30thBrussels Briefing on Agricultural Resilience - 7. Girma Tesfahun Kassie: Drought-resilient crops and resilience systems of benefit to small-scale farmers

Brussels Briefing n. 30Agricultural Resilience in the Face of Crises and

Shocks4th March 2013

http://brusselsbriefings.net

Drought-resilient crops and resilience systems of benefit to small-scale farmers

Girma Tesfahun Kassie, Researcher, Socioeconomic Programme, CIMMYT,

Zimbabwe

Drought Tolerant Maize and Coping with Agricultural Risk in

Sub-Saharan Africa

Girma T. Kassie, Tsedeke Abate, Jill E Cairns, Kai Sonder, Bekele Shiferaw

Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Number of poor (<2 USD d-1) in maize growing areas

• Inherently vulnerable and risk prone

• Downside risk rural communities face emanates from both expected and unexpected deviations from the norm in one or more of – environmental factors, – institutions and policies,

and– individual or group level

circumstances.

Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa

• The most important downside risk:– production risk manifested

through unpredictably variable agricultural yield

• This risk is enormously enhanced in SSA due to the uncertainty surrounding rainfall in terms of – frequency – temporal and spatial distribution– intensity of drought

Drought risk

For every degree day above 30 °C, yield is reduced by 1.7 % under drought (compared to 1% under

optimal conditions)

Nature Climate Change (2011) 1, 42-45.

What does the future hold?Maximum temperature changes -

2050

Tmax difference (oC)

(19 GCMs, A2 scenario)Advances in Agronomy (2012)

144, 1-58

Annual rainfall differences (%)-2050

Potential contribution of improved technologies

• Improved varieties and management options have offset yield losses by ~40%.

• Drought and heat tolerant maize varieties will play a fundamental role.

• Drought tolerance maize is of enormous global importance, which virtually no crop or farmer in the world can afford to be without.

Nature Review Genetics 2,815-822

What are CIMMYT and partners doing?

• Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa – initiated in 2006 in 13 countries

Hybrids

OPVs Commercial

• Progress to date– 55 drought

tolerant hybrids and 54 drought tolerant OPV maize varieties released Performance of new varieties in farmers’

fields relative to most popular maize varieties in Southern Africa

Facilitating farmers access to improved varieties

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09

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10

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11

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16

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10

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30

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1 3

9

19

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41

55

70

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00

MT

Seed production of improved maize varieties

Expected benefits of drought tolerant maize

• Benefits estimated in terms of economic gains from increasing maize yields and the economic benefits from reduced year-to-year variability in yields

• 532 – 870 M USD

• 100% replacement of old varieties with drought tolerance maize would increase income by 0.9 – 1.5 billion USD (with most of the benefit in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe)

• Largest gains accrue in the 0-20% PFS zones

• Risk benefits important part of total (up to 30%)

• Highest poverty reduction in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Nigeria (more than 4 M people out of poverty)

• 95% return in 8-9 main countries (especially Nigeria, Kenya and Malawi)

Household level drought risk management

• Risk management is part of regular farm management activities of farmers – manifested through selection of enterprises and

allocation of their resources.• The way farmers choose their enterprises and

allocate their resources explain the intricacies of risk perception and risk efficient farm management.

• Comprehensive understanding of risk perceptions and the resultant decisions is crucially important.

• Examples of resource allocations based on expectations:

12

Land allocation to crops under different levels of drought stress

Less stressed Highly stressed

CropOptimal Drought

stressOptimal Drought

stress

Maize 6.16 2.61 5.51 7.50

Sorghum 37.60 21.67 72.70 38.30

Tef 22.95 28.72 12.56 30.00

Chickpea 2.51 13.84 4.30 11.70

Haricot bean

- - 4.93 12.50

Lentil 4.93 8.88 - -

Faba bean 4.72 3.39 - -

Field pea 5.75 6.40 - -

Wheat 7.18 4.44 - -

Barley 3.65 3.26

Emmer wheat

4.54 6.79

Land allocation vis-à-vis risk expectation in Malawi

Maize type  Decision 

Yield < normal

Yield > normal

Fertilizer accessibl

e

Fertiliser inaccessib

leCredit

accessibleLocal variety

Decrease area 1.34 0.67 0 12.08 0Same area 57.7 63.76 34.23 79.87 42.28Increase area 40.3 35.57 65.77 8.05 57.72N 149 149 149 149 149

OPV Decrease area 0 2.27 0 15.91 0Same area 31.8 59.09 27.27 70.45 27.27Increase area 68.2 38.64 72.73 13.64 72.73N 44 44 44 44 44

Hybrid Decrease area 8.62 0 1.72 24.14 1.72Same area 51.7 51.72 22.41 67.24 27.59Increase area 39.7 48.28 75.86 8.62 70.69N 58 58 58 58 58

Maize type Decision Yield < normal

Yield > normal

Fertilizer accessible

Fertiliser inaccessib

le

Credit accessibl

eLocal variety

Decrease area 50.6 0.6 3 35.2 0.6 Same area 34.3 18.5 11.6 62.7 25.7 Increase area 10 79.7 85.1 1.8 72.8N 335 335 335 335 335

OPV Decrease area 69.3 0.6 4.1 76.3 0.9Same area 18.7 9.5 7 13.3 15.5Increase area 10.8 88.3 88 9.2 81.6N 316 316 316 316 316

Hybrid Decrease area 65.1 0.9 7.8 75.2 1.5Same area 21.2 9 1.8 14.3 12.8Increase area 12.5 89 90.1 10.1 84.8N 335 335 335 335 335

Land allocation vis-à-vis risk expectation in Zambia

Conclusions• Drought and the negative risk associated with it will always be a

bottleneck to maize production, particularly in SSA.• Drought is unavoidable - the focus shall be on adapting to the

patterns in moisture level and coping mechanisms for erratic scenarios.

• In designing and implementing interventions that aim at contributing to the risk coping ability of farmers, it is essential to take into account heterogeneity within the farming communities.

• Drought tolerant maize varieties are being developed and would play a key role in enhancing the resilience smallholder farmers in SSA.

• Research so far has shown yield gains are being made in maize on farmers’ fields in SSA. • That is a good news!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!