A hitherto disregarded vast group of farmers – those mixing crops with livestock on ‘in between’ lands (neither high-potential farmlands nor low-potential rangelands) – will feed most people in the future.

Scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and seven other leading international agricultural research organizations around the world recently determined that it is ‘mixed farms,’ not breadbaskets or rice bowls, that will feed most people over the next two decades.

Their report, Drivers of change in crop–livestock systems and their potential impacts on agroecosystems services and human well-being to 2030, produced by the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programme, shows that it is not big, efficient farms on high-potential lands that feed most of the world’s poor people today but rather one billion small, ‘mixed,’ family farmers tending rice paddies or cultivating maize and beans while raising a few chickens and pigs, a herd of goats or a cow or two on relatively extensive rainfed lands. This same group, the report indicates, is likely to play the biggest role in global food security over the next several decades, as world population grows and peaks (at 9 billion or so) with the addition of another 2 billion people.

Remarkably, this is the first study ever to investigate the state of the world’s most prevalent kind of farmers – those who keep animals as well as grow crops. A major implication of the new report is that governments and researchers are mistaken to continue looking to high-potential lands and single-commodity farming systems as the answer to world hunger. As the study shows, many highly intensive agricultural systems are reaching their peak capacity to produce food and should now focus on sustaining rather than increasing yields.

A hitherto disregarded vast group of farmers – those mixing crops with livestock on ‘in between’ lands (neither high-potential farmlands nor low-potential rangelands) – are heavyweights in global food security.
The authors of this multi-institutional and multidisciplinary study, most belonging to centers of the CGIAR, agree with many other experts that we need to bring our focus back to small-scale farms. But this report goes further, distinguishing one particular kind of small-scale farmer that should be our focus: the mixed farmer growing crops and raising animals in the world’s more extensive agricultural systems.

These mixed extensive farms make up the biggest, poorest and most environmentally sustainable agricultural system in the world. It is time we invested heavily in this particular kind of farming system. Here is where the biggest yield gaps remain. Here is where we can make the biggest difference.

The billions of dollars promised by the international donor community to fund small-scale farming in developing countries are likely to fail unless policies are reoriented towards this particular, most ubiquitous and, till now, most neglected, form of agriculture. What this ‘extensive frontier’ needs are the most basic forms of infrastructure and services. With these at hand, the world’s extensive mixed farmers will be in good position to scale up their food production to meet future needs.

This post is part of our series celebrating “40 years of CGIAR”

Picture courtesy CCAFS/Peter Casier

A revival in the production of gums and resins such as frankincense and myrrh could help conserve forests and boost livelihoods in Ethiopia’s impoverished drylands, according to a new study published by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

“Forest products such as gums and resins are important sources of cash income. They are the most important export commodities from the forestry sector,” said Habtemariam Kassa, co-author of the study “Opportunities and challenges for sustainable production and marketing of gums and resins in Ethiopia.”

Thus far, however, gum and resin trees have been neglected because policy makers and researchers know little about the potential of these resources. Strategies focus solely on agricultural expansion, but there is no clearly defined policy on dryland development.

“It is only recently that research on these forests, trees and products began. Thus policy options and technical/managerial recommendations on how best to manage dry forests to sustainably produce gums and resins are difficult to come by,” Kassa said.  He stressed a need to support more research and to inform decision makers about balancing conservation and development in dry forest areas.

Sustainable production of gums and resins can help fight desertification and promote biodiversity and conservation, while also providing an income and offering a source of food for livestock, as well as humans during periods of famine.

The above text extracts were taken from CIFOR’s blog post “Reviving gum and resin production key to livelihoods and conservation in Ethiopia’s dry forests” – visit the link to view the original article.

Photo credit: Mulugeta Lemenih/Habtemariam Kassa

Please find below an article published today by HarvestPlus.

Washington D.C, November 21, 2011: A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition indicates that orange sweet potato (OSP) is effective in providing vitamin A to malnourished women and children in Mozambique, where the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is very high. VAD can lead to impaired immune defenses and eye damage that can lead to blindness and even death. Annually, 250,000 to 500,000 preschool children go blind from VAD and about two-thirds will die within months of going blind.

The OSP, conventionally bred to be rich in vitamin A, was distributed as part of a HarvestPlus project to more than 10,000 households in Zambezia Province in northern Mozambique. Many of these households traditionally grew and ate yellow or white sweet potato which are poor vitamin A sources.  The project resulted in about 65% of households adopting OSP. While many farmers substituted OSP for yellow or white ones on their plots, a good number were ‘new’ sweet potato farmers.  Due to adoption, household consumption of OSP and thus, vitamin A intakes, increased substantially. On average vitamin A intakes doubled for both children and women.

By project end, OSP provided more than 70% of all dietary vitamin A and was the third most important food in the diet (after maize and rice) for young children. OSP also provided more vitamin A than other local foods such as pumpkin, leafy green vegetables, or mango.  Available for about 3 months of the year, or longer in other regions, OSP can help close the VAD gap, when other vitamin A-rich foods or supplements are not available.

Previous smaller-scale studies have shown that OSP consumption results in measurable improvements in vitamin A levels of young children. “We’ve now shown that you can scale up efforts to distribute OSP to poor rural communities and see this translate into increased OSP and vitamin A intakes especially in women and children, who are most vulnerable to mineral and vitamin deficiencies,” says Dr. Christine Hotz, former HarvestPlus Nutrition Coordinator who led the study. “It’s a powerful approach using agriculture to improve nutrition and public health.” OSP has also been introduced in other countries including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to combat VAD.

About the Project: From 2007-2009, HarvestPlus and its partners disseminated orange sweet potato, to see if VAD could be reduced, to more than 24,000 households in Mozambique and Uganda. HarvestPlus leads a global effort to breed and disseminate micronutrient-rich staple food crops to reduce hidden hunger in malnourished populations. It is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health. It is coordinated by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).   Project photos can be downloaded from:  http://bit.ly/ospmoz.

Journal Article: A large-scale intervention to introduce orange sweet potato in rural Mozambique increases vitamin A intakes among children and women. British Journal of Nutrition, CJO 2011.

See original article: “Orange Sweet Potato Reduces Risk of Vitamin A Deficiency among Children and Women in Mozambique”

Photo credit: HarvestPlus REU Project

Cassava is a major staple food in Africa. The tuber is a valuable source of cheap calories, especially in those countries where hunger and malnutrition are widespread. In many parts of Africa, the leaves and tender shoots of the cassava plant are also eaten as vegetables.

Despite the importance of this tuber, it faces many problems, one of which is its low multiplication ratio.  When a cassava stem cutting is planted, it will usually yield 10 mini stem cuttings 12 months later, giving it a multiplication ration of 1:10. In comparison, a maize plant can yield a cob with about 300 seeds – a multiplication ratio of 1:300. Rapid multiplication techniques can help overcome this low ratio.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is extending the benefits of its research on the rapid multiplication of the cassava stem in a training video that shows how a cassava plant can produce between 60 and 100 mini stem cuttings. Part 1 of this step-by-step guide is shown above, and part 2 can be seen here.