKali (Peshawar). As in India, farmers were given 5 kgof seed to sow alongside their own material. Effortswere made to select uniform fields, and seed were

broadcast followed by cultivation. Canal water wasapplied when needed.

Gundheri is saline sodic, with saline (EC ∼ 4 dS m-1)tubewell irrigation water (the watertable is at 2 m)applied when necessary. Kass Kali is poorly drained;the water table fluctuates between 1–2 m and the areahas low to medium salinity with highly saline patches.Sheikh Kali has low salinity, but tends to be water-logged during winter.

Results and Discussion

Salinity and waterlogging

On average, yield was significantly reduced by salinityand increased duration of waterlogging, althoughtime of application of the stress had no effect.

The adverse effect of salinity on yield, averaged over allgenotypes and times of application, increased withincreased duration of waterlogging (Fig. 2). Withflooding for 6 days, the relative yield in non-salineconditions was 95.4% of that under salinity. This fellto 90.2% at 12 days, and to 81.8% at 18 days.

Control yields ranged from 250 g per plot in SARC-3to 490 g in PBW 373 (Fig. 3). Yields were reduced bysalinity, by waterlogging and, particularly, water-logging and salinity together, when they ranged from250 g per plot in KRL 23 to just over 50 g in WC30.There was little difference between CSSRI and PAUmaterial, which yielded about 195 g per plot, but thePakistan lines (Bakthawar 92, Inqlab 91, SARC-3 andWC 30) averaged less than 100 g.

IndiaIn the trials using poor quality water, yields of theCSSRI material (usually KRL 1-4) in the first year weresignificantly (P = 0.028) higher than the farmers’

9

Arid Lands—’tolerant wheat’

Introduction

Most increases in agricultural production in recentyears have come from irrigated land; irrigation is

particularly important in Asia, where it makes upalmost one-third of the cultivated area, and almost aquarter of potential arable land (Ghassemi et al.,1995). Salinity affects large areas of irrigated land, andis a particular problem in NW India and Pakistan,where it is often combined with waterlogging. Thetwo stresses together have far more severe effects thaneither alone; root ability to screen out salt is muchreduced and lack of O2 leads to metabolic problems

(Barret-Lennard, 1986).

Agricultural losses in Pakistan due to waterloggingand salinity are expected to reach Rs 860 million (US$28.5 million) this year, while total annual economicdamage was estimated at US$ 300 million (WAPDA,1995). Yield losses of wheat in moderately saline areasof Pakistan average 65% (Quayyum and Malik, 1988),and we assume a similar figure in India.

A survey in the Satiana area near Faisalabad, in thePakistan Punjab (Ijaz and Davidson, 1997) showedthat in salt-affected villages 56% of men and 91% ofwomen were illiterate, compared to 51% and 77% inthe control villages (Fig. 1). People in salt-affectedvillages had worse access to basic health-care withonly 1 out of 8 villages in the area having access tobasic facilities, and ownership of household goodslike refrigerators, televisions, radios and fans wassubstantially less.

‘Saline Agriculture’ (Qureshi, 1993) uses saline landsto provide an income for the farmer without the needfor expensive drainage and reclamation work. Theworst land grows economically important salt-tolerant trees and shrubs, while on moderately salineland tolerant cultivars of wheat and rice can increaseincomes. However, although much work on salinitytolerance has been done, there has been little progressin getting improved wheats to farmers, possiblybecause salinity has been looked at alone and not incombination with waterlogging.

Since 1998, an EU-funded research project hasoperated in India and Pakistan to develop, identify andpromote wheat tolerance to both stresses. The workinvolves the UK (CAZS, Bangor and the John InnesCentre, Norwich), Spain (SIA in Zaragoza), India (thePunjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana), andPakistan (the Agricultural Universities of Faisalabad

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



Development and promotion of salinity and waterloggingtolerant wheat for India and Pakistan

P.A. Hollington1, 6, K.S. Gill2, A. Rashid3, G.S. Buttar4, and A.P. Singh5

1Centre for Arid Zone Studies, University of Wales, Bangor, 2Dept. of Agronomy, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India, 3NWFP Agricultural University,

Peshawar, Pakistan, 4PAU Regional Research Station, Bathinda, Punjab, India, 5Goniana Cotton Research Station, PAU, Muktsar, Punjab, India. 6Corresponding author:

CAZS, University of Wales, Thoday Building, Deiniol Road, Bangor LL57 2UW, Wales, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Although there has been much work to develop salt-tolerant wheat over the years, there has been littlesuccess in carrying advances in understanding themechanisms of salt tolerance through to improvedyields for poor farmers in saline lands. This could bedue to neglect of the interactions between salinity andwaterlogging where such stresses occur together, acommon occurrence in Pakistan and northern India.This paper highlights a project to develop wheatgenotypes simultaneously tolerant to both stresses.The project has been successful in promoting theuptake of tolerant varieties in the SW Punjab of Indiawhere yield increases approaching 20% for tolerantcompared to recommended varieties were obtained inparticipatory trials, and also, to a lesser extent, inPakistan.

Fig. 1. Level of educational achievement, by gender, in saline and non-saline areas of the Pakistan Punjab. Source: Ijaz and Davidson, 1997.

Fig. 2. Relative grain yield (%) of wheat waterlogged for varying durations,compared with non-saline, non-waterlogged controls. Mean of allgenotypes and growth stages.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


On the waterlogged land at Sheik Kali there were nosignificant differences between genotypes in 1999-2000. At Gundheri, although individually there wereno genotypic differences between improved andfarmers’ varieties (Fig. 7), on average the newgenotypes yielded 2.93 t ha-1, compared with 2.38 t forthe Ghaznavi, significant at P = 0.007. However, atGundheri in 2000-2001, there were no significantdifferences between genotypes.

The participatory work in Pakistan was less conclusivethan in India; in some trials there were no significantdifferences between new and old varieties, and inothers, although there were no genotypic differences,taken as a whole the new material was better than theold.

More areas and farmers have been involved than inIndia, but it has been equally difficult to get the socio-economic information and hard data on yields,salinity and so on. Some farmers preferred SARC-3due to its large white grains but it cannot berecommended as it is susceptible to leaf rust. Mostfarmers kept seed of ICP-3 for sowing next season; itgave a higher straw yield than SARC-3, importantwhere straw is used as a livestock feed.

Other work

We have trained a Pakistani wheat breeder in doubledhaploid techniques. Work at JIC identified QTLsassociated with salinity tolerance. In Spain, we notedan association between high Na+ and Cl- uptake andearly maturity in a marker population. Wheat collec-ted from saline environments in various parts ofPakistan has been selected and multiplied. Tolerantand high yielding parents were crossed and selectedfor tolerance in Spain and for good agronomy in UK,and 12 genotypes identified for multiplication andtesting in India and Pakistan. Trials this autumn willtest further material, and large amounts of seed areavailable for participatory work.

Acknowledgements

This work was carried out under INCO-DC ContractNo ERBIC 18CT 980305, funded by DG XII of theEuropean Commission. We thank technical andsupport staff in Ludhiana and Peshawar, andparticipating farmers. We are grateful to the Director,CSSRI, Karnal, India for seed of KRL1-4 and KRL 23,to Professor RH Qureshi, Vice Chancellor, Universityof Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan for seed of SARC-3 and to Dr Shafqat Farooq, NIAB, Faisalabadfor seed of WC 30.

References

Barrett-Lennard, E.G. 1986. Effects of waterlogging on growth and NaCluptake by vascular plants under saline conditions. Rec Reveg Res 5:245–261.

Ghassemi, F., A.J. Jakeman, and H.A. Nix. 1995. Salinisation of land andwater resources: human courses, extent, management and casestudies. CAB International, Wallingford, UK. 526 + xviii pp.

Ijaz, K. and A.P. Davidson. 1997. Baseline socio-economic survey. JointSatiana Project. IWASRI, Lahore. 77 pp. + 3 Appendices.

Quayyum, M.A. and M.D. Malik. 1988. Farm production losses in salt-affected soils. Proc 1st Nat. Congr. Soil Sci. Lahore, October 1985, pp356–364.

Qureshi, R.H. 1993. Alternative strategies for tackling the soil salinity problem.Dept. of Soil Science, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. 117 pp. + 9Appendices.

Rafiq, M. 1990. Soil resources and soil related problems in Pakistan. In:Ahmed, M. (Ed.) Soil physics—Application under stress environments. BARD,PARC, Islamabad.

WAPDA. 1995. Water and Power Development Authority, Government ofPakistan. Personal communication, quoted in Ghassemi et al. p 393.

11


varieties (generally released by PAU) (Fig. 4). Theaverage yield of the CSSRI genotypes was 3.96 t ha-1,and from the PAU genotypes 3.30 t ha-1, an improve-ment of 16.7%. Under waterlogged conditions (Fig.5), on all farms bar one there was a higher yield fromKRL 1-4 than from PBW 343, with the mean differencesignificant at p = 0.04. The Pakistan genotypes werehighly variable.

Participatory experimentation is a new concept formany local staff, and there have been many problems.It has proved almost impossible to obtain quantitativeand accurate details of farmers’ opinions and on thespread of the varieties in some areas, and in sometrials, no controls were used—farmers only grew thenew material.

In SW Punjab, in year 1, 90% of farmers preferred thenew material and would grow it again, while last yeartwo farmers sowed their entire farms to salt tolerantwheat. However, there is still no sign that the localextension service will recommend this over their ownvarieties.

PakistanAt Kass Kali in 1999–2000 (Fig. 6) there were signifi-cant differences (P = 0.012 and P = 0.023 respectively)between yields of the 2 improved genotypes and thelocal control (Ghaznavi 98). These yields are high forPakistan, compared to the average of around 2 t ha-1 onnormal soil, and less than 1 t ha-1 in saline conditions,suggesting that higher standards of husbandry thanusual were applied.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



(a) Non-saline, no waterlogging (b) Non-saline, waterlogged

(c) Saline, not waterlogged (d) Saline, waterlogged

Fig. 3. Effect of waterlogging for 18 days at ear emergence under saline and non-saline conditions on wheat yield. Muktsar, 1999-2000.

Fig. 4. Comparison of CSSRI genotypes with farmers’ own under sodicirrigation, Bhandi, 1999-2000.

Fig. 5. Comparison of KRL 1-4 with PBW 343 in participatory trials undersaline waterlogged conditions, Muktsar, 2000-2001.

Fig. 6. Yield of wheat genotypes in participatory trials at Kass Kali, 1999-2000.

Fig. 7. Yield of wheat in participatory trials, Gundheri, 1999-2000.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Moisture deficit occurs in every month of the year(Fig. 3). The area does receive irregular and unreliablemonsoon edge rains. Crops rely entirely upon snow-melt irrigation from the Swat River and tributariesdraining the Western Hindu Kush above and belowKalam (Fig. 4).

What began as ‘2/5 Kharif and 3/5 Rabi’ permittedland use, growing only wheat, maize and a fewvegetables for the home, is now an intensively farmedarea in which agro forestry is important economically.New crops are sought and water efficiency vital for thefuture and to avoid water logging and salinity.

Other factors that would contribute to yieldimprovements have been identified. These are:

❑ Autumn planted sugar cane with a potato nursecrop.

❑ Upgrading the wheat breeding programme for rustcontrol.

❑ Breaking the hardpan formed by long-standingcultivator use.

❑ Lowering the water tables.

❑ Finding suitable leguminous green manure cropsfor summer use.

13

Arid Lands—Improving crop yields

Reported crop yields in NWFP, like those in the restof Pakistan, have been steadily rising for several

decades. But yields of wheat, maize and sugar cane arestill below what might be expected. High levels of skillamongst farmers, fertile soils and good irrigationfacilities, would suggest that average harvests oughtto be at least 50% more than at present. Researchstation estimates of potential, based on station trials,are more than double average farm output (Table 1).

Table 1. Yield data (t/ha) of four main crops collectedfrom different sources.

Source Maize Wheat Rice Sugarcane

Statistics Dept. 1992 2.1 1.9 1.6 40.2

Improved practices 2.5 4.3 4.5 -

Research stations 6.0 5.0 6.0 79.0

Work by Swiss Development Co-operation in 1997highlighted planting dates of winter (rabi) wheat andsummer (kharif ) maize as having significant effect onyields (Fig. 1). The problem lies with delayed maizesowing because of moisture and labour shortage inJune.

It was shown that June maize planting can be doneusing a locally (Lahore) produced two-row planter.Seed is placed in moist soil unaffected by high solarradiation and minimal labour required. This allowsmechanical weed control by ridging (improvedirrigation) and ensures early harvest and wheatsowing in November.

Maize accounts for 45% of irrigated land commandedby the Upper Swat Canal that extends to more than120,000 hectares (300,000 acres) and supports morethan a million people in 200 villages (Fig. 2). Theupper canal followed the very successful Lower SwatCanal scheme built in the late nineteenth century. Itrequired a tunnel of several kilometres through theMalakand Pass area carrying some 1,500 cusecs. Asecond tunnel has recently been completed to meetincreased demand especially in the months ofMay/June and September.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—Improving crop yields

Improvement of Crop Yields in North West FrontierProvince, Pakistan

Mike Long

Fig. 1. Effect of late planting on yield of wheat and maize.

Fig. 2. Cropping patterns in Mardan District (after Byelee & Hussain).

Fig. 3. Rainfall and evaporation data (Mardan District) Fig. 4. Irrigation supply and demand.

BETWEEN

LECTURES

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


collaboration with Rural Unity for DevelopmentOrganisation (RUDO) in Masvingo Province. Uni-versity of Zimbabwe students were also attached tothe project.

Unfortunately political unrest in Zimbabwe was aconstraint on activities. This led to further DfIDfunding being secured for two seasons of trials inUpper East Region of Ghana from April 2001 toJanuary 2003. We are collaborating with scientists atthe Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI)in Nyampala, Tamale. The on-station trials are at theSARI Manga station in Upper East, and the on-farmtrials in Builsa District in collaboration with Ministryof Agriculture staff and in Bawku West District incollaboration with Ministry of Agriculture and ActionAid.

Progress Report

On-station trials—Zimbabwe (data from Ghana notyet available)

❑ 1 m2 nurseries were established every 10 days,starting 8 weeks before the anticipated rains.

❑ 5 m × 5 m main plots were prepared during thenursery growing period

❑ After a soaking rain, nurseries closest to 20, 30 and40 days old were transplanted into the main plots.

❑ At the same time direct sown plots were establishedas a control.

On-station results

❑ The pilot study showed that for sorghum thenumber of days to flowering in the field of trans-planted plants is significantly fewer compared todirect sown plants and that there was no decreasein yield from transplanted plants.3

❑ This has been repeated in the current project forpearl millet (Fig. 1) and sorghum with similarresults.

❑ There were no significant differences in yieldbetween the transplanted and direct sown pearlmillet PMV3, however the transplanted plants wereharvested earlier.

❑ Although time to flowering in the field is reducedfor the transplanted plants, the total time toflowering from time of sowing is greater than forthe direct sown plants, indicating a transplantingshock.

❑ This is being investigated further under controlledenvironment conditions at the University of WalesBangor, Pen y Ffridd Field Station.

On-farm trials—Zimbabwe❑ Group meetings were held to introduce the concept

of transplanting and to determine the level ofinterest in the trials.

❑ Initially, the number of farmers participating waslimited to 25. This was increased to 75 in thesecond year and is currently around 100.

❑ It was suggested that farmers should establish twonurseries with a two-week interval between them,prior to the expected onset of the rain.

❑ They were asked to establish a transplanted cropadjacent to a direct sown crop, which had beensown according to normal practice after the rainshad established.

❑ Farmers kept basic records of planting dates,watering regimes and yields.

On-farm results

❑ Each farmer established nurseries of 1–3 beds withareas between 2–4m3.

❑ 20 litres of water were used for watering three timesper week.

❑ Most farmers transplanted on a cloudy day.

❑ The survival rates of transplanted plants decreasedfor every day without rain following transplanting.

❑ All farmers harvested the transplanted crop 3–4weeks before the direct sown crop.

❑ 89% of farmers reported higher yields fromtransplanted crops compared to direct sown crops.

❑ All farmers expressed an interest in transplantingagain.

15

Arid Lands—transplanting for food security

Project Purpose

❑ Minimising the risk of failed crops, patchy standsand costs of re-planting.

❑ Increasing food security, i.e., some improvementduring years when the rain is late; ‘safety net’ ofplants provided when the rains are erratic.

History

The Director of the Centre for Arid Zone Studies(CAZS), Dr Ian Robinson observed the indigenous

practice of transplanting masakwa sorghum in the lake Chad area of northeast Nigeria and wasconvinced that the technique could have widerapplication. In this system sorghum nurseries aretransplanted near the lake towards the end of the rainyseason. As the lake recedes the sorghum seedlings aretransplanted into the heavy water-retaining vertisolsand grown without further additional water duringthe dry season. Transplanting is a major activity in thearea for men, women and children, and sorghum canbe seen in varying stages of maturity as far as the eyecan see.

In our discussions on strategies for increasing food-security, the question was asked whether it would bepossible to transpose this practice to the other end ofthe season. In other words, is it feasible to producenurseries towards the end of the dry season to provideseedlings to be transplanted as soon as the rainfallestablishes?

The initial proposals for funding of this research wasmet with much scepticism, mainly from social scien-tists who feared that the practice would be too labour-consuming especially for women, who are alreadyoverworked. As a first step, CAZS funded a 1-year pilotstudy in Zimbabwe in 1998, which confirmed thattransplanting could be a viable option. The conclu-sion from the on-station work was that sorghum canbe transplanted without reducing yield in a good/normal season and that a nursery of 5m × 6m willprovide enough plants for 1 ha of sorghum in SEZimbabwe conditions. The on-farm verdict was thattransplanted sorghum was ‘headturningly good’. Thepilot project also produced a checklist of require-ments which must be met if transplanting is tosucceed:

1. Perennial source of water must be available

2. Water source must be conveniently situated for wateringnurseries

3. Either sorghum, millet or both must normally be grown byfarmers

4. Rainfall low & distribution erratic (not much to be gainedby transplanting in high-potential areas)

5. Availability of labour—nurseries are sown prior to theonset of the rains, therefore labour is not usually aconstraint. However, labour must be available fortransplanting

On the basis of the Pilot Study results, DfID fundingwas secured for a 3-year project in Zimbabwe and thecurrent project commenced in September 1999. Theon-station trials were based at the Department ofResearch and Specialist Services Experiment Stationin Save Valley and the on-farm work was done in

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



Transplanting sorghum and pearl millet as a means ofincreasing food security in semi-arid, low-income countries

Einir Young and Andrea Mottram1,2

1. Centre for Arid Zone Studies, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW.2. In collaboration with: Ghana—A.A. Abunyewa, I.D.K Atokple, C. Kasei, P. Tertobiri, D. Afribeh Savannah Agricultural Research Station (SARI), Ghana;

MoFA, Bawku West and Builsa Districts; Action Aid; Zebilla. Ghana. Zimbabwe—P. Nyamudeza, Save Valley Research Station, C. Chiduza and StevenMapfumo, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Zimbabwe; R. Mano, S. Kadungure Department of Agricultural Economics, University ofZimbabwe; Eliam Mahohoma, W. Mudzamiri, Rural Unity for Development Organisation (RUDO), Masvingo.

Summary

Increasing food security and reduction of risk is arecurring theme in agricultural development of the lastdecade. Shortage of water is the most serious physicalconstraint on production in semi-arid areas. The workdescribed in this presentation is based on the premisethat supplementary water can be used more efficiently ifapplied at the beginning rather than at the end of theseason. It is suggested that raising some proportion ofsorghum and millet crops in nurseries using smallamounts of water, then transplanting seedlings, could bea way of extending the growing season in short durationrainfall areas, thus providing an extra dimension tofood security.

3 Introductory Guide to Transplanting http://www.bangor.ac.uk/transplanting/

Fig. 1. Time to flowering from transplanting and sowing for Pearl Milletvariety PMV3.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


risk of crop failure in areas of patchy and unreliablerainfall.

The majority of farmers involved in the trials preferredtransplanting compared to direct sowing due to im-proved food security. Farmers suggested that the highlabour requirement at transplanting is counteractedby the reduction of labour at other times e.g. reducedweeding, earlier maturity and, in many cases, higheryields (possibly as a result of improved stands). Thusthe higher labour requirement predicted to be a majorconstraint at the outset may not be a problem.However, further information is being gathered on thecost of transplanting and the compensation gained byincreased productivity and reduction in costs ofsowing, re-sowing and weeding.

The initial on-station trials have demonstrated thatvariations in nursery density up to 1000 plants per m2

and various seedling age at transplanting up to 40days old have little effect on flowering time and yields.However trials are continuing to gather further data,which will improve and refine the technique.

Acknowledgements

The Pilot Project was generously funded by the musician, Mr RogerWhittaker, via the University of Wales Bangor Development TrustFund. We thank him and all our collaborators and participatingfarmers.

The current work is being funded by the UK Department for International

Development’s Flexibility Fund (Project R7341) and is for the benefit ofdeveloping countries. The views expressed are not necessarily those ofDfID and DfID can accept no responsibility for any informationprovided or views expressed.

17


Problems encountered by farmers included:

❑ Birds eating germinating seeds.

❑ Termites eating seedlings.

❑ Animal damage to unfenced nurseries.

❑ Source of water too far from nursery.

❑ Transplanting laborious and time consuming.

❑ Temporary wilting after transplanting.

Benefits listed by farmers in Zimbabwe included:

❑ Earlier harvesting.

❑ If the rains are late, seedlings can continue to growin the nurseries. If the rains stop prematurely thecrop can still mature.

❑ Labour requirements are reduced at certain times ofthe season e.g. weeding is reduced.

❑ Transplanting conserves seed compared to broad-casting.

❑ Better germination is obtained in nurseries com-pared to field.

❑ Secured nurseries are easier to supervise.

❑ Surplus seedlings from nurseries may be sold.

Farmers’ suggestions for improvements

❑ Fencing nurseries to protect from stray animals.

❑ Prepare shade for nursery beds (the hottest annualtemperatures occur just before the start of the rainyseason).

❑ Manure application.

❑ Situate nurseries close to a water source.

❑ Transplant after rain on a cloudy day.

On-farm trials—Ghana

Farmers were introduced to the concept in a similarway to that in Zimbabwe. In this case sorghum, earlyand late millet nurseries were prepared by thefarmers. The trial sites were limited to two adjacentareas of 10 m × 10 m pegged out by Ministry ofAgriculture or Action Aid staff.

The work in Ghana is in its first season therefore it istoo early to draw conclusions as at the time of writingall the data for the harvested pearl millet has not been

received and the sorghum and late millet are yet to beharvested. The farmers encountered similar problemsat nursery stage to those listed by the Zimbabweanfarmers. More information will be provided followingthe post-harvest workshop to be held in January2002.4

Early indications from the early millet harvest showsthat there is a small but significant increase in panicleyield in transplanted early millet compared to directsown.

Field day observations suggest that the differencesbetween transplanted and direct sown sorghum willbe greater than that for early millet as the direct sownsorghum failed following a period of drought afterplanting. On-farm field days planned prior to thesorghum harvest will provide an opportunity forfurther observation and discussion. According to onefarmer in Fumbisi ‘Transplanting saved my sorghumfarm’. He claimed to being so impressed with the ideathat he set up separate nurseries in addition to the trialnurseries being monitored by the MoFA staff. Whenthe direct sorghum failed he was able to transplant hiswhole farm from the nurseries.

The Future

Pilot studies are already on going in Ethiopia underthe auspices of Mekelle University and in Eritrea by theResearch Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.Christian Relief and Development Association (CRDA),an umbrella organisation for Ethiopian NGOs hasexpressed an interest in pursuing the idea. CAZS haslaunched an informal Transplanting Network tofacilitate the exchange of information and ideasbetween interested parties.5 Funding is being soughtto enable exchange visits between collaborators.

In Ghana, Striga hermonthica is a major constraint onsorghum production. There is some evidence frompot experiments that transplanting 3–4 week oldsorghum seedlings can significantly reduce thedamage caused by Striga thus increasing crop yield(Dagwood et al., 1996).6 This will be tested on Striga-infected land during the next season.

Conclusion

Initial results from on-farm and on-station results inZimbabwe and more recently from Ghana suggestthat transplanting can contribute to the reduction of

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



4 For updates see http://www.bangor.ac.uk/transplanting/5 For more information contact [email protected] Dawoud D.A., Sauerborn J. and Krochel J. (1996) ‘Transplanting of sorghum: A method to reduce yield losses caused by the parasitic weed Striga.’ In

Advances in Parasitic Plant Research edited by Moreno M.T., Cuero J.I., Burner D., Joel D., Mussel man L.J. and Parker C. (ISBN 84-87564-43-7)].

Access toOn-line Newsletter:

User name—TAA MembersPassword—ta2010a (case sensitive)

NOMINATIONS FOR HONOURSFurther to my note in the June 2001 Newsletter,

the forms for nominations for honours can be

obtained from: Nomination Unit, Ceremonial

Branch, Cabinet Office, Ashley House, 2 Monck

Street, London SW1P 2BQ.

If any of our members wish to make

nomination(s) I would suggest that they obtain

form(s) and fill in the requisite information.

These should be sent to me and I will present

them to EXCO.

John K. Coulter

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Project Evolution

The most direct way of tracing the evolution of ourthinking is to reproduce the conceptual and processmodels (Figs 1 and 2) from which the detailed workemerged.

A commitment to an interdisciplinary, multi-sectorialapproach has been fundamental to the vision of theGabarone workshop and all subsequent work. Theapproach is predicated on the thesis that the socialand economic concerns and aspirations and long-term sustainability of the human communities arecentral to any study of range status and productivity.While range ecology and animal husbandry are vitallyimportant, they cannot be understood as independentof many internal and external influences and thepolicy context as well as of course any responses tochanges in the resource base arising from globalclimate change.

During the mid-project meeting in Kamieskroon inMarch 1999, partly as a result of the field experienceand partly because of the initial attempts to establish aframework for the computer model, these firstmodels were modified. The Gabarone model failed tospecify the importance (both quality and quantity) and‘accessibility’ of water in relation to either human

welfare or the animal production/herding. Theprocess model (Fig. 2) only considered water as afunction of climate, consequently omitting severalimportant drivers. Secondly it was felt that the socio-economic elements should be expanded to address,specifically, the priorities of different socio-economicgroups within a given community and the issues ofgender and ethnicity. Much more recognition wasalso given to market opportunities, populationgrowth, and the possible conflicts between differentpolicy objectives.

Fig. 3 gives therefore the amended version of theconceptual model. This in turn led to the productionof a multi-layered model, which underpins the comp-uter programme. I will not report here on the highlevel interactions of this model but further details canbe found on our website:http://www.bangor.ac.uk/rangeland/

Conclusions

The project conclusions are focussed around a set offundamental insights which, although not completelyoriginal, must mould our future thinking.

1. Although each community with whom we havebeen working would be thought of as a typical ruralcommunity with a dominant dependence on andinvolvement in animal husbandry, it has becomeclear that the contribution of animal production tocommunity livelihoods/economy is modest, varyingfrom about 30% in Lesotho down to perhaps only5% in Paulshoek. These contributions are notevenly distributed with a concentration in thebetter-off, male-led households. Crop productionis important in some communities and is alsogender weighted towards female households.Other range contributions, e.g., fuel in Paulshoekand game in Ngwatle (one of the Matshengsettlements) are in broad terms as important as

19

Arid Lands—sustainable rangelands

Introduction

This paper traces the evolution of a CAZS co-ordinated INCO-DC project ‘Subsistence range-

lands in southern Africa’. It has become increasinglyapparent that the international global climate changeand global change agendas have increasingly focussedon the human factors. Not only on how human activi-ties impact upon the various geo-chemical, biologicaland physical cycles, regionally and globally, but alsohow can we modify these interactions to mitigatenegative environmental effects while seeking to main-tain and hopefully improve human welfare. Suchstudies require a multidisciplinary approach and it isgratifying that our project is widely quoted as anexample of a positive way forward.

An evolution is also taking place in the thinking of the international agricultural research fraternity.Technical fixes, while not discounting their value, areno longer seen as a ‘solution’. Both the human welfareand the environmental dimensions of agriculturalresearch for development are now being given a moreprominent place (see Dresden Declaration, 20003). Ininternational development circles poverty is now seenas the great challenge but in a context of the need forgood governance and environmental sustainability;all under the shadow of globalisation.

In much of Europe and amongst some majorinternational companies, the search for sustainabledevelopment still carries considerable authority.Concerns about greenhouse gas emission still pre-occupy many. While the Kyoto process did not lead toagreement in Den Haag, it is difficult to believe,despite the US position on the subject, that the globalcommunity will not address these issues seriously.

In summary, there is an increasing realisation thatsustainable and more efficient agricultural produc-tion, good management of environmental resources,meeting human needs, especially combating poverty,enhancing welfare and combating social problems arenot independent variables but inextricably inter-twined.

Objectives

The specific objectives of the primary research con-ducted at Paulshoek, Namaqualand, South Africa,Pelaneng-Bokong Range Management Area, Lesothoand the Matsheng villages in the Kalahari, Botswana,were as follows:

❑ Determine how ‘rangeland state’ influencesrangeland productivity (which we chose to interpretinclusively).

❑ Determine how rangeland productivity contributesto community welfare.

❑ Assess impacts of current policies and practices onresource access and use.

❑ Assess impacts of bio-physical and socio-economicprocesses and events.

❑ Collate data, derive models and develop policy/intervention options.

❑ Make preliminary estimates of dynamics of human-induced global (climate) change.

In order to place this project and the research workpursued in context it is useful to outline the evolutionof the project itself from a Workshop held inGabarone in 1996.4

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



Sustainable community rangelandsand their communities in southern Africa

Gareth Wyn Jones and Einir Young1,2


1. On behalf of the Project Partners & sub-contractors: Centre for Arid Zone Studies, Wales (CAZS); Centre for Hydrology & Ecology; Scotland (CEH)Pyrenean Institute of Ecology, Spain (IPE); National Botanical Institute, (NBI) South Africa; Institute of Plant Conservation; Dept. of Botany; Programmefor Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) Uni. Western Cape; Agric. Research Council, Range & Forage Institute, Bellville SA; Dept. of Geography and Env.Science, Uni. Witwatersrand, SA; Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Norway (NINA); National University of Lesotho (NUL); University ofBotswana (UB); Centre for Applied Research (CAR), Gaborone, Botswana.

2. The work presented here was partly funded by INCO-DC Project No. ERBIC18CT970162 “Global Change and Subsistence Rangelands in SouthernAfrica: Resource Variability, Access and Use in Relation to Rural Livelihoods and Welfare”. This in turn was based on recommendations and approachesdeveloped at the GCTE Workshop in Gaborone, June 1996.

3. Dresden Declaration ‘Towards a global system for agricultural research for development’. Global Forum on Agricultural Research, Dresden, May21–23, 2000.]

4. Odada, E., Totlo, O., Stafford Smith, M. and Ingram, J. (Eds.) 1996. Global Change and Subsistence Rangelands in Southern Africa: the impacts ofclimatic variability and resource access on rural livelihoods. GCTE Working Document No. 20, GCTE Core Project Office, Canberra, Australia. 99pp.

Fig. 1. Conceptual model.

Fig. 2. Key Processes.

Fig. 3. Modified Conceptual Model

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


the new Mandella homes, that ‘village’/rangeinteractions require more attention. For example,why is the water from the roofs not stored in waterbutts? Is it environmentally sustainable to promiseeveryone a flushed toilet? Are there alternatives tofuel collection that both endanger the ranges andrequire so much female labour that horticulturalenterprises are not valid? Are there local sources ofrenewable energy? Can communication links thatdepend on a supply of electricity be improved tohelp diversify the local economy? What links can beforged with local markets?

❑ The model outlines a downward spiral of increas-ing dependency and range degradation or one ofdecreasing dependency, increasing economicdiversification and better range quality itselfcontributing to tourist possibilities.

❑ At the heart of this alternative scenario lies anappraisal by the community, with some assistancefrom outside agencies and possibly this project, oftheir options to diversify their economic base andmake full use of their possibilities. One of the most

heartening examples is afforded by the issuing oftradable hunting rights to the Matsheng villagesthat can give them an alternative, reliable incomeand a vested interest in the better management oftheir own resources.

Other Points

❑ Population growth if uncontrolled in a resourcepoor area can be a major problem e.g. in Paulshoekwith only 100 to 250 mm rain per year and only 13litres/person/day are currently available (well belowthe RDP standard of 25 litre/person/day) thenclearly the area cannot support a large population.

❑ The evolution of the socio-legal/traditional frame-work for resource allocation needs to continue butnot necessarily into conventional private owner-ship.

❑ Issues of club/common ownership require a muchmore detailed examination and we must thank ourcolleagues in Lesotho, especially Dr MoeketsiMajoro, for their leadership and foresight in thisarea.

21

Arid Lands—sustainable rangelands/Pastoralism

animal production per se. Other important contribu-tions to livelihoods include remittances/pensionsand in case of Botswana, a number of centralGovernment support systems, themselves depen-dent on the profitable diamond industry. Lesothohas seen a major decline in such external supportwith the decline in the demand for migrant labouron the Rand with a consequential increase independence on the ranges themselves.

2. Despite this analysis the social and emotional linkof the people to their ranges cannot be overstated.

3. The animal recording data in Paulshoek showclearly that animal husbandry standards andreturns vary widely within a given communal areaand that in collaboration with the farmers, it may bepossible to identify best practice and improvedmethods and results. Similarly there may be com-munal approaches to better management of thewhole range. Equally there are a number of possibleways of improving crop production and the outputsfrom small gardens.

4. Notwithstanding these important possible im-provements, the basic physical constraints on

animal and crop production at all three sitesremain. There is little, if any, prospect that a largeimprovement in the welfare/livelihoods of the bulkof the community can be built on agriculturalproduction. This should not be interpreted as aninvitation to ignore the crucial importance of theseproduction systems or ecology and range sustain-ability.

The Introduction detailed how ideas and conceptshave evolved in the first two years or so. It is nowuseful to offer a further conceptual model (Fig. 4),which offers a visualisation of the processes that canreform the current situation either to an unsustainabledegradative cycle for both the communities and theirranges or the reverse—improved human welfarecombined with an improved ranges.

The emerging conceptual model (Fig. 4) is largelyself-explanatory but a few points require emphasising:

❑ Historically the interactions between the com-munities and their ranges have been mainlyperceived in terms of animal and crop productionand range ecology, but it is apparent from thePaulshoek study and recent government input, e.g.,

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



Fig. 4. Current situation and options for the future

Pastoralism in South Sudan

Tim Fison

Introduction

In many parts of the world, pastoralism seems to beunder threat. In some cases, governments still have

the perception that nomadic or transhumant past-oralism is an archaic or inefficient form of land-useand that the way of life is backward. Uncontrolledmovements of people and animals are still regarded asa problem and administering such people anddelivering services to them are regarded as a dilemmarather than a challenge. Pastoralists tend to bemarginalized and settling them continues to be theaim of some governments.

In other situations, land is still being alienated frompastoralists. Increasing demands for cultivation isputting pressure on semi-arid land that hastraditionally been used by pastoralists. In some cases,leaders of pastoral people are themselves selling suchland, as has happened with the Masai in Kenya andTanzania. Land tenure systems often seem to beoperating with scant regard to pastoralists.

In south Sudan, the situation is entirely different. Thedominant tribes, numerically and politically, are theDinka and Nuer, who are archetypal agro-pastoralists

and who are under no illusions that they and theirlands are the best and that keeping livestock is theprime occupation. There are other strong pastoralgroups including the Shilluk around the Nile atMalakal, the Taposa and the Murle in the south-east.Other cattle owning groups are the Didinga, Acholi,Lotuka, Mandari and Bari occupying territorybordering Kenya and Uganda. The only part of southSudan that is not suitable for extensive cattle rearing isthe south-west (western Equatorial) which is infestedwith tsetse flies.

In the face of disruptions caused by the civil war sincethe mid-1950s, the Nuer and Dinka have clung withastonishing resilience to their transhumant way oflife. Perhaps the very nature of pastoralism, which isbased on a mobile asset as its essential resource,enables it to withstand such constant harassment.

The author’s main experience has been with the Nuerand Dinka; first, from 1979–82 as a member of a teaminvestigating the effect of the Jonglei canal, andsecondly, as manager of the livestock programme ofan NGO trying to implement a community-basedanimal health project from 1994–2000 (see Fig. 1).

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


on each other. The cattle are milked mid-morning bythe women and young girls, after which they arereleased to graze. Children herd the calves and smallstock, while young men are in charge of the main herdof cattle. Boys collect the dung passed during thenight and spread it out to dry. Dung fires are import-ant not only for keeping insects at bay but the ash isalso used for teeth cleaning, mixing with water forskin decorations and for rubbing into the skins andhorns of cattle. Women make sorghum porridge andtake care of the milk. Men make ropes from hide orpalm leaf, look for lost cattle, broker marriages anddiscuss issues of the day together. The cattle return atabout 5 pm and stand in the smoke of the dung fireswhile children tether them. Calves are herded and tiedseparately from their dams. The evening milking maynot be carried out until 7 pm or later.

The milk off-take is very low and varies considerablyaccording to season. Given that 3 litres of milk areneeded daily to sustain an adult, at least 2 milkingcows would be needed per person if they relied solelyon milk. So important is the milk that if a cow hasaborted or if the calf has died, milk letdown isobtained by placing the lips against the vulva andblowing hard into the vagina. One imagines thispractice could significantly increase the risk ofacquiring brucellosis.

Goats and sheep are also important to the Nuer andDinka although held in less esteem than cattle. Theyprovide a useful amount of milk for children, who canmilk them at any time without the relative formalitysurrounding the milking of cattle. Small stock areuseful for exchanging for various commodities andcan be slaughtered for an important guest. They arealso a stepping-stone for acquiring cattle.

Fish and other meat

Fish are important particularly in the dry season whenthey become concentrated in ponds that are drying outand in the main rivers. Nile perch, tilapia and catfishare the main species.

The white-eared kob (Kobus kob leucotis) and the tiang(Damaliscus lunatus korrigum) have traditionally beenvery significant sources of meat to the Nuer, Dinkaand other groups. In the early 1980s the former wereestimated to be 900,000 strong and the latter 500,000.With proper management, these populations couldhave yielded some 6 million kg of meat annually. It isinteresting to speculate why pastoralists in Africa havenot built up a sustainable management relationshipwith any of the wild bovids.

Use of cattle

Although the main reason that the Nuer and Dinkakeep cattle is for milk, they also have many other uses,e.g., exchange for grain, medicines and clothes,payment of marriage settlement and fines, loanrepayment, credit, and for making different thingsfrom many parts of the animal after slaughter. Theyare not traditionally used for draught purposes butefforts are being made to overcome the unwillingnessto make cattle work, and some ox ploughing is nowtaking place.

Diseases

All the classic cattle diseases are present and place amajor constraint on productivity. It is the last countrywhere rinderpest is seen as a continuing threat al-though vaccination has greatly reduced it. The lastconfirmed outbreak was in 1998, whereas there were11 in 1993.

Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia is endemic. Thepractice of housing cattle closely in the ill-ventilatedluaks provides ideal conditions for the spread of thisdisease and also of tuberculosis. Treatment with long-acting oxytetracycline remains the only option. Someregard this as counterproductive as a control measurebut to refuse treatment for this well-known diseasewould be unacceptable to the Nuer and Dinka.

Anthrax, blackquarter and haemorrhagic septicaemia,the major causes of rapid death in cattle, are prevalentin south Sudan but only spasmodic vaccination ispractised. Brucellosis and TB are serious in terms ofboth animal production and as zoonoses.

Foot and mouth disease is well recognised andregarded as a considerable nuisance and ranks about6th in the pastoralists’ order of disease importance.

The most common clinical problem is the thin cow.There a number of possible contributory factors andin any particular case, several of these are likely to beacting together. Trypanosomiasis heads the list,perhaps because it may be the commonest factor. Aninteresting feature of trypanosomiasis in south Sudanis its widespread occurrence in the flat central floodplain in the apparent absence of tsetse. Age, repeatedpregnancies and malnutrition are often involved: themajority of these cases are mature or aged cows.Towards the end of the dry season, with the cattleconverged on the main watercourses and much of thepasture burnt, grazing is often in short supply andprobably also low in protein.

23

Arid Lands—Pastoralism

Characteristics of south SudanIn contrast to the north, south Sudan is not a desert.Perhaps the key words which sum up its features are:water, mud, grass, insects, fish, birds, migratoryanimals and people, parasites, swamp, fire, lack ofstone and lack of infrastructure. Grass and mud arethe main building materials and people are highlyskilled in their use. Most of central south Sudan com-prises the vast flood plain of the Nile and the riversdraining into it. The main river and the permanentswamp surrounding form the Sudd, which has an areaof some 16,000 sq km. Seasonally it expands to aboutdouble this size. More mountainous areas occur alongthe borders with Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and theCongo. The flood plain is remarkably flat and tends tobecome waterlogged, both from river flooding andfrom rainfall during the wet season from May toOctober. From November to April, the land progres-sively dries out and lack of water becomes a problemover huge areas.

The vegetation is mainly grassland or wooded grass-land. Biting insects such as mosquitoes, tabanids,stable flies and camel flies abound and pose a greatirritation to, as well as having disease implicationsfor, people and animals alike.

LivestockThe method of livestock keeping and, indeed, allhuman activity is closely tied in with the ecology of the

region. During the wet season, the cattle are kept nearor in the homesteads. Both the Nuer and the Dinkaconstruct thatched cattle byres called luaks, whichhouse about 30–40 cattle at night. Goats and sheepare also housed in them. Luaks and homesteads areloosely grouped into villages and placed on slightlyhigher ground, which is normally safe from flooding.The animals are only housed when the mosquitonumbers reach serious levels. During the wet seasonthere is usually an abundance of grass and the herdsare kept near the villages.

As the dry season sets in the cattle start to move awayas the grazing and water become depleted around thevillages. Kinship groups bring their cattle together tofrom large herds from several hundred up to2,000–3,000 strong. As the swamp recedes, the cattleare taken in a series of stages successively towards themain rivers where water is always available in the dryseason. These moves follow a traditional pattern yearafter year. At night, the cattle are returned to a cattlecamp within which each family has its own placecomprising a central dung fire, with the cattle peggedin an orderly and particular fashion around it. Sheepand goats are similarly tied. At the onset of rains, thecattle return to the villages through the same route.This general theme varies according to the annualflooding and conflict situation.

In the cattle camp, the daily routine revolves aroundthe cattle with people and cattle mutually dependent

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—Pastoralism

Fig. 1. South Sudan. Shaded areas where the author worked.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


The tree is an important source of timber and non-timber products. The nutritious fruits are eaten, thebark is used for traditional medicines and the latexused for making glue. The timber is used for fire-wood, charcoal, construction, furniture and makingpounding mortars. The most valued product, usuallyharvested, processed and sold by women, is sheabutter, the main oleaginous product in many areas of its range. Shea butter is widely used for cooking, as a skin moisturiser or as an illuminant. The oil or fat(particularly its stearate fraction) is also usedworldwide in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and edibleproducts.

ICUC have undertaken a project to study the variabilityof the species, using participatory methodology, andto identify, describe, select and collect desirablegermplasm for evaluation. Efforts are being made todevelop propagation systems suitable for adoption byentrepreneurial farmers prepared to establishnurseries, and to make selected planting materialsavailable to farmers.

Constraints and Opportunities

Worldwide vegetable oil and fat production rosedramatically between 1987 and 1997 from 75.6 to 96.0million tonnes. The potential of sheanut to meet partof this demand is immense and it offers numerousopportunities for development. The importance of

shea butter in the Sahel can be compared with that ofolive and palm oils in their respective ecologicalregions, yet its importance has not been recognised.Traditional production methods remain unchangedand the full potential of this valuable resource has yetto be realised.

Many biological, environmental and processingconstraints affect supply: fire during flowering is saidto result in low fruit set and high winds prior toharvesting induce immature fruit drop. A commoncomplaint of buyers is that shea nuts are inadequatelydried and contain a high free fatty acid content.

Trees take up to 20 years to mature, the seeds arerecalcitrant and the heterozygous populations pro-duce a highly variable crop in terms of quantity andquality. The species is out-crossing, and vegetativepropagation methods have only recently been devel-oped. Research into tree improvement, conservationand shea butter processing has been undertaken inBurkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda.

Methodology

With the aim of surveying and collecting viablegermplasm, 24 different sites were chosen in 18localities in the Brong-Ahafo, Upper West, Upper Eastand Northern regions of Ghana, and at least 10 trees ateach site were characterised. In addition to usingthese sites, an ethnobotanical survey and a woodyspecies inventory of the region were done. The stemsof all perennial species (palms, trees, shrubs andbamboos) which were 7 cm diameter or greater atbreast height were measured and identified.

The participatory survey was undertaken to gain aninsight into farming practices and to identifyanthropic influences on V. paradoxa populations.Discussions were held with 130 people and, sincegender had been identified as an important factorwith regard to sheanut related activities, women tookpart in 59% of the interview sessions.

The morphological variation of trees was assessed bycollection of data on the diameter at breast height,basal area and height of the tree, canopy diameter,number of stems, leaf lamina length and width,petiole length and seed length, breadth and depth. Atotal of 294 trees from the 24 sites were sampled.From each trees 40–60 ripe fruit were collected forprogeny trials, to produce young leaves for isozymeanalysis and explants for in vitro propagation studies.The fat content of seeds was analysed.

25

Arid Lands—Sheanuts

Ticks and tick-borne diseases do not seem to be ofmajor importance, except in certain areas along theKenya and Uganda borders where East Coast Fever isprevalent.

Diseases are the single most important problem to thepastoralists. In a survey of one group, the twelve mostimportant criteria taken into account when judgingthe importance of cattle diseases were:

1. Effect on milk yield 7. Affect on happiness of people 2. Effect on meat 8. Affecting health of people3. Calf mortality 9. Causing abortion4. Adult mortality 10. How difficult to treat5. Impact on marriage 11. Effect on bartering6. Degree of emaciation 12. Effect on fertility

Future possibilities

Given the geographical, environmental and politicalconstraints and opportunities, it is likely that thesystem of livestock husbandry developed over theyears by the Nuer and Dinka will continue. It is hard to

suggest viable alternatives or improvements. Anobvious suggestion is to conserve some of the excessfodder in the wet season for use during the dry periodof March and April. However, hand cutting wouldrequire much labour at a time when cultivation isunderway and drying hay in the rains would bedifficult. Silage pits in waterlogged ground would alsopose problems and stored hay would be prone totermite attack. It is probably easier to improve theirmethods of cultivating sorghum and maize than toincrease animal productivity.

Hopes have also been expressed for large-scale sugarand rice production and if the northerners gaincontrol of the south maybe that will happen. Thedevelopment of the apparently huge oil resource maytransform the situation in the future. Even so, giventhe huge area of south Sudan, there may be room forboth pastoralism and agriculture. At present, landtenure is not an issue but it is likely to become ofcrucial importance and the Nuer and Dinka should bemade aware.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—Pastoralism/Sheanuts

Sheanut (Vitellaria paradoxa) in the farming systems of the Sudan and Guinea Savannah vegetation zones

of sub-Saharan Africa

R.W. Smith and N. HaqInternational Centre for Under utilised Crops, University of Southampton

Introduction

Sheanut is considered to be a ‘Cinderella’ species, one that provides considerable social, economic

and environmental benefits through traditionalutilisation, but has been neglected by mainstreamdomestication. It was included in a list of tree speciesconstituting African forest genetic resource prioritiesfor in situ conservation at the fourth session of theFAO panel of experts on Forest Genetic Resources in1977 (FAO, 1977). During the last decade there hasbeen renewed interest in the species and researchersat the International Centre for Research in Agro-forestry (ICRAF) have determined that this is one ofthe main priority species for tree improvement in theSahel.

The sheanut tree (Fig. 1) is a dominant feature of theagro-ecosystems of the Sudan and Guinea Savannahregion throughout the semi-arid regions of 18 Africancountries, and forms an almost unbroken beltapproximately 5000 km long and 500 km wide fromSenegal in the west to Uganda in the east (Fig. 2). Fig. 1. Sheanut Tree

Fig. 2. Distribution of Sheanut in Africa.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Carefully selected Y-shaped poles are used in houseconstruction, and sections of the trunks are hollowedout to make mortars. Farmers considered the flowersproduced excellent quality honey. Many medicines aremade from the roots, bark and shea butter. Sheabutter itself is used as an ointment against sprains andrespiratory complaints, and an extract from the bark isextensively known as a cure for stomach disorders.The latex is used as glue, or to seal cracked calabashpots. Even the liquid waste products from butterextraction are used as a waterproof coating for mudhouses, and leftover husks are put on to paths toreduce erosion.

Commercial Utilisation

Industrial processes can extract up to 80% of theavailable fat, although these methods are not currentlyused in Africa. The usual extraction method involveshot pressing using a continuous screw or hydraulicpress, followed by filter pressing. Latex in the kernelscauses problems with all extraction methods, par-ticularly those using machines that are likely tobecome clogged up.

Shea butter is used as a cocoa butter substitute (only5% by weight of non-cocoa fats allowed in ECchocolate products) and in the manufacture ofmargarine or other fat spreads. The largest share(97%) of shea butter utilisation is in the food industry,but the fastest growing market is in the formulation ofbase creams in the pharmaceutical and cosmeticindustry. The majority of shea butter sold in westernmarkets is processed in developed countries from drykernels exported from Africa.

Annual production of shea butter is thought to be ashigh as 500,000 tonnes, although estimates areextremely variable due to inaccurate assessment oflocal markets. Only export figures are readilyavailable. A recent report from Ghana stated thatKassardjan Industries Ltd. exported sheanut productsvalued at over US$35.5 million.

Research and Development Needs

Farmers involved in the interviews were invited tooffer suggestions as to what would encourage them toplant sheanut trees and how the industry could beimproved. Responses highlighted the fact that far-mers in northern Ghana are very keen to be involved inthe development of the sheanut industry, and there-fore they should be encouraged to participate in

client-orientated R&D. The need for better processingtechnology was only mentioned by women. Womenalso said they would encourage the planting andprotection of sheanuts because by using its products(oil, soap and traditional cosmetics) they did not haveto purchase these items in the market. Some malefarmers offered a similar viewpoint and stated that thetrees ensured an economic return from the land evenwhen annual crops failed.

Through the project the following research prioritieswere identified:

❑ A further study of the genetic variability of many ofthe phenotypic traits. This should target areas inthe southernmost range of the species in wood-lands that have had little or no history of cultiva-tion.

❑ Research and development to give added-on valueto the sheanut industry. Local awareness of thevalue of indigenous products needs to be increased,and the local industry strengthened and linked toproduction as part of an international marketchain.

❑ Agronomic research to fit sheanut into a modernagriculture system.

❑ Management issues on the agroforestry parklandswhere sheanut grows. Land and tree tenure mech-anisms need further investigation to develop newstrategies to encourage tree planting.

❑ Locally desirable germplasm should be selected,multiplied (using new propagation methods) andincorporated into traditional agroforestry andmodern farming systems.

References

FAO. 1977. Appendix 8, Forest genetic resource priorities. 8. Africa. Reportof the Fourth session of the FAO panel of experts on Forest GeneticResources, Canberra, Australia, 9–11 March 1977. FAO, Rome. p. 2–84.

Hall, J.B. et al., 1996. Vitellaria paradoxa: A monograph. School ofAgriculture and Forest Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor, UK, pp.85.

Lovett, P. N.C. 2000. The genetic diversity of the sheanut tree (Vitellariaparadoxa) in the farming systems of northern Ghana. A thesissubmitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University ofSouthampton, pp. 177.

27


Results

Diversity

Productive mature trees varied from shrubby multi-stemmed individuals (height < 5 m) to 30 m straight-boled trees with high compact canopies. The leaflamina varied from 9.2 cm to 22.5 cm, the seed lengthfrom 1.74 cm to 3.74 cm and the fat content from29.1% to 61.9% of total kernel weight. Populationvariation of seed characteristics increased to theNortheast, perpendicular to the annual movement ofthe inter-tropical convergence zone.

There was strong evidence for anthropic selection inthe sheanut tree. In the West Gonga district thesheanut tree on intensively farmed land constituted79.7 (plus or minus 7.2%) m2ha- of the woodybiomass, on low intensity farmland 84.2 (plus orminus 10.0%) and only 10.2 (plus or minus 3.3%) inunmanaged woodland. Large trees were more com-mon on farmed land. Participatory surveys revealedthat these populations are a direct result of anthropicselection as local farmers eliminate unwanted woodyspecies on farmland, leaving only those sheanut treesthat meet criteria based on spacing, size, growth,health, age and yield.

Propagation

If superior varieties of V. paradoxa can be identified,and this seems to be indicated by this research, it isnecessary to capture the genetically elite types andmultiply them. Unfortunately, the out-crossingnature, lengthy maturation period and recalcitrantseeds have so far made this difficult. Grafting isthought to be limited by latex production, althoughrecent grafting success in Mali and Burkina Fasooffers evidence that this problem can be overcome.Significant advances have also been made in rootingcuttings, although the methods being tested stillrequire the correct propagation conditions to bemaintained for a minimum of three months beforetransplanting can take place.

Both shoot regeneration and root induction in in-vitroculture have been achieved and therefore, in theabsence of low-cost technology methods, micro-propagation techniques may offer a viable method forclonal propagation.

In developing a methodology attention must be givento stakeholder demand and availability of resources,including skills, funds and equipment. In Ghana, far-

mers identified improved planting stock as a majorneed to improve the sheanut industry, although theyalso identified land tenure problems, poor extensionservices and lack of management skills as otherconstraints

Sheanut Farming Systems

Farming systems are generally similar throughoutnorthern Ghana, where almost pure stands of sheanuttrees are seen in agroforestry parklands, and culti-vated fields are planted with yams, millet, sorghum,maize, cassava and legumes (Lovett, 2000). In WestGonga, the typical crop rotation starts in a year inwhich woodland or fallow is cleared, leaving specificindividuals of certain tree species. The mostimportant of these are Vitellaria paradoxa, Parkiabiglobosa, Diospyros mespiliformis, Daniella oliveri andVitex doniana.

After clearing, most farmers plant yams that areharvested in their second year. These are followed byone or more years of cereals—sorghum, millet ormaize—and a legume, and then cassava is left as afamine relief crop for up to 10 years. Most (91%) of themale farmers interviewed had planted trees onfarmland. Only a few farmers had planted sheanut,most of the planted trees being exotics such asmango, cashew, Blighia sapida, Tectona grandis and oilpalms. However, 68% of farmers said they prefer notto clear dense stands of sheanut, and would rathercultivate elsewhere. Farmers (92%) also said theywould like more sheanut on their land, and suggestedthat 20–50 trees/ha is desired on cultivated land andsome 400/ha in ‘pure stand’ orchards.

Women and children collect the mature nuts and areusually given priority rights to harvest on landcurrently being farmed by their family members, orfrom trees around the households. A traditional two-week ban on harvesting is strictly enforced once fruitabscission commences.

Local Uses and Traditions

Sheanut provides a wide range of products. The whitefruit pulp is eaten and often sold by children topassengers of passing vehicles. In some areas wholefruit is given to pigs before the de-pulped seeds areboiled. The leaves are seldom used, except in peri-urban areas where they maybe gathered for fodder.

Dead wood is collected for firewood and whole treesare sometimes cut down for making charcoal.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



Poster Presentations

Physiological Responses of Cotton to Water Deficit in PakistanJ. Gorham1, J. Bridges1,

M.N.A. Malik2 and I.A. Khan3

1Centre for Arid Zone Studies, University of Wales, Bangor, LL57 2UW, U.K.; 2Central Cotton Research Institute, Multan, Pakistan; 3Universityof Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan

In Pakistan most cotton is grown under extensive irrigation. Between 1994 and 1997 we conducted aseries of experiments at two sites (The Postgraduate Agriculture Research Station of the University of

Agriculture, Faisalabad and the Central Cotton Research Institute in Multan) to examine the effects ofreduced irrigation on the yield and physiology of local varieties. In most cases reducing the frequency ofirrigation resulted in lower yields of seed cotton, although occasionally mild water stress increasedyields.

Chlorophyll fluorescence analysis revealed no significant change in Fv/Fm ratios under moderate tosevere water deficit, indicating that PSII electron transport was not impaired. Leaf chlorophyll contents,as measured with a Minolta SPAD meter, increased under water deficit. Stomatal conductance, measuredeither with a porometer or an infra-red gas analyser, was reduced by water deficit, with consequentreductions in gas exchange parameters (net photosynthesis, transpiration and water use efficiency) andan increase in leaf temperature (measured with an infra-red thermometer).

Concentrations of Na+, K+, Mg++ and Ca++ in leaf sap were not much affected by mild water deficit, butincreased under severe water stress. Of the anions, Cl- and SO4-- showed the greatest increases inconcentration under reduced irrigation. Concentrations of the quaternary ammonium osmoprotectantglycinebetaine increased to about 100 mol m-3 in leaf sap under severe water deficit. None of the physio-logical parameters alone could account for varietal differences in yield under reduced irrigation.

Salt Tolerance in RiceJohn Gorham and Nasim Akhtar

Centre for Arid Zone Studies and School of Biological Sciences

Rice is generally regarded as one of the least salt tolerant cereals. Previous work demonstrated a link between Na+ accumulation in leaves and salinity tolerance in hydroponic culture. Na+ accumula-

tion was an heritable trait, largely determined by bypass radial water movement. In our experimentssalinity was applied in three different ways: saline water sprayed onto the leaves, in a flood bench withsoil or in water culture. The rice variety Marzhan accumulated more Na+ than other varieties in responseto foliar spray. Moroberekan accumulated more Na+ when salt was applied to the roots. K+

concentrations decreased when salt was applied to leaves, but increased in response to root salinity. Thisincrease in concentration of K+ was entirely due to dehydration of leaf tissue.

When salt was applied to the roots, the substrate affected growth and Na+ accumulation. Shoot freshweights and photosynthetic rates were lower in hydroponics (water) than in the flood bench (soil) forCo39. Na+ accumulation was higher in hydroponics than in the flood bench in both varieties. There was

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—Posters: Cotton/Rice

no statistically significant difference in leaf Cl- concentrations between Co39 and Moroberekan. Cl-

concentrations were, however, at least an order of magnitude higher than Na+ concentrations. Apopulation of F8 Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) derived from the cross Co39 × Moroberekan wasanalysed for leaf ion concentrations and shoot growth. Linear regressions for both Na and Cl with shootfresh weight (SFW) were significant, although the r values were low. The data do not allow a distinctionto be made between the toxicities of Na+ and Cl-. Na+ accumulation was not correlated with bypass flow.

Although osmotic adjustment was in excess of that required to maintain the water potential gradientbetween the leaf and the soil water, there was a decrease in turgor pressure. This can be explained by theOertli hypothesis. Some of the ions that accumulated in the leaves of salt-treated plants were not takeninto the cell (symplast) and accumulated in the cell wall. This reduces the water potential gradient acrossthe plasmalemma and hence reduces turgor pressure.

One major QTL for leaf Na+ was identified on chromosome 1. Its position is similar to that of Na+ QTLand genes (including SalT1 and saltol) in other rice mapping populations. Several QTL for other traits(leaf K+ and Mg++concentrations, K/Na ratios, shoot fresh and dry weights and leaf water contents) alsomapped to the same region. This could be explained by genetic linkage of several genes or by pleiotropiceffects of a single gene. It is possible to use marker-assisted selection to breed for low Na+ accumulationin rice. Differences between two experiments point, however, to significant G × E interactions.

A Novel Approach to Rice Breeding: CombiningParticipatory Plant Breeding (PPB) and Marker

Assisted Selection (MAS)K.A. Steele and J. R. Witcombe

Centre for Arid Zone Studies, University of Wales, Bangor(email: [email protected])

Farmers of rainfed uplands in India have not benefited greatly from the outputs of modern plantbreeding. They grow a very restricted set of local varieties because many of the released varieties for

upland cultivation lack farmer-preferred traits. Of the improved rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars, Kalinga IIIis the single most popular variety with upland farmers because of its earliness and good grain quality.Kalinga III is non-aromatic and has poor roots. It is susceptible to drought early in the season. Aromaticrice is highly valued in India, but aromatic varieties are not currently available for the rainfed uplands.The upland variety Azucena is aromatic and has long thick roots that give it the ability to avoid earlyseason drought. A marker-assisted selection (MAS) backcross programme was used to transferquantitative trait loci (QTL) for root traits and aroma from Azucena to Kalinga III. Three rounds ofbackcrossing to Kalinga III were carried out with selection in BC1F1, BC2F1, BC2F2, BC3F1 and BC3F2

progeny. Flanking RFLP markers were selected in the early stages and microsatellite markers were usedfor the selection in later screens. Markers at non-target chromosomal regions were also screened andthe Kalinga III genotype selected where possible. Pyramid lines were bred with a combination of the rootQTL. These were tested in Bangalore under field conditions for root traits. Lines were grown in soil-filledpipes and roots were examined at day 60. A line with 2-root QTL had significantly longer roots thanKalinga III. In addition bulks comprising of lines derived from the BC2F2, containing root QTL andaroma, were made which were still segregating for Azucena alleles at many regions. These bulks wereadvanced and grown in Eastern India in a farmer Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) screen in 2000. Linesare undergoing evaluation on station and on rainfed-upland farms in the 2001 growing season.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Arid Lands—Posters: Rice Breeding

✵

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


but both provide cash flows. Cocoa (Theobroma cacao)might also be included here as a small tree that doeswell for small farmers. The list of near-perennials,plants which hang on in more or less shrubby form oras dried out bits is long. Very incompletely, I mentionas locally valued crops now nearly wholly neglected,the following: the very various Cucurbitaceae (includ-ing the extraordinary buffalo gourd, Cucurbitafoetidissima); the onions and relatives (Allium spp),which are part staple in Egypt for example; and thepeppers (Capsicum spp) which are hardy and widelyadapted.

Finally, one of the most neglected sectors of all:timber trees. There must be hundreds, more probablythousands, of timbers that grow well and quickly, canbe bred and could be marketed. Indeed, a few such asEucalyptus, Gmelina and teak have been. Naturally,one thinks first of teak which is indeed an excellentsubject first explored in India over 100 years ago.There are scores more but there is no point in listingthem; the main point surely would be to look at lots of

species and choose carefully before committingresources to a choice which might a have fatal defect(such as propagability). I suspect this is the sort ofposition that agroforestry is now approaching.Growing wood in a world increasingly deficient intimber makes much sense but growing carefullydesigned mixtures of annuals and perennials is adifferent matter. True, the idea of the living fence-postis excellent (we used them in Trinidad 50 years ago)but otherwise the annuals too often seem to sufferfrom lack of space, lack of nutrients, neglect andovershading. If this is right, agroforestry will havedone us the service of returning our attention to themerits of rotation with woody plants rather thancompetition. Agriculture and forestry are complemen-tary land uses. Shrubs and a visit to a Mexican marketought to be enough to convince anyone of theireconomic importance as well as of the robustness ofMexican digestions. One could go on and on; thepoint is not so much to pick crops for research as torecognise how little we have done on the plants thatpeople really grow and eat or sell.

31

Crops for Africa—Livestock as food

I know that the title and the contents of this meeting aresomewhat narrower than those I have adopted. But I have theChairman’s permission to go a little wider and indulge some ofmy diverse whims and fancies. So I include perennials at large(and sometimes not all that long-lived), refer to more of thetropics than Africa, and am prepared to regard cash as beingas good as food any day.

Istart with the most conspicuous gaps in researchand understanding, the palms. Few people even

know the peach palm by sight: pupunha, pechibaye,peach palm, Bactris (Guilielma) gasipaes. This is a stapleoily, starchy food for thousands (?millions) of peoplein moist northern South America. It is small, fastgrowing, spiny, clonable, yields a leafy and saleablevegetable if required to do so, and is almost whollyneglected by science. A wonderful plant that cries outfor decent breeding (non-spiny mutants are known,for example, though one fears that they might invitemonkeys). The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) has amultitude of uses, spreads throughout the tropics atlowish altitudes, mostly near the sea, and has superbbreeding potential especially using short × tall hybridswhich give outstanding yields of smallish fruit. Itgrows easily and combines well with diverse plants onthe ground as a light shade, for example cocoa andfodder grasses. Yet it has been but little touched byserious research. In South America, there are diverseoil palms, worthy complements to Elaeis guineensis, forexample the babassu (Orbygnia speciosa) that inhabitslarge tracts of Brazil, withstands wet feet and hasexcellent quality edible oil. The date palm, Phoenixdactylifera, is almost the opposite, growing on low-class dust so long as there is a reachable water tablebelow. For very many people Phoenix is food—theyhave almost nothing else. It is also clonable, thoughnot easily.

Turning to other perennials, there is a multitude ofattractive fruits and nuts, running to hundreds ofnames, virtually all untouched. I shall certainly not tryto list them but there must surely be serious economiccandidates in their number. I especially like themango (Mangifera indica) because it is nearly unkillable(though sometimes inedible), the cashew (Anacardiumoccidentale), because it stands drought, has a superbquality nut and a fermentable ‘apple’—the latter

product used to be sold in Trinidad rum shops asAnacardia Port, quite useful in cooking, but not to berashly drunk. Another excellent but neglected tree isthe avocado (Persea gratissima), a native of Mexico,variable and eminently breedable as clones. It isknown locally as ‘the butter of the poor’ because of thedelicious oily-seeming flesh, but one can travel greatdistances in SE Asia and Africa and never see a tree.The breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis, is a near staple cropfor many Pacific peoples but by no means widelyspread outside Asia and parts of the Americas. InAfrica it seems to be replaced by the local analogue,Treculia africana. Artocarpus is one of the most famousplant introductions in history but it never quiteachieved the promise expected of it in the WestIndies—but it is widespread, much used and itsrelatives the breadnut, champedak and jackfruit arealso attractive and favoured locally. These are import-ant starchy crops and almost wholly neglected. Eventhe exact status of parthenocarpy in the breadfruitseems to be unknown. Another important starchlocally derives from the pseudostems of the bananarelative, Ensete ventricosum. Locally, in Ethiopia, wherethe crop was domesticated, called inset the aerialstems are chopped down before flowering and starchis stripped out of the sheaths, in a manner remin-iscent of the utilization of the sago palms. The plant isunbranched so can not normally be cloned but theEthiopians have a trick or two to cope with that littleproblem. The bananas themselves, of course, includ-ing the plantains (Musa), are of immense importancein tropical agriculture; they have been rather wellstudied but utilization lags and breeding for local foodsupplies is in a poor state, even though the essentialcytogenetic tricks are known. There are at least twocash-generating perennials worth mentioning.Rubber (Hevea brasiliensis), once established, has itssocial problems but provides steady work and incomeand markets that know what they want. It is pretty wellresearched but not so well as my other choice,sugarcane (Saccharum spp). This is more seasonal butideally well adapted to the concept of the ‘nuclearestate’; no crop has been better bred and it is virtuallycertain that well adapted cultivars could be pulled outvery quickly for any specific place. Both these cropsdemand orderly production and marketing systems

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Crops for Africa—Perennials

Scottish & Borders Region Seminar, Edinburgh, 27 June 2001: Crops for Africa—Traditional and Exotic

Perennials for Tropical Agriculture

N. W. Simmonds

Livestock as food for pastoralists in Africa J.M. Suttie

Pastoralists gain their livelihood by traditional stockraising on natural grazing, usually in areas that are

unsuitable for crops. Some groups had tracts of good,potentially arable land, but such areas are increasinglycultivated and pastoralism is associated with marginalland and often marginal livelihoods. Pastoralism is aland-use, not a well-defined method of stock rearing,so there are many forms influenced by the availableland, the political situation and the traditions of thegroup. Mobility of grazing is essential for survival ofherds in areas of low and unreliable rainfall so past-oral systems must be mobile, have a large area torange over and imply some degree of nomadism ortranshumance. Diets vary according to the system andtradition but all pastoralists consume a lot of dairyproducts. Meat is less important as stock are import-ant for trade; weak or injured stock may be slaugh-tered, but otherwise slaughter is mainly for festivals.

East African pastoral tribes generally have discreteareas within which they graze and do not enter, orcross, the land of other pastoral or agriculturalgroups. This is modified in very dry areas, like muchof Somalia and adjacent lands, where waterownership may be more important than grazingrights. The degree to which tribes are ‘purely’ pastoralvaries; the Masai and their kin were until very recently,but are taking to cultivation and cereal eating. The

Karamajong, although essentially pastoral, cultivatesome cereals.

In West Africa the main pastoral group, the Fulani(Peulh) are not strictly limited to stock rearing; manyof the richer have been settled in the better-wateredareas for a very long time. Even the transhumantgroups usually sow millet near the fringe of cultiva-tion during their migration. The transhumance circuitis between the drier areas of the Sahel during the rains(also the least healthy season in the sudanian zone)and the agricultural areas to the forest fringe in the dryseason. This system requires cooperation betweenpastoralists and the settled, agricultural (non-Peulh)groups; often the latter keep few or no livestock andallow nomadic herds to graze stubbles. In the inlanddelta of the Niger, tradition defined the date when theherds could cross the river on their southwardmovement to coincide with the end of rice harvest—also allowing them access to the falling-floodbourgou grazing (Echinochloa stagnina).

Madagascar, politically African although inhabited byAsiatics, has about 10 million cattle which puts itabout sixth in ranking. Farmers use oxen for draughtand eat beef but neither milk their stock nor consumemilk. The West, Middle-West and the drier southernthird, apart from the forest of the eastern escarpment,are pastoral and the people are milk drinkers. Thebiggest group, the Bara, in the hills of Fianarantsoa

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


use or sale. In East Africa there is no tradition ofcheese making, but in West Africa the Peulh in Nigermake Tchoukou, a dry cheese that keeps for over threemonths and is often sold.

Meat surplus to immediate requirements may be driedfor later use or in West Africa for sale. The meat maybe salted before treatment but in the simplest systems,as with the Niger Peulh, it is cut thinly, beaten eventhinner and spread over bushes. This is the only pro-cessing of meat done by pastoralists but, as Heinz andDugdill (2000) point out, quality dried meat is mainlyproduced in cool, dry mountain climates.

Pastoralists’ stock needs for subsistence

Pastoralists who are wholly dependent on livestockproducts for their dietary needs are becoming rare inAfrica in all but the most arid areas. In most systemsthe majority of the dairy products are consumeddomestically and surplus stock are the source of cash.It is very difficult to estimate the cash value of stock inisolated areas since transport costs or low prices paidby dealers can greatly reduce the sum paid to therearer.

The problem of stocking rates on communallyaccessible pasture is related to the number of humanswho depend on it for their livelihood. Leslie Brownwas one of the first to point this out in the Sixties. Hetackled the number of stock needed to support apastoral family following a system like that of theMasai in his chapter on ‘The ecology of man anddomestic livestock’ in Pratt and Gwynne (1977). Thedata is probably from the early 1960s when Masai dietwas almost exclusively of animal origin. He calcula-ted, on the basis of calorie requirement of an averagepastoral household (adults + children etc.) and a pre-dominantly milk and blood diet and some soundestimates of herd composition and fertility, that 14lactating cows would be necessary to meet householdneeds. To ensure 14 lactating cows a herd of 44 animalsas broken down in the Table 2 would be required.

Seven cows should assure the family’s needs at anyone time, but lactations are short, so fourteen willhave to be in milk during any year. A family’s needswere taken as 5,480 litres of milk; 876 kg of meatwould also be required, much from small stock.About a hundred sheep and goats would be neededand there would probably be some donkeys, so theherd would be of the order of 150 head. He went on toargue that, if purchased grain replaced milk andblood, supported by the sale of male animals for meat,range areas might support a greater human popula-tion.

Table 2. Composition of a subsistence herd assuming14 cows needed in milk during the year

Av. weight Adult Numberskg equivalent Female Male Total

Breeding cattle 249 1.00 20 2 22Calves < 1 year 60 0.25 7 5 12Immatures 1–2 yr 120 0.50 4 2 6Immatures 2–3 yr 180 0.75 3 1 4Total 34 10 44

Brown stated that ‘where the rainfall permits cropping, thepastoralist is such by choice and not, as in arid areas, bynecessity’ and pointed out that if half the milk ration isreplaced by grain then half the number of breedingfemales is required and the land requirement perfamily halved. He reckoned that this could be achievedby the sale of one fat steer per family. Circumstancesmay be forcing the Masai to move in that direction.Such calculations, of course, only apply where the soiland climate are suited to arable cropping and are nottrue in a country where extensive livestock rearing isthe only rational land use.

Jahnke (1982) suggests that the prevailing terms oftrade for African pastoral systems in general are 1.7 kgof grain for 1 kg of milk, and 4 kg of grain for 1 kg ofmeat, so that a pastoralist significantly improves hissubsistence basis by trading, Many examples of thiscan be found in West Africa among the Fulani whotrade milk for grain; in East Africa the volume of thistrade is rapidly increasing.

Cossins (undated) reports that dairy products andmilk comprised 59 per cent of the diet of the Borana ofSouthern Ethiopia, with the balance increasinglymade up by cereals. Steers are frequently retained tofull maturity in systems which use blood as food, as inBorana ‘dry herds’; labour needs for herding malestock is far less for that of cows and calves. An averageBorana family consists of 3.5 adult equivalents andhas access to eighteen head of cattle and some smallstock. The average off-take of milk per cow for humanconsumption is 312 litres per lactation. They consume150 kg of meat from small stock and fallen animalsand herders looking after male stock drink someblood. The balance of their food needs (cereals, sugar,coffee, etc.) is purchased with the proceeds of live-stock sales. Some wild plants and bush food areconsumed.

Information from ‘restocking’ projects may reflectmore on the project budget than true needs. InBotswana the figure of 8–10 head of cattle was quotedin the context of being able to field a draft pair forploughing in an agropastoral situation. In Isiolo

33


and Tulear provinces, keep zebus but cultivate somerice, mostly by trampling the wet fields with theirherds, sowing and coming back for harvest. In thelower lands of Tulear the Antandroy are noted cattlekeepers and also have some small stock; their area issemi-arid (either the limestone Mahafaly plateau ordunal sand) so sorghum and sweet potatoes are themain crops. Those on the littoral also fish. Evendrinking water is scarce, so cactus is an importantsource of liquid for livestock (and sometimes man) inthe dry season and its fruits a vitamin source in humandiet.

In North Africa small stock are raised by pastoralistgroups, usually based on the desert edge. They travelnorth to the agricultural areas, much of which is on awheat-fallow rotation, to graze fallows and stubblesin spring through summer, moving back to the desertedge in winter. The flocks are usually large and areoften now owned by entrepreneurs—the shepherdswork on a sharecropping system.

Pastoralists’ foodMost pastoralists either grow some cereals orpurchase them with the proceeds from livestock sales.Pastoral tribes along the Nile grow cereals and catchfish. Diets based solely on milk and meat are becom-ing increasingly rare in Africa although they are stillprevalent in parts of the Asian steppe. Subsistenceherders are the only secondary users of vegetationwho depend on milk and not meat. All others fromcarnivores to ranchers and capitalist herders dependon meat. No commercial dairy producer would chooseAfrican arid and semi-arid grazing as the base for hisor her production. The logic behind this reliance onmilk is that it is available daily and meat only sporad-ically; also it allows a system that provides subsistencefor far more people per unit area than any other aridzone production method. It has been estimated(Jahnke, 1982) that if arid countries like Mauritaniaand Somalia organized their land use as modernranching they would have to reduce the humanpopulation by a factor of fifty. The composition ofmilk of the main pastoral livestock is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Composition of milk (g/kg milk) of the mainspecies kept by pastoralists

Species Fat Protein LactoseBos indicus 54 32 46Bos taurus 44 38 49Yak 65 55 55Buffalo 74 38 49Ewe 85 67 47Goat 45 37 42Camel 54 39 58Mare 12 20 58

Most groups co-exist with plains’ game that share thesame pastures but these are usually neither huntednor eaten. In some areas like Turkana, especially thosewhere food supply is marginal, bush food such as wildweeds, fruits, tubers and small animals may begathered to supplement the diet.

Several pastoral groups, notably the Masai and theirassociated groups the Karamajong, Turkana andDodoth and the Borana, drink blood from liveanimals; it is, of course, forbidden to Moslems. It isobtained by shooting a small arrow at close range intothe cattle’s jugular vein, then capturing the blood in agourd (where it can be mixed with milk). Blood istaken fresh, alone or mixed with sour milk. Seeminglyold dietary habits are changing fast. An ILCA study(Nestel, 1989) states:

‘Today, the staple diet of the Masai consists of cow’s milk andmaize-meal. The former is largely drunk fresh or in sweet teaand the latter is used to make a liquid or solid porridge. Thesolid porridge is known as uoali and is eaten with milk; unlikethe liquid porridge, uoali is not prepared with milk. Meat,although an important food, is consumed irregularly andcannot be classified as a staple food. Animal fats or butter areused in cooking, primarily of porridge, maize, and beans.Butter is also an important infant food. Blood is rarely drunk.’

Studies by the International Livestock Centre forAfrica (Bekure et al., 1991) show a great change in thediet of the Masai towards non-livestock products withmaize comprising 12–39 per cent and sugar 8–13 percent; about one litre of milk is consumed daily perperson. The ILCA study found that women consumedfar less than is necessary to provide the energyrequirement as estimated by FAO, but seemed toproduce and suckle normal babies on this level ofintake. This could mean that at least half the energyrequirement is being met by cereals.

Processing

African pastoralists’ dairy preparations are simple.Rather than used fresh, milk is usually fermentedimmediately by spontaneous lactic souring whichprolongs the period during which it can be conservedin a palatable state in warm climates. Starter culturesare not generally used because those present in thecontainer suffice. Traditionally the Masai wash milkgourds with urine, presumably because it is sterile andcleaner than the surface water available. Smoke is alsoused to cleanse milking receptacles and for thecontainers in which Somali ferment camels’ milk.There is little preparation of dairy products for longerstorage in Africa (as opposed to the practice in Asia);many groups produce ghee (clarified butter) for later

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



tropical

agriculture

association

uk


T and V had relatively the largest effects, followed by Sand W, while fertilisers had less effect overall. Clearly,farmers would increase yields most by concentratingfirstly on good husbandry, i.e., High T, S and W.Although Hybrid increased yields under allconditions, it gave bigger increases with goodhusbandry. There were many significant andimportant interactions, particularly TN, TW, TP, SV,SN and PN, as well as TWN and WPN. The low overallfertilizer response was due to interactions betweenfertilizers and husbandry - fertilizers have little effectwith poor husbandry, whereas they increase yieldsprofitably with good practices. All the significanteffects can be incorporated in an equation whichcalculates the yield for any particular treatment, e.g.,All High = 90.5 and All Low = 21.1. The data can beused to work out the profitability of differenttreatments to compare the relative efficiencies ofdifferent combinations of the six factors forimproving yields, e.g., the effects of using GoodHusbandry (High TSW) with local seed and nofertilizers (yield = 57.5) compared with PoorHusbandry (Low TSW) with fertilizer plus Hybrid seed(yield = 42.5). The profitability of these 4combinations are more dramatically portrayed in thefollowing diagram:

The Diamond starts off with all factors at the lowlevel, giving a yield (21.1) that was well above thenational average. By improving all factors, yields weremultiplied fourfold. The really important lesson isthat yields can be improved considerably by betterhusbandry without high cash costs; and conversely, itis wasteful to put expensive fertilizers on poorlygrown maize. This Maize Diamond concept wassuccessfully used in teaching and for field demon-strations throughout Kenya and beyond. These DHTswere a valuable bridge between experimental resultsand field conditions, and also helped in the inter-pretation of past as well as subsequent trials results.Time of planting (T) was obviously very important; in27 other trials over 4 years, each day’s delay after thestart of the rains reduced yields by 70 kg/ha. T alsoaffected N responses; later plantings gave progres-sively smaller responses. Trials to identify the causesof the T-effect eliminated various possibilities,including moisture shortages, fungal build-ups and Nshortages on later plantings. Trials with 4Ts wereconducted to study the effects of varying amounts ofwater applied during the first 5 weeks of growth.Increasing amounts of moisture during these earlygrowth stages steadily reduced dry matter produced atfive weeks, and grain yields similarly. Increases inmoisture caused reductions in kernel numbersinitiated per plant. Follow-on research in an ODAproject at Kitale showed that soil temperaturessteadily declined after the rains began, and that earlygrowth, kernel initiation and grain yields were highlycorrelated with soil temperature during these first 5weeks. Many other agronomic trials were carried out.Fertilizer trials (with good husbandry) establishedoptimum rates for different maize prices and fertilizercosts. Sulphur deficiencies were identified, the causesascertained and remedies worked out. Optimum plantpopulations, inter-row spacings and plantingtechniques were ratified. Weed control methodsincluding herbicides were evaluated. All newinformation from the field trials was continuouslyincorporated into the extension efforts, and was alsoinvaluable in developing the national maize policy.

35

Crops for Africa—Maize Programme

district in Kenya 40 small stock and a donkey (plussome animal health training) were supplied to eachbeneficiary family. Oxfam’s Kenya restocking projectsreckoned that 70–100 sheep and goats were neededper family depending on family. It would be pointlessto go into more detail or proliferate calculations basedon hypothetical families and herds (far less to addrainfall ranges to the arithmetic), especially since alarge area of access is needed to assure mobility foravoidance of weather events. Livestock productionfrom grazing has to take into account the realities ofthe land on a case-to-case basis. Also livestock withina group of pastoralists is rarely evenly distributed; thebulk will belong to a few rich for whom the lessfortunate supply part-time herding assistance.

AcknowledgementsThe author wishes to thank Simon Mack, John Morrison and Jim Sweet for

information used in this paper.

ReferencesBekure, S., P.N. de Leuw, B.E. Grandin and N.J.H. Neate, 1991. Maasai

herding. ILCA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.Cossins, N. (undated) Production strategies and pastoral man

www.fao.org/wairdocs/ilri/x5542b/x5542b0d.htmHeinz G., and B. Dugdill, 2000. Highland livestock systems—is there a

need for specialised product processing and marketing. In: Tulachan,P.M., M.A.Mohamed-Saleem, J.Makki-Hokkonen and T. Partap (Eds.)Contribution of livestock to Mountain livelihoods. International Centre forMountain Development, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Jahnke, H.E., 1982. Livestock production systems and livestock development intropical Africa. Kieler Wissenschaftsverlag Vauk, Kiel.

Nestel, P., 1989. A society in transition: developmental and seasonalinfluences on the nutrition of Maasai women and children. ILCA,Nairobi.

Pratt D.J. and M.D. Gwynne, 1977. Rangeland Management and Ecology in EastAfrica. Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 19766 8.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Crops for Africa—Livestock as food/Maize Programme

The Kitale Maize Agronomy Programme, 1963–75

Alister Allan

Early research work in the Kenya Agriculture Department concentrated on cash crops like

coffee, wheat, tea and pyrethrum, while researcherson district stations that covered several crops as wellas livestock carried out maize experiments. Pre-1963,there had been 64 trials on fertilizers, 34 on varieties,14 on spacing, 18 on cultural and weeding practices,and 2 on time of planting. These trials, along with thepractical experience of growers, had built up enoughinformation for making general recommendations.

However, maize was a relatively new crop in theHighlands, both to African subsistence growers andto the European commercial farmers. Previous trialswere mainly mono-factorial, hence gave no informa-tion about interactions and no data on the relativeimportance of factors affecting yields under differentconditions. Finally, judging by experience in othercountries which had introduced hybrids, the immi-nent release of Kenya’s first hybrids in 1964 was likelyto shake up the whole maize-growing system.Therefore, at an early stage in the Kitale agronomyprogramme, a series of multifactorial DistrictHusbandry Trials (DHTs) was started to get reliabledata on the relative importance of six factors thoughtto be the most important affecting farmers’ yields.Obtaining data on interactions was also essential.Each factor was at either a High Level, representingcurrent good practice, or at a defined Low Level ofpoor practice. The treatments were:

The Design of the Experiment

Factor High Level Low Level

T - Time of Planting Early in rains 4 weeks late

S - Plants per ha 40,000 20,000

V - Type of seed Hybrid Local

W - Weed Control Early & clean Late

P - P2O5 kg/ha 56 0

N - Nitrogen kg/ha 80 0

The design was a 2×2×2×2×2×2 factorial with 64combinations and 1 replication/site. The DHTs werelaid down at several sites around Kenya; results every-where were similar, but only those from 3 sites aroundKitale in 1966, repeated in 1967, are reported here.Yields in quintals (Q=10 kg/ha) from the main treat-ments were:

The Experimental Results

Factor Low High Difference Statistical Significance

T 41.2 61.8 20.6 ***

S 44.9 58.1 13.2 ***

V 42.9 60.1 17.2 ***

W 46.2 56.8 10.6 ***

P 50.6 52.4 1.8 -

N 48.3 54.7 6.4 ***

✵

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


A farmer’s viewpoint of agriculturaldevelopment in India…

I am a farmer in a semi-arid part of Rajasthan. Al-though I have considerable experience of agriculturein difference parts of India, and spent 6 months in theUSA on a Farm/Youth Exchange, I have no academicqualifications. I am grateful for this opportunity to putforward my viewpoint.

My concern is for the development of Indianagriculture and the life of the farmer. I am asked if ithas developed to any great extent in the last fewdecades and I am sad to answer ‘No, not at all’. Indiaproduces a mass of encouraging data. Agriculturalproduction has kept pace with the increase in popula-tion and heavy urbanisation by bringing more landunder the plough. In my opinion this has been at thecost of misuse of our resources and question whetherit adds up to actual development in agriculture.

Often I have to face opposition to my views when Ideny the success of the so-called Amul White Revolu-tion, the remarkable development of dairies in India. Iwould simply say no, not so, and site a simple ex-ample. About 20 years ago I visited Dabhan, a villagequite close to Anand in Gujurat, and went to a numberof small dairy animal keepers. The women were foundmilking ankle deep in muck, with their buffaloespasted with clay, dung, urine and water. If the familyvessel could not be filled, then a neighbour wouldmake up the shortfall. No drop of milk was spared forfamily consumption as they could not afford to losethe income; all was taken to the co-operative. Onlythen did the milk starts its journey under modernconditions from chilling, pasteurisation to the milkvending booths in cities. This White Revolution bene-fits only the middle classes upwards. The milk vend-ing booths give an impression of a highly developedinfrastructure on the lines of an American or Swedishmodel, but where in fact is the development at thegrass roots level? Where is the hygiene training, thebreeding of high-yielding indigenous cattle, even thebasic need to promote milk consumption for health?

Livestock development in India is terribly primitive.To my knowledge there is not one single beef-raisingunit in the whole country with hygienic, properfeeding conditions. The tables of the rich and the pooralike are served from the culling of old milk herds,unfit draught animals and uneconomical livestock. Itis very similar to the situation with poultry in the1960s when skinny birds, culled from egg-layingstock. The new middle class wealth requiring goodpoultry has brought about the raising of proper tablebirds, in broiler farms. So, in the fifty years since

independence, our agriculture planners and develop-ers, despite exposure to all the advances taking placeoverseas, have been unable to achieve any success atgrass roots level. The reason for such an undevelopedsector of our meat industry is due to domination by apious bureaucracy of a strict vegetarian backgroundwho have no desire to see change.

Agronomic advances after the miraculous achieve-ments of Dr Borlaug put India on the railroad of triplegene wheat and dwarf varieties of rice, but then therails came to a dead end. After the sixties no furtherdevelopments have been made. There is greatbragging about the 500-odd top-to-bottom researchinstitutions and some State agriculture departmentsand their extension units working to provide soundagricultural progress. I have first-hand experience ofalmost all levels of these and my opinion is that thework carried out is not even equal to 500 farmers inthe country. A big chunk of our national budget isspent on such research, but dissemination of their workis very poor. Their annual meetings are carnivals formutual admiration, but little if any useful interactionwith farmers. I am ashamed to reflect that thoughIndia is the most agriculturally diverse country in theworld it has such limited practical farm-orientatedresearch. Mountains of research papers generatedfrom behind the desk have in reality no impact onfarming communities. Foreign agro-business com-panies and their monopoly of seed, fertilizers, weedi-cides, farm machinery will damage our agriculturalenvironment. There is a huge gulf between agro-business and the small farmer. Farmers have nocollective voice at national or state level and their voiceis unheard.

The production of our miscellaneous food graincrops, pulses, oil seeds, condiments and spicesremain in the hands of the farmers, and without anydissemination of information by Government aremuch as they were centuries ago. Why, for example,should India, as a major grower, import cumin fromIran and Turkey? The information the Governmentproduces is often contradictory and confusing forfarmers.

Our horticulture has developed from scratch and evenbefore reaching any level of satisfactory consumerservices our production is being handicapped due tobottlenecks of bureaucratic interference in the entirehorticultural production sector. In the Indian grocerymarket one cannot buy any baby corn grown in India,but one can have baby corn from USA, Thailand andIndonesia. In UK top quality mangoes are easilyavailable from Pakistan, but why not India?

37

Letters

Geoffrey Masefield, who died mid-year aged 90, was a leading specialist in tropical agriculture

who carried out research into the prevention and reliefof famine. He was the author of Famine, Its Preven-tion and Relief, which was commissioned by FAO andwas among the earliest scientific studies of the subject.

As an Oxford University don for some 30 years,Masefield undertook important research into the de-velopment of new food crops with large potentialyield. He did pioneering work on Pearl Lupin, grownhigh up in the Andes in South America, whose seedshave high protein content and are rich in edible oil. Itsonly disadvantage was that the seeds had to be soakedfor two weeks before they were safe to eat. Masefieldand his colleagues were able to develop toxin-freelupins that are still being considered as a potentialsource of protein and cooking oil. He also did muchto publicise the merits of the winged bean,Psophocarpus tetragonobolus, another fast-growing,disease-resistant and protein-rich legume littleknown outside its native New Guinea.

Masefield read botany at Balliol College, Oxford andthen joined the Colonial Service, spending thestatutory two years at Cambridge and the ImperialCollege of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad. During

the war years he was an agricultural officer in Ugandawhere his particular concern was the prevention ofsoil erosion. In 1946 he became Provincial Agricul-tural Officer for Buganda Province and the followingyear returned to Britain to take up a newly created postof lecturer in Colonial (later Tropical) Agriculture atOxford. He travelled extensively in the tropics for hisresearch and was also external examiner for overseasuniversities. His books on tropical agriculture includ-ed A Handbook of Tropical Agriculture (1949) and a Historyof the Colonial Agricultural Service (1973). He alsocontributed the tropical section to the Oxford Book ofFood Plants.

He was acting head of the Department of AgriculturalScience for two years, became a Fellow of the newlyfounded Wolfson College in 1966 and later on wasawarded a Doctorate of Science from the University.

Masefield was a consultant for both FAO and theWorld Health Organisation and also served as chair-man of Oxfam’s Asia Field Committee, as well as onits Council and Executive. A true polymath, he wasfluent in seven languages and had a rough knowledgeof many more.

Garry Robertson

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Obituary/Letters

ObituaryGeoffrey Masefield

✵

Letters

New Honduras Bananas

Readers will be aware, from the last issue, of theuntimely death of Phil Rowe. Readers interested

in the man and his bananas will find attractive colourpictures in a recent pamphlet by J.W. Daniells and N.J. Bryde: ‘Banana Varieties; the ACIAR Years,1987–1996’. It is published by the QueenslandHorticultural Institute, PO Box 20, S. Johnstone 4859.A collection of 106 coloured pictures are assembled,mostly good, and a genuine help to botanists,including 13 from the Honduras programme. Onegets some idea of the magnitude of Phi1’saccomplishment and of the excellent progress he wasmaking. I should be surprised if there were notalready cooking varieties acceptable to small farmersthere, ready to plant.

N.W. Simmonds

Colour Slides

I am looking for colour slides of the following crops,one each of the crop growing, harvesting and drying,and would appeal to members of the TAA. I use colourslides in talks to various groups such as schools,churches, retirement homes etc., and on a no-feebasis. Many of the people to whom I talk areinterested in curries and things and would like to seewhat goes into them! I am short of the followingslides: Cardamom, Chilli, Cloves, Cumin, Fennel,Lentils and Tamarind.

If any members can let me have copies of such slides,for which I am prepared to pay, would they contact meeither by phone 01250 872060, fax 01250 875477,email: [email protected], or write to meDunblair, Upper Allan Street, Blairgowrie, PerthshirePH10 6HL, UK.

J.G. Taylor

These are some of my observations. On my familyfarm our successes have been largely due our ownefforts, and I have had the benefit of experience ofagriculture in US and elsewhere. But how can thesmall farmer find his way in the 21st century without acomprehensive and integrated agricultural policy?

Inder Dan DethaVillage Borunda 342604

Jodhpur, Rajasthan

Facts and Fiction aboutInternational Development

I often wonder if other readers of the TAA Newsletterare as confused as I am about the disparate messagesthat come over in the news media, in the publicationsof DfID and in statements by ministers about theobjectives and achievements of their organisations ininternational development. Sometimes it seems thatthe world of ‘spin’ has taken over and that wishfulthinking has merged with reality.

The Proceedings of the Group of Seven, or is it Eight,in Genoa appear to add to the confusion and I am sureour readers can find many examples of a range ofactions and statements that appear contradictory. Onesuch example arose in a Radio 4 interview with ClareShort, immediately after the Genoa meeting, whenshe was asked about criticism by NGOs on the lack ofprogress on a range of Third World issues. She repliedthat, as the NGO’s expenditure amounted to only£200 million per annum whereas DfID’s was £3billion, DfID’s views were that much more important.NGOs always emphasise how much good they aredoing whereas government is always ready and eagerto emphasise how much of our money it is spending,though less able to show the benefits of that expendi-ture. Once again, emphasising expenditure, theGenoa meeting apparently agreed on some kind of‘Marshall Plan’ for Sub-Saharan Africa whereby muchmore aid funds would flow to that continent. Yet arecent article in the Economist stated that, sinceindependence, Africa had received US$700 billion inaid. We might ask how the next US$700 billion will bespent more productively.

Similar confusion affects other policies in thedevelopment arena. There has been a great deal ofdiscussion about the importance of new technology inimproving the lot of the people in the Third World. Itis frequently pointed out by economists that agricul-tural research has a very large pay-off and that moremoney ought to be invested in it, a view reiterated bythe CGIAR. Yet very recently more than one hundred

scientists, all with experience in natural resourcesdevelopment in the tropics, were made redundant atthe Natural Resources Institute. This is perhaps symp-tomatic of the confusion surrounding the whole areaof the role of agriculture in development and par-ticularly in poverty alleviation. Lending for agricultureand rural development in the past financial year by theWorld Bank was 7% of its total lending, down from25% about 15 years ago. Yet the planners reliablyinform us that the world will need 40% more food by2020. Europe and North America will presumablyproduce much less as more land is devoted to amenityand yields decrease with the advance of organicfarming. One can only presume therefore that the40% will come from within the developing countries,many of which are even now importers. We arecontinually informed that agriculture will be muchless important in the future and that many otherfactors are involved in poverty abolition. Of courseanyone who has ever spent time amongst farmers willrecognise that poverty in the rural areas is associatedwith many factors such as poor quality or non-existentroads, a lack of information about markets, a lack ofhealth services and education for farmers, and therisks posed by weather. When will we stop beingsubjected to the obvious, perhaps as a smokescreen,to hide the fact that many working in rural situationsdo not know how to deal with agriculture whenconfronted with the reality of the farmers’ field?Perhaps the tragic events in Afghanistan shouldremind us that when farmers cannot farm, peoplestarve.

Another favourite topic of the politicians is that agri-cultural subsidies in European agriculture deprive thedeveloping countries of markets. The recent WhitePaper on globalisation suggests that developingcountry farmers could benefit enormously if thesesubsidies were abolished. Yet a recent note in ‘Spore’in March 2001 stated that the removal of all importquotas and duties on products from the world’s 48Least Developed Countries would have a very limitedimpact as the total value of EU duties on goods fromall LDCs in 1998 was less than £5 million. Removal ofthe protection of sugar production by Europeanfarmers is often quoted as an example of the potentialbenefit of a free market. But if this were to happen itwould be Brazil and not the small farmers of Africawho would benefit.

The confusion about GM foods is another obviousexample of mixed messages. The strong anti-GMlobby in the UK seeks to deprive developing country

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Letters/Book Reviews

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Letters

Hay and Straw Conservation for Small-scaleFarming and Pastoral Communities

by J. M. SuttieISBN: 92-5-104458-9. FAO Plant Production andProtection Series No.29. Food and Agriculture

Organisation of the United Nations, Rome, 2000.

It’s very common, that in many things in life we missthe obvious! With even the smallest amount of

reflection it is obvious that grass and crop by-productsare the cheapest foods for ruminants in most parts ofthe world and that when we have a lot of such materialwe should store it for the times when we don’t! It isthus timely that Jim Suttie reminds us of some triedand tested technologies for hay and straw con-servation. It is not as they say ‘cutting edge’ but in theappropriate circumstances the contents of this bookare certainly applicable - what more should one askfor?

The book has 12 chapters. The first 8 chapters dealwith the basics of haymaking from a variety ofpossible crops including grass, cereals and legumes.One chapter is devoted to dry crop residues andanother to the practical feeding of hay and dry cropresidues. Chapter 11 consists of 13 case studies drawnmainly from Asia, with three from China, and alsofrom Africa and Latin and Central America. The finalchapter examines small-scale farm hay in the future.There is a full reference list and a bibliographytogether with a glossary of the crops mentioned in thetext and an index. Forty-five colour photographs,unlisted in the Contents, come as pleasant surprisesto the reader. The style and format of the book areperhaps a little old-fashioned but make it no lessreadable.

It is interesting that with the growth of urban livestocksystems, the production and trading of hay and cropby-products is likely to represent a growing source ofincome for rural farmers, something that the bookemphasises.

Surprisingly there is no mention at all of silage. Silageis certainly not easy to make in small amounts, but theubiquitous availability of plastic bags offers somehope and certainly some workers, e.g., in Zimbabwe,claim to have to developed small-scale silage systems.

Conservation is a strategy that requires a degree oflong-term thinking. When obtained, in terms ofincreased fertility, yield and draught power, the bene-fits may well be cost-effective. Unfortunately manysmallholders are forced to think short term and attimes when they could be carrying out conservationthey often have to tend their staple food crops. Whereruminant keeping is a secondary activity it is difficultto foresee much change in the level of conservationpracticed. Where full-time livestock keeping de-velops, then the need for conservation is obvious andin some form or other is likely to be taken moreseriously. In such circumstances this book has acontribution to make.

Denis Fielding

Beekeeping and Honey Producing Plantsin Bas Congo

andDemocratic Republic of the Congo and

Umalila in Southern Tanzania

These are two lavishly produced manuals of up to ahundred pages each with beautifully reproducedcolour photographs and descriptions of a wide range

Book Reviews

agriculture of the potential benefits; while DfID sitson the fence, Argentina, Brazil, China and the US haveplanted over 40 million ha of GM crops. Perhaps it istime to apply the same degree of scepticism to thestatements and lobbying by governments and NGOsas we apply to scientists’ statements!

Ultimately an unfortunate consequence of all the spinis that we are missing opportunities to make majorimprovements in the lot of peasant farmers. I wouldtake as an example the almost complete emphasis byDfID on social competence, to the exclusion oftechnical and economic competence, in developmentprogrammes. We are all aware that farmers vary in

their ability to optimise their resources. In NewZealand, where farming has been under greateconomic pressures, monitor farming programmeshave been set up that utilise technical and economicdata to develop best practices. Given the right peopleI suggest that we could do the same in tropicalagriculture. By doing so we could integrate the know-ledge and experience of farmers with the technicaland economic understanding of the scientists and wecould improve the productivity of all farmers not justthose in poverty.

John K. Coulter✵

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


TAAF Awardee Updates

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


Book Reviews

Launch of TAAFNET Group

Marisa Goulden (Peru 1999–2000)

Do you ever wonder what happened to all thoseTAAF (Tropical Agriculture Award Fund) award-

ees that you read about occasionally in the Newsletterand then rarely hear of again? The TAAF award aims tohelp us get that vital initial experience for a career intropical agriculture or rural development. But whilstsome returned awardees might find related jobsrelatively easily, many of us struggle, spendingmonths looking for work and then may take upunrelated jobs or short-term insecure contracts.

In April this year a few of us, who had returned theprevious year from TAAF-sponsored projects abroad,got together to discuss how the TAAF might beimproved and how our links with the TAA couldcontinue to help us in developing our chosen careers.We decided to form a TAAF awardees network to helpus maintain contact with TAA members and otherawardees. This will operate mainly through an emailgroup called TAAFNET Group. We have alsosuggested that an annual get-together could bearranged to coincide with a TAA event to allowawardees to meet each other and TAA members.Suggestions of suitable events have included the RoyalShow, the biennial seminar and the South East grouptrip to IACR Rothamsted.

TAAFNET Group is an email group set up with YahooGroups. I set the group up in September and there arenow 18 members and its growing. All awardees forwhom we have email addresses have been invited tojoin and several TAA members have already joined.Anyone is welcome to join if they are a TAAF awardee,a TAA member interested in maintaining contact andsharing their experience with awardees, or others whoare interested in a career in tropical agriculture andrural development. We would like TAAFNET Group tobe used as a resource for networking, discussion, andfinding out about job opportunities. It could also givenew TAAF awardees the opportunity to get in contactwith someone who has been in the same country theyare about to visit, for example, or allow awardees tochannel their ideas for future TAA events into the TAAcommittees. If you have any comments or suggestionsabout the TAAFNET Group then please email them tome at [email protected]. I look forward towelcoming many of you as TAAFNET Group members

and reading some interesting ideas and debates fromthe group.

To join TAAFNET Group either go to the web page athttp://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/taafnet_groupand click on [Subscribe] or email me, saying you wishto join, at [email protected]

There is no charge to join or use the email group.Once you are signed up as a member of the group youcan send messages to the entire group membershipsimply by sending an email [email protected]

Simon Badrock—Peru

I’ve just got back after five weeks solid work in themountains. After finishing my Spanish course inCusco, I went to a place called Ollyantytambo which isin the sacred valley of Cusco near where the firstproject was completed by the Cusichaca Trust (whomI am working for) in 1997. My first job was to continuemapping the ruins of an Inca hillside village, whichwas a good 2 hours’ walk uphill from Ollyanty-tambo. We were all packed up and ready to go up tothe site (about 20 minutes up from where we werecamped) when we had a visit from the president fromWelloc—the next community a half hour further upthe valley. [Local community differences resulted indisagreements over continuing the mapping work, sothat work had to be abandoned for the time being.]

We stayed in Ollyantytambo for another week,working for ADESA which is a newly formed NGOfounded by a member of the old Cusichaca team.While two colleagues were drawing sections whichhad been dug through the ancient Inca terraces whichwere being restored about 1 km up the valley, I workedwith a helper mapping a large set of terraces in frontof the train station. Once the plan had been completedit was sent to Cusco and approved for a full restorationproject bringing back into production approximately40 hectares of previously (largely) abandonedterraces.

After a short break in Cusco, we left for Pampachiriwhere the Trust has been operating for the last fiveyears. The only continuing project in the area is therestoration of a Pre-Inca irrigation canal and terracesystem in an area called Ayapampa, which is about ahalf hour walk from Pampachiri. All the other

TAAF AWARDEE UPDATEof useful bee plants common to the humid Africantropics as well as the Bas Congo and Umalila.Mention is made of the African honey huntingtradition and a brief description of current beekeepingpractice since the early eighties with illustrated villagelevel handling in each area. The real worth of themanuals is the well-presented research and descrip-tion of over sixty useful bee plants in Bas Congo inKibongo, French and English and over eighty inUmalila in Swahili and English. They should be ofgreat interest to development workers and beekeeperswith their copious references.

Being virtually hand produced they are priced at£27.00 for that describing southern Tanzania and£25.00 for Bas Congo. They are also both available onCD at £10.00. All enquiries and orders should beaddressed to: Paul Latham, Croft Cottage, Forneth,Blairgowrie, Perthshire PH10 4AB;email [email protected]

Laurie Robertson

‘Bibliobits’I would draw to the attention of the Membership,three works, all very different, that have recently comemy way. Each can be thoroughly recommended toindividuals with specific interest in the subject matterinvolved: GenSec.

▼ Coffee—Recent Developments. Clarke R.J. & VitzhumO.G., Blackwell Science, Oxford, £ 85.00 ISBN 0 63205553 7: This is an encyclopaedic publication in thetradition of the well-known Tropical Crop Series ofyore. Grafted on to the relevant volume, ‘All you everneed to know about coffee’ could well be analternative title. In fact, much of the text is devoted topost-harvest matters but there are also significantcontributions within the agronomy chapters. This isan edited work with an impressive number of eminentco-authors.

▼ Alternatives To Pesticides In Tropical Countries. DudaniA.T., Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi 110016, Rs 250 HB, Rs150 PB. ISBN 81 7480 047 6: There is little that is newin this work concerning the issues and the principles atstake concerning ‘organics’, ‘sustainability’ and such.However, the value of this text lies in the wealth of detailprovided by the author, with a broad internationalperspective ranging widely outside his native India.Given his wide experience with the problems ofdrafting, implementing and policing health and safetylegislation there, he most capably expands the topicinto a much broader framework. Too often considera-tion of these matters in print is a welter of well-intentioned generalities. Here, we have professionallypresented data, the collection and collation of whichmust have been no mean task. One may not fully agreewith all the conclusions but it should be read with an

open mind by those of us concerned with the future oftropical agriculture and world food production▼ Boa. Memoirs Of A Banana Planter In Remote West Africa.Kaye B., K Books, York, £ 25. ISBN 1 85825 1494: Thisis a totally different kettle of fish and it should not beread as a manual on plantation banana production! Isuppose that many of us who experienced the post-war run-up to independence in many of the ex-colonies, have been filled with the urge to put pen topaper. This is one such but it has a light-hearted touchand an irreverent approach to the problems andpleasures of life. It is a truism that often a first postingto one of the more insalubrious locations on theglobes surface served to hone our skills and wefinished up with a deep affection for the people andplace that does not fade with the passage of time.Perhaps works like this give a more accurate picture ofthe times than the more pretentious presentations. Aknowledge of pidgin comes in useful when tacklingthe text.

✵

‘They are right to trash it—who knows the risks ofagriculture.’

Genetically modified Organic Whimseysby

Hugh Brammer & Tony Smyth.

projects, including potable water, family kitchengardens, horticulture centre and greenhouse projects,have been completed and handed over to thecommunities.

When I arrived approximately 400 m of the canal hadbeen built, up to an ancient aqueduct which was in astate of disrepair. It was thought that the aqueducthad slipped, but a survey (completed by me) showedthat it was running downhill, even though it did notlook like it. The gradient of the aqueduct is not verysteep for approximately 150m and a full survey wasdone. I established the necessary gradient requiredand also designed a control structure just before theaqueduct. This structure is used to induce a hydraulicjump when the water moves from super- to sub-critical flow after a fairly steep gradient. I haveorganised two workshops to teach the engineers incharge of the canal how to use the level and theo-dolite. I have also been working on a detailed survey ofthe entire site that will show the terracing and fields,together with the proposed route of the canal, as wellas topographical information. I am currently inAnderhuaylas (at the Trust’s main office), where I willcomplete the plan.

When the plan is completed I can start on my thesiswork. Soon I will return to Ollyantytambo to visit theold project there, and also another project that wascompleted in 1993 in the Cusichaca valley. I’ll beinterviewing people and giving out questionnaires totry and find out how they managed after the Trust left,in terms of organisation and management. I’ll also becollecting information on the state of the canal andhow they deal with the operation and maintenance ofthe irrigation system.

(Simon’s e-mail edited by Henry Gunston, 26th October 2001)

Neil Johnson—Ghana

The programme that I am currently following is atechnical assistance programme in Donyina, Ghana.The programme is based around the Roman CatholicYouth Co-operative Mobisquad. This youth groupconsists of twenty-five permanent members fromDonyina and additional members from the surround-ing area. The youth group has nearer fifty listed asmembers but due to school, family and communitytime constraints we do not get full attendance. Theyouth group has approximately 110 acres of land

available for agricultural development. The farmpresently consists of pig, crop and horticultural(vegetables) units. The farm has buildings andstructures but these require renovation.

The initial interest in the farm was low. As the farmdeveloped its horticultural enterprise more youthshave regained their interest and the farm is nowreturning from the brink of oblivion. The work wehave done has been hard, but well worthwhile, and isgoing to get harder.

My initial plan to regain the group’s interest was togenerate short-term income to fund the recovery .Thesuccess of this is limited to only the first few monthsof harvest. The vegetables and other cash crops suchas melons are a vital element. The current phase is toput in place a long-term programme that requireshiring a farm manager and utilising local institutionsand other organisations to sustain and enhance thefuture of the farm. The farm manager has taken up hisposition and the youth group is in the planning phaseof a long-term partnership with KITA (KumasiInstitute of Tropical Agriculture). The plan is to utiliseKITA in the long-term regeneration and developmentof the youth group, and in return the youth groupbecomes a practical training farm for KITA studentsand the youth group members. In addition a plan is inplace to convert the farm into an organic farm.Medium-term plans are being made into the pos-sibility of linking with GOAN (Ghana OrganicAgriculture Network) using the farm as a demonstra-tion farm. This would create more income via grantsand provide additional training but would requirejoining GOAN. The various regional officers of theMinistry of Food and Agriculture have agreed toprovide assistance in developing and expanding thefarm in the required direction.

I took it upon myself to encourage the local com-munity by taking an active role in the community. Iprovide assistance on community projects and at thelocal school. This has generated respect towardsmyself and makes the task of aiding the recovery ofthe farm easier. The local community have providedsupport by motivating the youth to attend the farmwhen required. This was the biggest initial success.Many still view farming as a second-rate industry butare gradually accepting the youth project.

I am enjoying my stay in Donyina even though I havehad a hard first few weeks. I find the work interestingand rewarding. I would like to thank the TAA,especially the South West Region, for their support,and also the members of BOAT’s committee for theirencouragement.

tropical

agriculture

association

uk


TAA Awardee Updates

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



Jane Bryden—Nepal

Community Forestry Database Creationin Nepal

Summary

I have just returned from a year’s community forestrywork experience supported by TAAF. I was working inthe middle hills of Nepal, developing a DistrictCommunity Forestry database with Dhading ResourceManagement Project (DRMP). DRMP is a project ofUnited Mission to Nepal (UMN), an internationalChristian NGO funded by USAID. DRMP is workingwith 24 Village Development Committees of DhadingDistrict to uplift the lives of the poorest and margin-alised, especially women, through the formation andsupport of Forest User Groups. Requirements for thehandover of National Forest to Community ForestUser Groups produce a large amount of information.Most of this information is stored on paper docu-ments such as the Forest User Group Constitution andOperational Plan. The volume of information isincreased through monitoring and evaluationprocesses essential to ensure continual improvementin the practise of Community Forestry. Thereforethere is a need for a sustainable information manage-ment system to ensure that information is utilised inan accessible, efficient and useful way. DhadingDistrict Forest Office (DFO) requested that DhadingResource Management Project develop a District Levelcomputer database to hold details on all Forest UserGroups in the district. This was undertaken, alongwith other project activities during my time in Nepal.

Main Report

Community Forestry Policy in Nepal allows thehandover of National Forest to local communityForest User Groups. The mandate of these groups isto manage the forest in a participatory mannerensuring that users can gain access to a sustainablesource of forest products, such as fodder and fuel,upon which many are dependant. This is easy to statein principle, but difficult to achieve in practise. Sincethe first initiation of Community Forestry policies in1978, evaluation of activities has led to changes inemphasis to develop the programme. The presentpolicy was stated in the Forestry Sector Master Plan1989, with activities governed by the Forest Act 1993and supported by the Forest Regulations of 1994.

DRMP’s approach to forest handover is initially tospend up to two years working with the ten mostmarginalised communities in each VDC. Community

Motivators facilitate awareness of development issuesusing drama and literacy classes. Through this thecommunity groups become encouraged to undertakeactivities such as construction of taps for drinkingwater, toilet building and basic sanitation, improvedagriculture, and saving and credit groups. After 18months DRMP Forest Rangers work with them tofacilitate the handover of National Forest to theircommunity groups. These Forest User Groups have amuch wider membership than those communitygroups that DRMP initially works with. Since theirprevious activities and achievements have been shownto build up their confidence, their opinions are heardin Forest User Groups and so prevent the groupsbeing taken over by the local elite. DRMP-focuscommunity members are often those with the greatestawareness of their roles and responsibilities withinthe Forest User Group.

For National Forest to be legally handed over to ForestUsers Groups, groups have to register with the DFO,submitting a Constitution and Operational Plan. TheConstitution gives details of the roles and responsi-bilities of the committee and the users, including self-determined rules relating to group and forestmanagement and the forest product needs of theusers. The Operational Plan gives information on theforest condition, resources present in the forest andthe management plans of the Forest User Group. Theavailability of this information has increased withrecent guidelines that require a detailed forestinventory of community forests to occur prior tohandover. Therefore, there is a large amount ofinformation that is not presently fully utilised due tothe difficulty of analysing a large number of paperdocuments.

There is a central Community Forestry database inexistence at the Department of Forests, Kathmandu.At a district level information is fed to the databasewith little analysed data being returned to districtlevel. Yet analysis and evaluation is essential forinformed improvements to the practise of communityforestry. The previous District Forest Officer ofDhading District requested that DRMP should providethe DFO with a database to analyse the status ofCommunity Forestry in Dhading District. Thisrequires information on all 300+ Forest User Groups,with numbers steadily increasing through the work ofDRMP, Forest and Environment Protection Society(FEPS—a local NGO) and the District Forest Office.

My main task was to develop the database. It was alarge slow task and therefore benefited from havingone person responsible for it rather than the task

tropical

agriculture

association

uk



being added to another job description. My approachwas to act as a facilitator of ideas and to ensure thatthe database met the needs of the DFO by workingclosely with staff at all stages of its development. Anadvisory group was set up, consisting of the DFO’sDistrict Forest Officer, Assistant Forest Officer andPlanning Ranger and DRMP’s Community ForestryManagement Officer (CFMO) and CommunityDevelopment Advisor. On a day-to-day basis thedatabase was developed with help from the CFMO andPlanning Ranger. I gained valuable skills in learningto work with colleagues from different positionswithin community forestry—both NGO andgovernment employees.

I lived in Gajuri, a small bazaar on the Kathmandu toPokhara road, about two and a half hours fromKathmandu. Here the project had its main officewhere a team of 11 staff was based, with a further 29 insmall field teams based in isolated VDCs in thedistrict. There was one other British expatriate, basedin Kathmandu, who was in Gajuri most weeks. Mywork was concentrated in the Gajuri office, withregular visits to Dhading Besi, the District Head-quarters, to liaise with District Forest Office staff. Ialso went on field visits about every month.

I was mainly involved with supporting the ForestRangers and CFMO. The Forest Rangers had aparticularly heavy workload. They started working inproject areas about 18 months after the communitymotivators had been supporting general communitydevelopment activities within the focus groups. Soonafterwards many community motivators were movedto new focus areas and the Rangers were left tofacilitate the community forest handover processwhilst still monitoring the general communitydevelopment activities. Meanwhile in September 2000the Department of Forests released guidelines formore standardised methods of forest inventory ofcommunity forests. This meant it took about onemonth to undertake and compile the surveying foreach community forest. One time-consuming exercisewas calculating independent co-ordinates formapping the forest from a boundary survey. Itherefore worked with the team, using their know-ledge of the process and its underlying mathematicalmethods and my computer skills, to produce an ExcelSpreadsheet that automatically calculates the inde-pendent co-ordinates when the field data is entered.This reduced the time taken for this process from upto five days by hand to about one hour, so freeing upRangers’ time for field-based work. This wasdisseminated for comment to the District ForestOffices at Dhading and Kathmandu, NARMSAP

(DANIDA’s Community Forestry Training SupportProject), Livelihoods and Forestry Project (DfID) andNepal-Australia Community Resource ManagementProject.

On a year’s placement the database and spreadsheetwork gave me a focus around which I could contributeto the project during a short-term placement.However I was also involved in general projectmanagement, supporting the project manager andsenior staff team. This gave me very valuable insightsand experience of how to manage a multi-faceteddevelopment project such as DRMP. I was involved instaff meetings, management committee meetings,staff hiring, and supporting my colleagues in writingsecurity plans and the annual report. The independentevaluation of one phase of DRMP’s work was carriedout whilst I was there, so it was interesting to observethe techniques used by the consultant as well as tobegin to test out the database to answer some of hisquestions about participation in the project. I also satin on training sessions for trainers, literacy classfacilitators and foresters.

Therefore I am grateful for the support from TAAFthat allowed me to undertake this work. It hasconfirmed my desire to work in rural developmentforestry in an international context and given me veryvaluable experience at an early stage in my career. I amnow following this up by studying for the MSc inForestry: Science, Policy and Management at OxfordUniversity.

For those requiring

more information

about the database:

Jane has written a

detailed report

outlining the process

followed in developing

the database, its

limitations and initial

results.

The report is available

from the Editor.

✵

dec 2001 quark text · parkia biglobosacan be easily propagated from seed, cuttings and air layers....

Documents