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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a7d7470bfc24a2f933000f2e93cccee3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2a47765a-347b-4322-8199-70209fd34d28/retrieve","id":"-1451297025"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"abe79b7e-a961-41fc-b27b-0b1a19b31010","content":"Many seafood products marketed as \"sustainable\" are not. More exacting sustainability standards are needed to respond to a fast-changing world and support United Nations SDGs. Future fisheries must operate on principles that minimise impacts on marine life, adapt to climate change and allow regeneration of depleted biodiversity, while supporting and enhancing the health, wellbeing and resilience of people and communities. We set out 11 actions to achieve these goals.Healthy oceans are critical for nature, human wellbeing and planetary stability. Marine life, including exploited species, are essential to that health, driving biological, chemical and physical processes integral to ecosystem functioning and services to people 1,2 . Yet most countries are failing to meet targets under the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for poverty reduction, zero hunger and adequate nutrition, climate action, reduced inequalities, environmental and ocean protection 3 , as well as the Global Biodiversity Framework 4 . To meet these global aspirations, we must move beyond business as usual, reimagine sustainability standards for fishing that will be resilient and adaptable in the face of rapid global change, and develop creative ways to implement them.Marine fish contribute significantly to global food and nutritional security, particularly through subsistence, artisanal and commercial small-scale fisheries and in the Global South 5 . The healthier nutritional profile of seafood versus terrestrial animal foods has led to increased promotion of seafood 6 with the global rate of its consumption continuing to outpace that of human population growth 5 and projected to nearly double by 2050 7 . Today, wild seafood is sourced through an extraordinary diversity of socialecological systems that operate from coastal habitats through to the open ocean and target a plethora of animals and plants 8 . Managing fisheries more sustainably is a global imperative given the increasing numbers of people living in hunger 9 .Many of the world's fish populations remain overfished and in decline 5,10 , despite improvements in fisheries management and fishing practices for some species and in some countries 11 . Numerous fishing companies operate in ways that generate wide environmental impacts onecosystems and habitats. Adding to these systemic problems, maximum sustainable yield (MSY), internationally recognised as the standard for sustainable fishing, is based on a single-species approach that takes into account neither interactions among species nor impacts on habitat or ecosystem roles played by target species 12 . Repeated calls and much evidence for the need for an ecosystem-based approach to fishery management 13,14 and guidance for its implementation 15 have had limited influence to date. The impacts of fishing on marine life and the people that depend on them are exacerbated further by climate change and other anthropogenic stressors 16 .The world is changing fast, and fisheries management, as presently practiced, largely lacks measures to ensure long-term ecological resilience and social equity 17,18 in not only sustainable, but also ethical fisheries 19 . We must transition towards viewing fishing as a privilege, rather than a right. Private fishers and fishing enterprises should exploit public fishery resources with attendant ethical responsibilities to limit environmental harm and promote societal benefit 20,21 . The slow pace of change towards more sustainable practices guarantees that marine fisheries will not, on their present trajectory, meet the urgency of global challenges. How then, can we adapt and future-proof fisheries in the face of long-term climate change and uncertainty?Reform of marine fisheries is a central mechanism to improve ocean health, offering the opportunity to minimise the ecological impact of one of the largest and most widespread direct drivers of degradation [22][23][24][25] . Such reform will also amplify societal benefits from marine fisheries to human health, wellbeing and livelihoods [26][27][28] . Here we offer a vision for the future of ocean exploitation in which marine life and fisheries play a central role in the delivery of the SDGs.The Vision: Marine fisheries should minimise the ecological impact of every fish caught and maximise its societal benefit Marine fisheries are managed as social-ecological systems that recognise and respect relational values between humans and nature, support thriving oceans, and amplify the value of marine life to people and the planet. Their management recognises that fish and invertebrates are wild animals, the use of which entails reciprocal obligations to safeguard species and the wider environment. Fishing, when allowed, should be conducted in ways that sustain and recover ecological integrity and function, now and into the future, including measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Fishing minimises disruption to the natural world, in recognition of ocean health and the life support systems on which people and nature depend. Fishing provides for direct human consumption and food and nutrition security, is undertaken in ways that are socially just and equitable, promote human wellbeing and protect human rights, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples and smallscale fishers. Fisheries are managed within institutionally robust and transparent systems underpinned by effective and collaborative principles and participatory procedures that focus on community and economic viability. Detailed social-economic (e.g. access, allocation, employment, economic benefits, wellbeing) and environmental data (e.g. quota allocation, geolocation data) relating to commercial fisheries are made publicly available by national governments or intergovernmental regulatory bodies. Fisheries support decent jobs and livelihoods within environmental limits unsupported by harmful subsidies; internalise the economic, social, and environmental costs of fishing, including on ecosystem goods and services; and account for the full economic, social and cultural values of the fishery.This view was deliberated and agreed upon by the co-authors, including ecologists, fisheries scientists, conservationists, social scientists, ethicists, economists, and food systems specialists. It challenges mainstream perception and practice, particularly for fisheries that employ methods with large environmental impacts, such as trawls and gillnets. To achieve systemic change to fishing practices and management, we must widen the present narrow objectives of traditional stock assessment to support diverse and healthy oceans and communities. Fishery managers, fishers, fishing companies and retailers must take responsibility to recover, protect and support marine life, and thereby sustain human wellbeing and their business interests. Such actions will improve resilience and promote adaptation to the growing risks posed by climate change.In the following we present two core principles and a series of key actions to transform fisheries for the future (Fig. 1).Principle 1: Fisheries must minimise environmental harm, allow for the regeneration of marine life and habitats, and adapt to climate change Marine life and habitats provide the natural capital basis of economic viability for fishing businesses. Against a global context of rapid environmental change, robust ecosystem functioning and resilience are foundational prerequisites for future fisheries sustainability and continued delivery of critical ecosystem services. These attributes are poorly served by the present focus on single species managed for maximum productivity. Managers must instead, by default, consider the wider ecosystem impacts of fishing and prioritise lower impact activities, coupled with measures that protect and promote ecosystem regeneration such as rebuilding depleted populations, creating fully protected marine protected areas, managing coastal development and restoring critical habitats. Healthy ecosystems function better than degraded ones and support services important to wider society, such as carbon sequestration and good water quality. Fisheries must also address their own contributions to the climate crisis through activities that are polluting (e.g. ghost gear and plastics) or carbon intensive (e.g. towed fishing gears) or destructive (e.g. disturbance of sediment carbon stores and slow growing habitat forming species).Action 1: Fish less and manage fisheries for lower impact Overfishing, by which we mean excessive take leading to population depletion below productive levels, has many causes. The most common are inadequate (or absent) regulation and enforcement, overcapacity, insufficient or inaccurate understanding of stock status, a misguided concentration on and flawed application of the concept of maximum sustainable yield, and insufficient attention to the difficulty of managing mixed species fisheries. The latter illustrates one of the most fundamental failings of conventional management: the impossibility of simultaneously fishing for all species at MSY 29,30 . Historically, species with life histories vulnerable even to low levels of fishing mortality (large size, slow growth, late maturation, long-lifespan, often from high trophic levels), have been progressively depleted and lost from mixed-species fisheries, leading to eventual industry dependence on a few resilient species, often from low trophic levels, such as prawns, scallops or flatfish 31,32 . While such fisheries may still be productive and profitable, the loss of other species leads to ecosystem simplification, impairing function and resilience 31,33 . Ecosystem functioning can also be compromised directly by removal of large volumes of planktivorous species (often called forage fish), which further negatively impacts higher trophic levels, including animals like seabirds and marine mammals that are not targets of fishing 34 .Governing fisheries to support higher biomass levels in the wild for both target and non-target species would rebuild ecosystem functioning and resilience, reduce management risk, increase room for error and buffer the effects of environmental fluctuations and change. Reducing exploitation rates, combined with shifting to more selective fishing gears, e.g. increasing mesh size 12 , or to places with lower bycatch and less sensitive habitats, would produce higher population sizes, increase catch per unit effort, reduce fishing costs and cause less damage to habitats and non-target species 12,35 . Lower exploitation rates may also align more closely with maximum economic yield, the point of highest fisheries profitability 36 . Considerable disagreement exists surrounding the level of biomass to which a population has to fall relative to its unfished state before it is considered overexploited [37][38][39] , with some estimates as low as 20% 40,41 . Reducing the abundance of marine life to low levels leaves very little room for uncertainty in estimates and error in management. Further management jeopardy arises because the unexploited biomass of a population on which reference points are based is often unknown or unobtainable and may become irrelevant under climate https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-024-00078-2 change or some other environmental shock. Such reductions also amplify population variability in exploited species 42 as well as adverse ecosystem consequences from fishing 43 .Climate-adaptive fisheries management, particularly for exploited populations in need of rebuilding, requires fishing levels to be well below MSY 44 . Maintaining higher biomass could also enhance the ocean's ability to sequester carbon 45,46 . Adopting a biomass target of at least 60% of unfished levels (or appropriate population benchmark for naturally highly variable populations), would better secure ecosystem function and minimise risk 47,48 . In the absence of detailed stock assessment data, precautionary exploitation rates can be adopted based on local ecological knowledge and/or values from better monitored populations of the same or comparable species.Action 2: Rule out gears and fisheries that generate significant collateral damage Some fishing methods, such as fishing with explosives or poisons, are so destructive to habitats and ecosystems that they are already prohibited almost everywhere. Many currently allowed fishing methods, however, have significant destructive impacts that are not fully acknowledged or accepted for reasons of long use due to historic legacy and culture, resistance to change or lack of political will. Seabed-contacting mobile gears such as trawls, demersal seines and dredges fall into this category. They scrape, dig up and pulverise marine life in the process of catching fish and shellfish, such that regularly fished areas come to be dominated by shifting gravel, sands and mud, while marine animal forests such as mussel and oyster beds disappear 49,50 . While fishing is changing the functioning of the ocean carbon pump 51 , a key process for mitigating climate change, bottom trawls, demersal seines and dredges have an additional specific impact by disrupting nature's carbon stores and causing re-release of greenhouse gases to ocean and, potentially atmosphere, although the magnitude of this release is still uncertain 52,53 . The lack of selectivity of mobile gears contributes to the problem of bycatch, and fishers' associated action of discarding, which causes waste and ecosystem disruption and threatens species with vulnerable life histories. Their continued use has contributed to the loss of other target fishery species, often long ago, and prevents the re-establishment of complex, flourishing ecosystems that support larger bodied fish and other wildlife and act as active carbon stores 54 .Other fishing methods result in large amounts of bycatch and ecosystem disruption, including gillnetting, surface longlining and the use of drifting fish aggregating devices (dFADs) in purse seine fisheries. The impacts vary with the specificity of the catch, for example purse seines targeting free-swimming single species schools result in cleaner catches than those targeting mixed schools associated with dFADs 55 . The waste associated with bycatch of undersized, unwanted or over-quota species has long been accepted as a necessary cost of fishing. Even sustainability standards that claim to promote low impact fishing have internalised this logic, permitting substantial bycatch, including seabirds and marine mammals, in eco-certified fisheries 56 . Such bycatch has been justified by recourse to the specious argument that it is insufficient to further endanger these species (or prevent their recovery). However, as this impact is often assessed at vessel or company-level, the full cumulative impact across all vessels in a given fishery is neither properly quantified nor considered.Bycatch can be reduced by switching fishing gear, redesigning it or altering fishing practices (e.g. setting at a different time of day or avoiding places with high levels of bycatch species), although there are technological and economic limits to effectiveness 57 . Economic instruments can be used as in Namibia, for example, where fishers are required to land all bycatch and they are charged for any they land 58 . As interactions with fishing gear represent risk and danger for all species, even when not immediately fatal 59 , the cumulative effect is often further decline, especially for rare and endangered species with low reproductive output 60 . Where fishing methods cannot be modified to sufficiently mitigate collateral damage, continued exploitation runs counter to sustainability principles and so should cease. For culturally important species, this raises the difficult issue of how to sustain cultural connections to vulnerable wildlife. Regardless of who it is that does the fishing, sustainable use is necessary to secure long-term rights and opportunities to natural resources. Cultural connections can be severed by traditional uses as well as by external operators using industrial methods.Targeting species that can be caught more selectively with less damaging gear is important. Using static bottom gears such as longlines or handlines, for example, may reduce environmental harms 61 and mitigate unwanted catches 62 . Selective fisheries have the further advantage of simplifying stock assessments, thereby improving management advice and success of implementation.Action 3: Set limits on the size of boats and gears A gradual increase in fishing power over time-technological creep-is a near universal tendency of fisheries 63,64 . One manifestation is the growth in size of fishing vessels and gear deployed, and another is the increasing sophistication of the technologies they deploy. These trends also concentrate capital into fewer hands, sometimes creating monopolies, narrowing the distribution of economic and social benefits from fishing 65 . Many fisheries are highly carbon intensive, burning large quantities of fossil fuels often made cheaper by capacity-enhancing government subsidies. Among the worst performers in terms of fuel burned per tonne of landings are crustacean fisheries 66 , fisheries that operate in distant waters, deploy heavy mobile gears like trawls, or target high value, low yield species like swordfish 67 ; most of them are propped up by subsidies 68,69 .Economic considerations dictate that more powerful vessels concentrate fishing effort in places with high catch rates, but the scale of impacts increases with higher capacity. In combination, these attributes can lead to localised depletion of target and non-target species. Even where quotas are low relative to estimated overall stock size, such as with Antarctic krill, fishing sub-stock by sub-stock could exacerbate climate change ecosystem effects and accumulate over time into widespread decline 70,71 .Fleets made up of smaller boats can theoretically more easily match fishing effort to stock productivity, spread effort over wider areas, and avoid the serious impacts associated with higher-capacity gears. They are usually employment-intensive, sharing the economic rent of fishing among many fishers, and more generally participating in the economic, social lives, culture and wellbeing of coastal communities. Nonetheless, small-scale fisheries have problems of their own. There are many examples of overfishing, species loss and environmental damage in intensive artisanal fisheries, which are as important to resolve as issues affecting industrial fishing 72,73 .All fisheries use gears that can either be incidentally or, in some cases, purposefully lost during or after operation. Lost or discarded fishing gears often make up the largest category of plastic waste in the open sea 74 . Excluding gear deliberately disposed of by unscrupulous fishers when damaged or redundant, some gears are especially prone to loss such as gill nets, traps and drifting fish aggregating devices 75 . Gears lost while in use may continue to ghost-fish for weeks, months or even years, causing long term harm to marine life through pollution, entanglement and mortality. Mandatory labelling of fishing gear could encourage better stewardship as penalties could be levied on lost and retrieved gear.Awareness of the pervasive impacts of ocean-borne plastic pollution has increased dramatically in recent years. An increasing number of recyclable gears are being tested and facilities to properly dispose of and recycle unwanted gear are becoming widespread. More generally, the fishing sector has to engage in the circular economy if it is to promote the sustainability of its products. The concept of fisheries sustainability must embrace the full impact of fishing on the environment and society, ruling out those fisheries that wilfully or carelessly contribute to overfishing, loss of livelihoods and wildlife and the burden of ocean pollution.Action 4: Source only from fisheries with good governance, sustainable stocks, and sufficient data to assure sustainability Over 90% of the world's marine species are transboundary 76 , meaning fisheries often exploit populations shared by multiple countries 18 . Their management is therefore a collective responsibility undertaken through negotiation by government representatives. Such arrangements often lead to risk-prone decisions whereby quotas are set higher than is considered safe by scientific assessments and overfishing ensues, even in places like Europe where good scientific advice is often readily available 77,78 . The Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna was a notorious victim of serial mismanagement but also illustrates how stocks can recover following more responsible decision making 79 . Similarly, the status of many other major tuna stocks has also improved in the last decade, in part the result of a turn toward (hypothetically) apolitical management frameworks known as harvest control rules 80 . In particular, small-island developing states in the Pacific have demonstrated how rights-based management may be effective even for transboundary, highly migratory fish 81 , and these nations have asserted substantial governing power in an industry still dominated by foreign fishing companies 82 . In this part of the world, access to fishing in island state waters is based on an annual vessel effort limit, rather than a species quota or volume limit. As of 2021, all tuna populations in the Western and Central Pacific were considered biologically healthy, which is no small feat given half of the global tuna catch comes from here 83 . At the same time, some governments continue to act irresponsibly under international management frameworks and set excessive quotas in the short term that drive fisheries further into overfishing, as is the case, for example, for yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean 84 . Their actions are incompatible with sustainability.A frequent response to overfishing is to diversify into catching other, less exploited species e.g ref. 85. The approach is encouraged by fisheries managers and directed subsidies, even in the absence of data on the new target species, the logic being that unfished or little-exploited populations are abundant enough not to need management control. The result, often repeated through history, is that the new species are soon overfished, and management action, when it is taken, is reactive, slow, insufficient and lacks transparency [86][87][88] . The plentiful examples of this problem demonstrate that sustainable fishing requires foreknowledge of stocks and pre-emptive regulation, especially in countries with industrial scale fleets and welldeveloped management capacity. Moreover, these unfished or little exploited populations can hold significant ecological roles that underpin other fisheries and key ecosystem services; without knowing better, the consequences of their exploitation could be far-reaching. A clear example is the growing exploitation interest towards the exceptionally high biomass of krill and mesopelagic fish which are key to the processes of carbon sequestration 89 . As the world looks for ways to promote nature-based solutions to the climate crisis 90 , fishing for species that play a vital role in the carbon cycle makes no sense other than in narrow fishery economic terms. Before being opened, all fisheries should require long-term data sets from which sound scientific advice and clear management rules can be set to avoid repeated cycles of failure. A basic working principle is that the less one knows about a fish and its place in the ecosystem and world, the more precautionary fishery management should be 91,92 .Although small-scale fisheries often operate with less data and management capacity than industrial fisheries, sustainability can still be pursued by applying local ecological knowledge to better match fishing pressure to levels species can support, adopting measures to reduce the impact of fishing on habitats and bycatch species, and establishing participatory institutions to set and enforce local rules [93][94][95][96] .Action 5: Pro-actively incorporate ecosystem protection into fisheries management Fisheries managers have rarely considered pro-active nature protection to be within their remit, even though protection of habitat and ecosystem integrity may be fundamental to the productivity of the species they manage, e.g. juvenile cod in the Gulf of Maine survive better in untrawled habitats 97 . Instead, managers assume that sufficient habitat of good enough quality https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-024-00078-2 exists, justifying their focus on target species in isolation. The narrowness of this view has likely contributed to many instances of species decline. If fisheries are to be sustainable in a wider sense, managers should not ignore their responsibility to protect habitats that are critical to life stages, maintain the functioning of ecosystems and sustain the wildlife they affect. This includes considering when, where and how fishing is conducted, and its broader impacts.Spatial and temporal conservation measures must become an integral feature of modern fisheries management, to avoid adverse interactions with wildlife, protect habitats or promote their recovery, and direct fishing away from species or places of high ecological vulnerability or that are difficult to effectively monitor. Proactive nature protection measures safeguard and rebuild the natural capital on which fisheries are built. Examples of good practice include the temporal and spatial separation of lobster trap fisheries from feeding grounds of endangered right whales in Canada to prevent entanglement mortality 98 , the use of networked no-take marine reserves to support artisanal reef fisheries in the Caribbean 99 , and only allowing low impact static fishing methods in an area designed to allow recovery of seabed habitats impacted by mobile gears in Lyme Bay, UK 100 .Action 6: Place the most vulnerable species and areas off limits Some species and places are inherently more vulnerable to fishing than others, such as fragile habitats fished using destructive gears, or the deep-sea relative to shallower waters. Some fish and shark species have life histories that are incompatible with even low levels of exploitation. The same is true for many sponges, corals and other sessile invertebrates 101 . Fishing deeper than 500 m with large-scale, industrialised gears should not be undertaken. The extreme conditions of darkness, high pressure and cold mean that productivity is low across much of the deep sea, and species there often possess highly vulnerable life histories meaning they are extremely slow to recover once depleted 102 . Many exploited deep-sea species are also particularly vulnerable to ocean warming, deoxygenation, acidification and changes in export production 103,104 . These features mean that, with few exceptions, the deep sea cannot support fisheries that are sufficiently productive to be economically viable at sustainable fishing rates 105 .Areas with near-natural structures, processes and functions are important reference sites that can help set conservation goals, guide recovery trajectories of impacted sites, inform adaptive management and contribute to rebuilding exploited fish stocks. Fishing in these areas should be avoided. A related concept is \"freezing the fishing footprint\" whereby the spatial extent of fishing activities is constrained. In the deep-sea, freezing the bottom fishing footprint prevents expansion into areas not yet disturbed, thereby creating reference sites that allow us to understand anthropogenic changes in the deep sea. A freezing of the deep-sea fishing footprint would also protect areas that likely contain cold-water corals, deep-sea sponges and other vulnerable biogenic habitats, e.g. 106 . Polar regions also lend themselves to freezing the footprint to prevent damaging expansion of fisheries into some of the most climate-change sensitive ecosystems in the world 107 .Principle 2: Fisheries must support and enhance the health, wellbeing and resilience of people and communities, not just corporations Fisheries are an underperforming global asset. The difference between potential and actual net economic benefits from fisheries exceeds $ 80 billion per year, largely due to overexploitation 108 . Over the years, fisheries have become ever more technologically powerful. However, greater fishing power does not equate to greater production, with efficiencies often only slowing catch decline relative to the falling abundance of target species 63 . When functions of marine life that are difficult to value in monetary terms-including climate regulation, nutrient cycling, habitat provision, water quality, nutritional and cultural values 27,109 -are accounted for, marine life is dramatically undervalued.Fisheries management has historically focused on economic output with limited consideration of social value and effects, e.g. 110,111 . Yet human labour, along with marine life, provides the basis for these outputs and all parties that work in the fisheries sector should benefit from it, including women, who represent a large fraction of fisheries workers, particularly in processing and trade, but have generally lower benefits and agency 5 . We take the view that marine life is a public asset, and its exploitation and management should work for the benefit of local communities and the public, with traditional users as rights-holders and citizens as central stakeholders and decision makers.Action 7: End fisheries that abuse human rights, including those that threaten food security and livelihoods of people in the places they fish There is now abundant evidence of widespread human rights abuses in fishing, including coercive practices, bonded, slave and child labour, and unsafe, indecent and unsanitary living and working conditions 112,113 . These practices represent cost-cutting subsidies to fisheries whose profitability is falling because of overfishing and/or rising costs 69 . Human rights abuses and infringement of safe labour practices are especially prevalent in distant water fisheries where boats are at sea for months or years at a time 112 . Fisheries found to be complicit in such human rights abuses should be boycotted and dismantled.Distant water fisheries may also infringe on human rights, access rights, wellbeing, food security and livelihoods of local communities in the places they fish. For example, fisheries operating under access agreements or illegally in West Africa have led to loss of fishing opportunities for local, small-scale, nearshore fishing fleets 114 . In an era of food scarcity, fisheries should both contribute to global food security (where all people at all times have access to safe and nutritious foods 115 ) and operate in ways that maintain or increase access to fish and seafood for the world's undernourished and impoverished coastal populations. But many do not, with sanctioned or illegal industrial fisheries undermining local catches and food security 114,116,117 .We need to refocus fisheries that do not contribute to food security towards production of premium products and supply of local markets with greater profit retention by small-scale actors including fishers, processors, traders and local communities, e.g. 118 . To reflect the true broader values of marine life, fish should be targeted for direct human consumption at local scales with short supply chains and not exploited as subsidised, cheap commodities to supply distant markets in rich countries, let alone for markets such as pet food, nutraceuticals, agri-or aquaculture, which may themselves have large environmental impacts. These sorts of supply chain dysfunctions and inefficiencies have led to global shortfalls of critical nutritional support for people 119 .Action 8: Create fisheries management systems that fairly and transparently distribute access and benefits Decisions on access and allocation of fishing rights are contentious, often made behind closed doors and typically based on historical precedent 120 . This approach favours some groups over others, often fishery sectors with the most concentrated capital, greatest lobbying power and high environmental impact, e.g. [121][122][123] . To increase fairness and transparency in fisheries management systems, two changes are needed. First, fisheries need clear policy mandates to consider equity (and not just sustainability) in management, and established mechanisms to determine equitable allocation of access and benefits to various groups 124 . For example, the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples and small-scale fishers to livelihoods and food should be considered before allocation to industrial fleets.Second, representative, inclusive and participatory decision-making processes are needed to embed local rights holders and stakeholders. Cooperatives and other coalitions and networks of fishers and fish processors can support actors' participation in decision making and distribution of benefits 125 . To enhance social benefits from fishing, wider recognition and representation of rights-holders (e.g. Indigenous Peoples, small-scale fishers, traditional resource users) and stakeholder groups is necessary, including civil society. Indeed, non-governmental stakeholders, such as environmental NGOs and Indigenous groups, are increasingly valued and https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-024-00078-2 active participants in decision-making processes 126 . At the same time, depending on the tactics and resources used to support the missions of these groups (e.g. private foundation funding), their motives may also be viewed as opaque, especially by fisheries managers in low-income countries 127 . To alleviate these concerns, government-associated fisheries managers as well as stakeholders from the private sector should be mandated to adequately and transparently consider, evaluate and report decisions on access and benefits to achieve the diverse objectives of the UN SDGs.Action 9: Apply good practices wherever fishing companies operate Multinational companies are often criticised for applying different standards across their global supply chains, for example employing child labour or exposing people to dangerous working conditions in less regulated jurisdictions, e.g. 112,113,128,129 . Allied to this, companies often operate under flags of convenience, benefiting from less rigorous or non-existent regulatory regimes 130 . Reduced operating costs represent the upside for the businesses involved. However, just because a practice is legal does not make it ethical or morally acceptable. Risk of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and labour abuses is higher when a fishing vessel operates under a flag state with poor control over corruption or is largely owned by countries other than the flag state 131 .A more inclusive definition of sustainability rejects that avoidable human and environmental costs are justified in the pursuit of profit. Responsible companies apply good practices wherever they operate, do not illegally fish, and do not hide behind flags of convenience. Responsible companies also engage in corporate social responsibility practices, such as benefit sharing and local hiring, and move beyond a focus on no harm to human rights, towards promoting wellbeing in local populations 132 .Action 10: End the flow of harmful subsidies to fisheries Harmful subsidies are anathema to sustainable, low impact fishing. They are defined as capacity-enhancing subsidies, which increase fishing power by artificially inflating private fishing company profits 133 . They include, for example, breaks on fuel, discounted fishing gears, support for vessel construction costs 134 or payments for access to foreign waters 135 . Harmful subsidies have long been recognised to contribute to overfishing and management failure 134 and, more recently, greenhouse gas emissions 136 . Globally, public entities provided capacity-enhancing subsidies of an estimated $ 22.2 billion in 2018 134 . Most of this (>80%) went to large-scale industrialised fishing activities thus conferring an inequitable competitive advantage over small-scale fisheries 137 . Using taxpayers' money to fund capacity-enhancing subsidies also increases risk of labour abuses 138 , fosters ecosystem degradation and represents extremely poor social investment and value for money. The provision of harmful subsidies also runs counter to legal recognition of everyone's right to a \"safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment\" 139 .After decades of negotiation, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreed in 2022 to implement a ban on capacity-enhancing subsidies, albeit only for fisheries engaged in illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing, those targeting overfished stocks, and fisheries in areas of the high seas outside the competence of a regional fisheries management organisation/authority 140 . The ban will only come into force when at least two-thirds of WTO members formally accept it, and if they do so within 4 years (as of July 2024, 82 of 164 WTO members had accepted). However, many subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing were excluded from the final agreement due to lack of consensus 141 , such as subsidies for equipment/machinery, fuel, ice, access to foreign waters, bait, personnel, social charges or insurance.Action 11: Apply zero-tolerance to companies that engage in illegal fishing Illegal fishing is not only wrong in law, it undermines both fisheries management and human rights and retailers should adopt a zero-tolerance approach to it in procurement practices. It leads to uncertain estimates of target species removals and population sizes making it harder to allocate access or prevent overexploitation. IUU fishing has been linked to transnational organised crime, modern slavery and labour abuses, undermining of food security and loss of government revenue 113,131,138,[142][143][144] . Globally, illegal fishing is estimated to land between 8 and 14 million metric tons with gross revenues of $ 9-17 billion 142 . Illegal fisheries are fostered by weak deterrence, with typically low fines that are seen by some as worthwhile business costs, especially where catching power is falling and costs rising due to poor management. Poor governance and lenient treatment of fisheries violations encourages repeat offending, e.g. [145][146][147] , with those found guilty often still receiving government subsidies, or certifications of sustainability. Fishing vessels that are more likely to engage in illegal fishing and labour abuses more often use ports in countries that have not ratified the Port State Measures Agreement due to their less rigorous procedures 131 . Therefore, companies associated with IUU fishing and vessels that land fish in ports not regulated by the Port State Measures Agreement, should be avoided.The biggest challenge in achieving lasting fisheries sustainability lies in the implementation of the actions we outline. Fisheries are as multifaceted and complex as human societies and what works in one context may not in another. Further work should look to integrate our actions into specific social-ecological contexts to develop locally appropriate sustainability plans with all relevant stakeholders. That said, nearly all the actions we describe have been demonstrated to work somewhere. For example, Australia's supertrawler ban of 2014 148 , its fishing of northern prawns at MEY rather than MSY 149 , and the UK's closure of sand eel fishing in 2023 to protect seabirds 150 . In most cases, a combination of complementary strategies will be required to achieve the package of actions required for full sustainability 151 .Success is most likely, where two elements come together: good governance and realigned incentives 152,153 . On the incentives side, the most systemic shift towards better fisheries practice will come from the withdrawal of harmful subsidies, especially tax breaks on fuel. Many of the most destructive fisheries will simply become uneconomic when this prop is withdrawn. We are not yet there, but progress continues at the WTO, and within countries 154 . Subsidies can be repurposed to incentivise good practice too, such as compensating fishers for adopting less impactful gears 155 or for supporting protected areas 99 . Wholesalers and retailers can proactively incentivise change, offering market access or better prices for fish caught from fisheries that meet more stringent sustainability standards. The framework we outline in this paper offers them a blueprint by which to judge performance.As the twin climate and biodiversity crises demand more urgent action, realigning of incentives will happen to control harm by fisheries. Fisheries decision making has typically been inward looking, mindless of negative consequences for environment, society or human wellbeing. Subsidies to fleets of the Global North under distant water access agreements, for example, conflict with efforts to reduce malnutrition or poverty in the Global South 114 . Environmental quality, conservation and climate mitigation targets are undermined by destructive fishing. Better fisheries governance is therefore imperative to broader societal goals, as expressed in the SDGs. Meeting those targets requires a shift to more integrated decision making and restructuring of incentives to resolve policy conflicts and achieve multi-dimensional objectives.Governance reform often only happens in response to shocks, like stock collapses, or external pressure. Environmental NGOs have become a potent force driving fisheries reform. After coordinated campaigns by eNGOs, the EU banned electric pulse trawling and bottom trawling below 800 m deep, and measures were taken to recover Atlantic bluefin tuna. These campaigns draw upon diminishing public tolerance for destructive behaviour by private industry 156 , which allied with increasing consolidation of fishing companies into global giants, makes such pressures easier to leverage with potential for broader benefits when successful 157 . Good governance may be harder in places lacking strong institutions. However, successes have been achieved through co-management between https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-024-00078-2 government and local communities 158 . For example, government support for customary laws and local leadership in Indonesia has brought destructive fishing under control in Raja Ampat and fostered support for lower impact methods and marine protected areas 159 .How future fisheries are managed is important for sustainable development and society, but it is also important because marine life is a public good that should be valued and used for the benefit of society and nature, not exploited solely for private profit 160 . Given the urgency of addressing societal challenges, we must go further and faster to prepare for future risks and mitigate the already apparent effects of rapid global change and human population growth. We need to urgently scale up efforts to transform fisheries to protect marine life and support society. It is the shared responsibility of policy makers, fisheries managers, fishers and retailers to minimise the environmental impact of fishing and amplify its social benefits, of which profit is only one element. This means making better choices regarding the why, what, how, and where of capture fisheries. Importantly, examples of successful conservation of marine spaces and species do exist, often where human capacity and resources would appear limited 132,[161][162][163] . In the context of fisheries, work aimed at improving our understanding of key drivers of effective governance frameworks and remediation activities should continue in earnest given the multitude of diverse challenges that persist in both large and small-scale operations around the world.We propose that all fisheries adopt and report on the two connected principles and associated actions elucidated above, to better serve humankind and nature and support progress towards multiple SDGs. Adopting our priority actions will integrate nature conservation into management, incorporate local ecological knowledge in decision making, improve sizebased and species-based gear selectivity, end the use of destructive gears, prioritise access and support to lower impact gears and fisheries with more just distribution of benefits, remove capacity-enhancing subsidies and reduce fishing effort and overcapacity.Consumers increasingly demand that fisheries are conscious of biodiversity, people and climate. Using their reach to accelerate change, fisheries need to adopt greener, more equitable practices. For businesses this means measuring not only carbon but their overall ecological footprint, improving the fuel efficiency of vessels, auditing supply chains, reducing waste, engaging in circular economy, converting to non-destructive fishing methods, applying high standards wherever they fish, avoiding use of flags of convenience or taking advantage of weaker local rules.Strategies to build resilience as well as policy and management considerations, potential trade-offs, and social and economic contexts differ among fisheries, communities and the countries within which they operate. Industrialised fisheries are often poorly performing businesses that may have appalling environmental and social records. By adopting the reforms needed to reduce harm, widen access to and redistribute benefits, the environmental gains, long-term profits and overall societal benefits will, we argue, far outweigh losses. In fact, if wisely managed as argued for in this contribution, humanity can expect to receive benefits forever, achieving what has been described as 'infinity fish' 160 . Given a background of intensifying climate change, sustainable fisheries management must also be climate-adaptative and contribute positively to carbon mitigation.For artisanal and subsistence fisheries, which have a more direct link to local communities through local and domestic fish consumption, the challenge will be to design interventions that support economic development but that positively address social and environmental impacts. However, the gains to fish stocks and habitats achieved by reducing the impacts of industrial fishing, will provide opportunities to increase social benefits, reduce environmental costs and increase resilience of these fisheries.The above principles and actions redefine the notion of sustainable fisheries to balance environmental, social, economic and institutional dimensions to rebuild marine life, restore and regenerate ecosystems, support climate change mitigation and adaptation, promote system resilience to shocks and opportunities, and improve human wellbeing. They provide an enhanced basis to re-evaluate sustainability of existing fisheries and to develop policies, procurement guidelines, regulations and incentives to guide system transformation, to the benefit of humankind and the ocean."}

main/part_2/0022713959.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f41a014773adfbe0d41a0d9ae3b919ec","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/daa93fb9-5d0f-40e5-ae23-79e062c0a43a/retrieve","id":"316857159"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0bb2a141-8611-4ab6-bf83-d320abb01426","content":"Improved forages have been developed and promoted by research and development organizations globally over the past couple of decades to diversify feed baskets and increase the quantity and quality of available feed. However, the use of these improved forages is associated with different yield potentials, land requirements, effects on livestock productivity, and related impacts on income and food security, which are also influenced by agroecology, season, and management. Farmers' preferences depend on their specific production objectives and challenges, and the weighing of these multi-dimensional benefits and trade-offs. The objective of the research was to explore selected impacts and trade-offs as well as the role alternative forage grasses can play in the mixed crop-livestock systems of Kenya and Ethiopia.The Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) was used to collect data on 401 smallholder farming households from two study sites in Ethiopia and Kenya. RHoMIS is a standardized farm household survey that collects information on household characteristics and farming systems such as household demographics, crop and livestock value production, farm income, gender control, and food security (van Wijk et al., 2020). To assess the trade-offs associated with the adoption of improved forages, a simplified conceptual framework of the mixed crop-livestock systems of the study areas was developed to estimate the net changes to forage land area requirements, food availability, and farm income (output variables). Assumptions made in the trade-off modelling were based on two field experiments assessing the yields of different forage grasses and the effects of improved forages on cattle milk production, as well as scientific literature from the region. households that had sold live cattle in the past year; 2) milk producers -farming households that had produced cattle milk; 3) mixed producersfarming households that both sold cattle and produced milk in the past year; and 4) non-cattle producers-farming households that neither sold cattle nor produced milk.Ethiopia (HHs) Kenya (HHs)Milk producer 58 53Non-cattle producer 105 82Farm type Ethiopia Farm income ($ HH -1 year -1 ) KenyaFarm income ($ HH -1 year -1 ) Annual farm income was low across categories, although it was noteworthy that mixed producers and cattle sellers were the farm types that generated the highest annual farm income. Cattle herds were small with even the mixed and milk producer farm types owning only between 3.6-5.0 heads on average. Cultivated forage area was larger in Kenya than Ethiopia, but in both sites, it was below the area required to feed a cow with 50% of cut forage per year indicating that farmers would need to significantly increase their land area dedicated to forage crop production should they wish to adopt improved forages. Food availability was highly variable with around only 50% of households having access to sufficient amounts of calories per day. Most farming households in both Ethiopia and Kenya would have to convert important amounts of cultivated land to improved forage grass should they choose to feed their cattle around 50% of these improved forages. Notably, mixed producer farm types would have to convert the greatest amount of cultivated land to forage crops. Meanwhile, given that milk producers already cultivate significant amounts of forage crops, these farms would have to convert the least amount of land with some farms already cultivating enough forage crops to experience net savings in forage land requirements due to the higher yields expected with the cultivation of Maasai grass. Food availability changes as a result of adopting improved forages were found to be both positive and negative depending on farm type. Milk producers in general were found to potentially experience increases in food availability as a result of adopting improved forages. These increases in food availability for milk producers are likely a result of the modelled increases in milk consumption by household members, and the fact that these farms already cultivate significant amounts of cut-and-carry forages and therefore would have to convert less crop land to improved forage crops, or could even benefit from net forage land savings due to Maasai grass having higher yields than Napier grass. It is noteworthy that most cattle sellers and mixed producers would experience decreases in food availability as a result of adopting improved forages. The results of the trade-off modelling underlined the potential for improved forages to contribute to increased levels of farm income. In both Ethiopia and Kenya, the majority of farms with some form of cattle livestock production could be seen to experience at least small increases in farm income. For milk and mixed producers, these increases in farm income could often be quite significant. It is important to note however, that a small proportion of farms were seen to experience net decreases in farm income.The farm income and food availability trade-off plots visualise the potential \"gains\" and \"losses\" for farms adopting improved forages. Importantly, around 40% of farms, mostly milk-producers, seem to experience a \"win-win\" where they improve food availability while also increasing farm income.Cattle-sellers on the other hand were more likely to display important trade-offs with the adoption of improved forages.The ex-ante trade-off modelling conducted in this study in Ethiopia and Kenya provide further evidence that the use of improved forage crops present an important pathway towards greater farm income for a significant number of farming households in East Africa. Notwithstanding, these promising findings, the results also demonstrate that the use of improved forages does not lead to win-win results under all scenarios for all farm types. It is hoped that these insights can contribute to the refinement of targeting of public policies, programmes, and out-reach campaigns related to the use of improved forages.  "}

main/part_2/0036458177.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"042f8d823460609c523cfb60e2e0b5f3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4bad2732-ce5a-4c2f-ab22-a34d37886400/retrieve","id":"955717266"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8b0e5374-3932-4607-9ccc-130ab9ac0a08","content":"This research examined the dissemination mechanisms of climate smart rice varieties, its impact on rice yield, farmers' income, and food consumption score, as well as the farmers' perception of their advantages in Mali. In total, 35,280 farmers adopted the climate smart rice varieties promoted by the AICCRA project on a total area of 19,404 ha. The primary dissemination methods included on-farm demonstrations, farmers field days and capacity building of seed producing companies. The adoption of climate smart rice varieties increased farmers' yield by 1.3 -1.5 t/ha and income by 365 -511 USD/ha. The food consumption of farmers adopting climate smart rice varieties was significantly increased. In total, the adoption of climate smart rice varieties increased the production of rice by 28,446 ton and farmers' income by 7.6 million USD. When farmers were queried about the advantages of climate smart rice varieties, they highlighted an increase in their climate resilience due to the ability of the rice varieties to withstand the challenges posed by climate change, such as extreme temperatures, erratic precipitation, and increased frequency of droughts and floods. They also mentioned higher resource use efficiency due to the more efficient use of water and nutrients. Farmers further reported that the climate smart rice varieties had a shorter growth duration, and mentioned their community resilience to climate-induced shocks has increased. Therefore, farmers mentioned that climate-smart rice varieties play a critical role in ensuring food security by offering a reliable and resilient source of sustenance in the face of climatic uncertainties and challenges in rice production.Mitigating the potential adverse effects of changing climate is a major challenge for sustaining rice production and achieving food security. Developing climate-smart rice varieties that are more tolerant to the impacts of a volatile climate emerges as a crucial strategy. In the context of the World Bank-funded AICCRA project in Mali, climate-smart rice varieties were disseminated to farmers to address these challenges. However, there is limited knowledge about the dissemination mechanisms and the impacts of these varieties on farmers' livelihoods. This study aims to analyze the dissemination mechanisms and assess the impacts of climate-smart rice varieties on farmers' yields, income, and food consumption scores in Mali.The study was conducted in the Sikasso region of Mali, situated in the transitional zone between Sudano-Sahelian and Sudanian climate regions, characterized as tropical savannah according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. The landscape in Sikasso is predominantly marked by a mosaic of savannah and agricultural parkland within a traditional agroforestry system. Common tree species include Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa), Néré (Parkia biglobosa), and Baobab (Adansonia digitata), with lesser occurrences of other woody species from the genera Combretum, Detarium, and others. Primary crops cultivated in the region include cotton (as a cash crop), maize, sorghum, peanuts, and millet. Sikasso is renowned for its expansive inland valleys, temporarily flooded during the rainy season for rice cultivation and utilized for potato planting during the dry season. The average annual rainfall in Sikasso ranges between 800 and 1000 mm. The predominant ethnic groups in the region are Senoufo (constituting around 80% of the population), along with Fulani and Bambara communities.The experiments were executed at six locations: Siramana, Finkolo-Ganadougou, Loutana, Lobougoula, Mpedougou and Mpegnesso. The evaluation included three varieties: ARICA 3, KAFACI 1 and the local variety (DKAM7). After land preparation, rice seedlings were transplanted at 21 days, spaced 20 cm apart with two plants per hill. The experimental layout followed a randomized complete block design with three replicates, and each specific plot measured 5 m x 5 m. At maturity, two elementary plots of 1 m 2 each were harvested from the center of every plot by cutting tillers and the main stem directly from the soil surface. Measurements were taken for straw biomass and grain yields. The dry weight of straw was determined after 72 hours in an oven at 70 °C. Grain yield was calculated by weighing the winnowed paddy, cleaned of impurities and empty grains. A portion of the paddy was used for moisture content determination with a grain moisture meter, and rice yield was reported at 14% moisture content. Farmers income was calculated as the difference between gross revenue (yield multiplied by price) and the total production cost. Food consumption score was calculated using a mathematical method inspired by the World Food Programme (WFP), involving the frequency of consumption of food groups in the last seven days by households among eight food groups.In total, 35,280 farmers adopted the climate smart rice varieties promoted by the AICCRA project on a total area of 19,404 ha. KAFACI1 was adopted by 6,000 farmers, ARICA3 by 20,390 farmers and Sutura by 8,890 farmers. 40% of the adopters were women. KAFACI 1 is a drought and flooding tolerant rice variety. Sutura is heat tolerant rice variety, and ARICA 3 is pest and disease tolerant rice variety. The adoption of the climate smart rice varieties was enabled by field demonstrations, farmers' field days and capacity building to seed producers. On-farm demonstrations were conducted at 24 sites to evaluate the performance of the climate smart rice varieties compared to the local varieties used by farmers. At the physiological maturity of rice, field days were organized to expose neighboring farmers to the performance of the climate smart rice varieties. Witnessing the outstanding performance of the climate smart rice varieties, participating farmers in the field days requested seeds of the varieties, while seed producing companies requested support from the AICCRA project in the production of the seeds of the climate smart rice varieties using sustainable cultivation practices. Training was provided to the seed producing companies followed by technical backstopping, which enabled the production of seeds of the three climate smart rice varieties in sufficient quantity. Subsequently, farmers bought the seeds of the preferred climate smart rice varieties from the seed producing companies.Photo 1. Farmers' fields days in Selingue (left) and seed purchase of women (right)Rice yield exhibited significant variations based on site and varieties, as detailed in Table 2. The highest rice yield, reaching 3.9 t/ha was observed at Siramana, contrasting with the lowest yield of 1.0 t/ha at Mpegnesso, as illustrated in Table 3. Among the varieties, KAFACI1 and ARICA3 demonstrated superior yields compared to DKAM7, as indicated in Table 3.Similarly, farmers' income was significantly influenced by site and varieties, as detailed in Table 2. The highest recorded farmers' income, amounting to 828 USD/ha, was noted at Siramana, while the lowest income of 107 USD/ha was recorded at Mpegnesso (Table 3). Among the varieties, KAFACI1 and ARICA3 exhibited higher farmers' income compared to DKAM7 (Table 3).The food consumption score was significantly influenced by site and varieties, as detailed in Table 2. The highest food consumption score, reaching 65, was recorded at Siramana, while the lowest score of 58 was noted at Mpegnesso (Table 3). Among the varieties, KAFACI1 and ARICA3 demonstrated higher food consumption scores compared to DKAM7 (Table 3). In total, the adoption of climate smart rice varieties increased the production of rice by 28,446 ton and farmers' income by 7.6 million USD. When farmers were queried about the advantages of climate smart rice varieties, they highlighted an increase in their climate resilience due to the ability of the rice varieties to withstand the challenges posed by climate change, such as extreme temperatures, erratic precipitation, and increased frequency of droughts and floods. They also mentioned higher resource use efficiency due to the more efficient use of water and nutrients. Farmers further reported that the climate smart rice varieties had a shorter growth duration, and mentioned their community resilience to climate-induced shocks has increased. Therefore, farmers mentioned that climate-smart rice varieties play a critical role in ensuring food security by offering a reliable and resilient source of sustenance in the face of climatic uncertainties and challenges in rice production.In total, 35,280 farmers adopted the climate smart rice varieties promoted by the AICCRA project on a total area of 19,404 ha. The primary dissemination methods included on-farm demonstrations, farmers field days and capacity building of seed producing companies. The adoption of climate smart rice varieties increased farmers' yield by 1.3 -1.5 t/ha and income by 365 -511 USD/ha. The food consumption of farmers adopting climate smart rice varieties was significantly increased. In total, the adoption of climate smart rice varieties increased the production of rice by 28,446 ton and farmers' income by 7.6 million USD. When farmers were queried about the advantages of climate smart rice varieties, they highlighted an increase in their climate resilience due to the ability of the rice varieties to withstand the challenges posed by climate change, such as extreme temperatures, erratic precipitation, and increased frequency of droughts and floods. They also mentioned higher resource use efficiency due to the more efficient use of water and nutrients. Farmers further reported that the climate smart rice varieties had a shorter growth duration, and mentioned their community resilience to climate-induced shocks has increased. Therefore, farmers mentioned that climate-smart rice varieties play a critical role in ensuring food security by offering a reliable and resilient source of sustenance in the face of climatic uncertainties and challenges in rice production."}

main/part_2/0047578297.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b749a8f7f6ef28548f40a864c9c4aeab","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/587e184c-ecb9-4701-b421-3a75fc622bda/retrieve","id":"-2129995096"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c70b9551-d635-41ab-85e4-8ba68d76fa43","content":"This double Special Issue of the 'Knowledge Management for Development Journal' focuses on knowledge sharing and knowledge management in Latin America and the Caribbean. The double issue comprises Part I, the December 2007 issue, plus Part II published in April 2008. Together, these two parts of the double issue provide a showcase for recent approaches, case studies, practices, tools, concepts and methodologies applied in development.Knowledge management has relevance worldwide to productive, organizational and social processes in development. Much discussion and action in this field has arisen in different parts of the world, often originating in Northern-based organizations and developed countries. However, there has been little systematic discussion of how these approaches are being applied in development practices in Latin America and the Caribbean. Many different approaches have been tested, introduced, scaled-up and out, but have not necessarily been well documented.There are specific knowledge management practices in existence in Latin America and the Caribbean which have never been classified directly as such. For example, indigenous knowledge practices, the action research approach, and Paulo Freire's approach to popular education all have relevance to knowledge management, within and outside the region. Hence, this issue of the Journal contributes to sharing and disseminating of the knowledge sharing and knowledge management concepts, tools, practices and approaches based on fieldwork in the region.Given the fact that much of Latin America and the Caribbean is Spanish and Portuguese speaking, we were initially concerned there would not be enough contributions in English for what is essentially an English language journal. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the numerous submissions. This double issue has a total of 10 articles and 4 case studies. Most of these submissions are in English although some contributions are in Spanish with an English abstract.Part II of the Special Issue comprises 7 articles, two of which have been written in Spanish and are published with English abstracts.The first article, 'Knowledge management and communication to address information access and power asymmetries for resource-poor producers in value chains,' by Reinhild Bode, Paola The fifth article, 'Arando en el desierto: poner el conocimiento del transporte rural en la agenda de desarrollo Latinoamericano (Cultivating the desert: putting knowledge of rural transport on the agenda of Latin American development)' by Ana Bravo describes the creation and consolidation process followed by the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development in Latin America (IFRTD).The sixth article 'Forming a community of practice to strengthen the capacities of learning and knowledge sharing centres in Latin America and the Caribbean: a Dgroup case study' has been written by Andrea Carvajal, Odilia Mayorga, and Boru Douthwaite. A facilitation team was working to create and facilitate a community of practice among 14 learning and knowledge sharing centres in Latin America and the Caribbean. Factors such as connectivity, experience in using virtual tools, personal interests, influence of gender on participation, and decision making play key roles in determining the success of a community of practice.Finally, in 'Developing a regional knowledge centre on HIV/AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean: a knowledge audit,' Javier Hourcade Bellocq, Taline Haytayan and Bertha Camacho Tuckermann describe the knowledge audit undertaken by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Latin America and the Caribbean. The regional programme has focused on supporting horizontal and South-South collaborations based on the premise that there exists a high level of technical ability in the region. In addition to the expertise of many people in civil society, there also exists a considerable accumulation of knowledge of HIV expressed in manuals, tools, virtual databases and in the experiences of the organizations and networks working on the theme."}

main/part_2/0080011755.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3fb797208d77a9e7aad6f32f43aceca9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bab6b0eb-58a5-4b48-97d3-20d651f97cef/retrieve","id":"-1869849401"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0bfa2005-5732-4d33-863c-5a67b98e5e7e","content":"Asia's fertile river deltas-home to more than 400 million people-have traditionally provided a vital resource to feed the growing population through the cultivation of high-input rice production systems. However, during the past decade, this important environment has experienced severe degradation due to rising sea levels, falling inland water tables, and increasing temperatures. The resulting soil salinization has reduced rice yields, threatening the food security of millions. Bangladesh is one of the worst affected areas, with more than 40% of total arable land already affected with reductions in rice yields of up to 9% predicted. Furthermore, a high proportion of the population suffer from malnutrition which is likely to be exacerbated by falling productivity.Root and tuber crops could make an important contribution to closing the food gap. These crops also provide important vitamins and minerals missing from a rice-based diet. Orange-fleshed sweetpotato is particularly valuable since it provides a rich source of vitamin A-necessary to support healthy growth in children. However, potato and sweetpotato are grown currently on less than 5% of arable land and the common varieties have low tolerance for salt and heat. This project builds on earlier work by the International Potato Center (CIP) to breed improved potato and sweetpotato varieties-with better disease resistance, and tolerance to salt and heat-that are suitable for release to farmers in Bangladesh.• To increase agricultural productivity, improve food security and provide healthier diets for families living in the delta region of Bangladesh through increasing adoption of salttolerant and nutritious potato and sweetpotato.• To develop the capacity of the national agricultural research system.The project strengthened farmer access to, and use of, improved, salt-tolerant varieties of potato and sweetpotato in two districts of the southern delta. Our team also worked to improve the capacity of the national agricultural research system (NARS) for continued varietal development and adaptation to local needs and preferences.The project contained four primary activities: a) supporting the NARS to adopt accelerated breeding methods and evaluation tools; b) providing training to partners to promote more efficient multiplication and marketing of planting materials; c) conducting participatory selection of potato and sweetpotato varieties, and enhancing the agronomic practices best accepted by farmers; and d) promoting adoption of orange-fleshed sweetpotato through nutrition education.Aligned with the Bangladeshi government priorities to diversify agriculture to improve food security and nutrition and build climate-change resilience, the project contributed to gender equity through the facilitation of women's control over resources. It also helped build a stronger evidence base on gender-sensitive approaches to agricultural innovation in Southeast Asia.Bangladesh's fertile delta soils are suffering from increasing salinization, which threatens the lives and livelihoods of farmers and other inhabitants. This project helps increase farmers' access to improved, salt-tolerant varieties of potato and sweetpotato, diversifying their production, and boosting their food security, nutrition, and climate resilience.Better food security, nutrition and climate-resilience in Bangladesh This project supported the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) in breeding new varieties of vitamin A-rich salt-tolerant sweetpotato, and iron-and zinc-rich potato. Farmers gained better access to these improved varieties through development of a more efficient seed value chain, with a goal of 5% of households in the target area having improved access. Six communities were selected for participatory variety selection trials, representing different cropping patterns and management practices.Experience showed that adoption rates of new crops and varieties are greatest when agricultural extension is linked with nutrition education. The project, therefore, provided training for 50 community nutrition scholars. This should lead to more than 40,000 individuals adopting improved diets through efforts focused on households with young children.CIP collaborated with BARI and the University of Hohenheim (UoH) to establish a joint breeding platform at BARI, which will continue to develop NARS capacity for the next 3-5 years. PhD research from UoH associated with this project revealed that the methodologies to identify salt tolerance traits of sweetpotato will improve selection of suitable varieties in the early stage of accelerated breeding programs -thus greatly increasing speed and precision of climate-resilient variety development in future.Under this project, 33% farmers in the selected communities have improved access to the seed value chain and to three new salt tolerant potato varieties released. Fifty iron-and zinc-rich potato clones and 17 vitamin A-rich sweetpotato clones moved to advanced stages of variety evaluation. The best clones from these groups will be released in Bangladesh within 3-5 years.Newly "}

main/part_2/0080817683.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f0ceaeb0cc785eb1f1cd502a4051f98c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/365891dd-ed42-446a-8c1b-7f635f525295/retrieve","id":"-1600810116"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3d83f435-e83f-4f26-8447-7360fa05633b","content":"Realizing the benefits of cover crop legumes in smallholder crop-livestock systems of the hillsides of Central America: Trade-off analysis of using legumes for soil enhancing or as animal feed resource.The final average body weight of the 6 cows was slightly higher than at the beginning of the trial: 435 kg (± 40) vs. 429 kg (± 39). From the offered legume hay, 70% of the cowpea and only 28% of the Canavalia was consumed on average. There was 4583-5988 kg/ha DM maize stover available on the field with a CP content between 5.4-5.9%. The DM digestibility (in-vitro) ranged from 40-47%. The maize stover had high fiber contents from 81-87% NDF and 51-54% ADF. The cowpea hay had CP contents of 14% on average, the Canavalia hay 16%, while NDF and ADF of cowpea were 60% and 32% and of Canavalia 71% and 47%, respectively. The in-vitro digestibility of cowpea was 72%, of Canavalia 55%. The average milk yield (fat corrected) per cow/day was 6.1 kg in the control, 6.8 kg with cowpea hay supplement and 6.2 kg with Canavalia hay supplement. No statistically significant difference was found (Table 1). The milk fat ranged from 4.0-4.4% and non-fat solids from 7.8-8.1% without significant difference. The milk urea nitrogen, reflecting the protein:energy ratio was from 18.0-19.3 mg/dl still acceptable. The total rainfall during the trial period was 144 mm.The final average body weight of the 6 cows was slightly lower than at the beginning of the trial: 419 kg (± 52) vs. 424 kg (± 54). In the control (1) 3766 kg/ha DM maize stover was available, in 2) 2408 kg/ha DM maize and 667 kg/ha cowpea, in 3) 3026 kg/ha DM maize and 2308 kg/ha DM Canavalia were available. The CP content of the maize stover was similar in all treatments (4.3-4.4%). However, the in-vitro DM digestibility was lowest in the control (48 %), similar in the maize intercropped with cowpea (52%), and highest in the maize intercropped with Canavalia (71%). The CP content of the legumes was on average 14% of DM in cowpea and 16% of DM in Canavalia. Canavalia had a slightly higher in-vitro digestibility of 71% compared to cowpea with 69%. Fiber contents were 66% NDF in DM in Canavalia and 64% NDF in cowpea, respectively. The field consumption of the legumes was not measured as it was possible in experiment 1. However, nearly total consumption of available cowpea was observed in contrast to very little consumption of Canavalia. The milk yields (fat corrected) in kg per cow/day for the treatments were as follows: 6.5 kg control, 8.2 kg with cowpea, 7.5 kg with Canavalia (Table 1). The milk yields of the legume treatments were significantly higher than the control (P<0.01), whereas there was no significant difference between cowpea and Canavalia. The average milk fat content ranged from 4.1-4.6 % and the non-fat solids from 7.7-8.3 % without significant difference. Milk urea nitrogen was lower than in experiment 1 (16.7-18.5 %). The total rainfall during the trial period was 128 mm. Even though there was a tendency in the amount of milk yield descending from cowpea > Canavalia > control treatment in experiment A, no significant difference was found. In experiment 2 the milk yield was significantly higher in the legume treatments compared to the control. The treatments followed the same sequence as in experiment 1 even though in both cases, crude protein contents of Canavalia were higher than in cowpea. The consumption of the Canavalia hay in experiment 1 was very low which might be explained by the low in-vitro digestibility. Lower intake compared to cowpea was also observed with fresh Canavalia in experiment 2, even though the analysed digestibility was higher than in cowpea. In both experiments the low consumption of Canavalia did not result in significantly lower milk yields compared to the cowpea treatments. The integration of the multipurpose legume Canavalia brasiliensis in maize fields for dry season grazing supplementation increases the milk yield by 1 kg/cow*day and is therefore recommended.The objective of this output is to analyze under which conditions farmers integrate drought tolerant legume cover crops into their crop-livestock system. The trade-offs of the following two alternative scenarios are being quantified: (a) legumes as green manures to improve maize/ bean productivity through improved soil fertility (increased N and P availability) in the short term and soil structure and water retention in the medium to long term; and (b) legumes as forage for livestock feed during the dry season (in the short term) while maintaining or improving maize/ bean productivity through enhanced N and P availability (in the medium to long term). Results from both Activities 2.1 and 2.2 are included in the following report:Data came from a survey of 10 producers of the Pire river watershed, located in the Department of Estelí in northern Nicaragua. The survey, conducted in September 2007, aimed to collect information on land use, animal inventory, use of inputs, and use of family and contracted labor to estimate animal and crop production costs (i.e., maize and beans), productivity, and income from the sale of milk, meat, maize, and beans.The survey also gathered information on how producers perceive the use of the legume C. brasiliensis and what their expectations are to justify the adoption of Canavalia, based on the following:(a) the minimum amount of milk that should be produced in excess of the average dry-season production for producers to adopt Canavalia as animal supplement; or (b) the amount of fertilizer (i.e., urea) that producers considered that could be saved, while maintaining the same maize and bean production, to adopt Canavalia as green manure.Based on average survey results, in 2008 an ex ante economic evaluation of the economic benefits that would be produced if this legume was cultivated as green manure or used as animal supplement. Later in 2009, and after an experimentation phase of using Canavalia as forage and as green manure,, an ex-post analysis was conducted by adjusting input values according to field measurements.Both the ex-ante and ex-post analysis were conducted using a decision support tool called ECOSAUT (Model for Economic, Social and Environmental Evaluation of land Uses) in which outputs obtained with SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model will be inputs. This optimization model uses linear programming, to evaluate land uses under multiple criteriasocial, economic, and environmental. These decision-making criteria or variables are defined according to the production system (land use) evaluated and the evaluation objective. Thus, the agroecosystem was accordingly simulated to better understand the effects that the incorporation of Canavalia will have on producers' income and if the expectations that producers expressed during the 2007 field visit were fulfilled.To conduct the ex-ante evaluation, the following scenarios were analyzed over a 5-year period:• Scenario 1. Baseline This is the traditional land use scenario of the farms visited during the survey. For this study, the baseline is defined as a farm type showing the average values of production costs, income, and productivity obtained in the survey. The land use system is mixed-maize and beans are grown and both milk and meat are produced. The farm area is 12 ha, of which 10 ha are sown to Jaragua grass (Hypharrenia rufa) and 2 ha are planted to maize and beans. The Jaragua grass is not fertilized and its biomass production decreases during the dry season, from 1.6 to 0.6 t DM/ha. Milk production also decreases during these months. Maize is planted first, at the onset of the rains (June). Once the maize has formed ears, the plants are folded for drying and beans are grown in half of the area (1.0 ha), using these dry stalks as support. Beans are planted at the end of the first rainy season or the beginning of the second rainy season, around September-October, and are harvested at the beginning of the dry season (December-January).This scenario also corresponds to a combined crop/livestock production system, but Canavalia is also grown, intercropped with maize in the area where beans are not planted (1.0 ha). In this case, the legume is used for livestock nutrition during the dry season to increase on-farm milk production. This ex-ante evaluation assumed an annual production of Canavalia of 2 t DM/ha. The same distribution of land in pastures and grasses as found in the baseline is maintained.This scenario corresponds to the same scheme described in Scenario 2 above, with the difference that the legume is incorporated into the soil to improve fertility and, as a result, improve the productivity of subsequent plantings of maize and beans. This is why the legume is incorporated into the soil as green manure. It was assumed that the incorporation of Canavalia contributes 64 kg N/ha and replaces the traditional application of N in the form of urea (52 kg/ha) in maize and bean crops. It is only necessary to continue applying the complete fertilizer (12-30-12 NPK) at 82 kg/ha.In the ex-ante analysis two additional scenarios were assessed: i) Canavalia for animal feeding with sorghum and ii) Canavalia in rotation with maize to improve soils throughout the farm. The first scenario was developed initially because many producers (especially those with more livestock) plant sorghum at the end of the rainy season in order to have sufficient biomass to feed livestock during the dry season, in addition to maize stubble. The main objective is to produce biomass as source of forage for livestock. As a result, producers use a high planting density to maximize forage production and not grain production. The second scenario explored the maximum potential of the farm in terms of generating income by gradually substituting the area (2 ha/yr) currently under Jaragua grass with a rotation of maize and Canavalia over a 5-year period. The purpose of this scenario is to explore the contribution of Canavalia as a mechanism to improve soil fertility and make the system more sustainable by subsequently introducing improved pastures, such as Brachiaria brizantha cv. Toledo, as well as an energy source, for example sugarcane.However, any of these two scenarios were tested again in the ex-post analysis as they were not subject of field experimentation. The initial three scenarios mentioned above were ex-post analyzed and the results are then contrasted here with the ex-ante results.For the baseline, information about beans and maize productivity used for the ex-ante analysis was adjusted for the ex-post analysis based on measurements obtained in the field trials during 2007-2008.For the scenario 2, field experimentations to evaluate the impact of supplying Canavalia for animal nutrition and milk productivity was conducted in the \"Santander de Quilichao\" CIAT research station in Colombia. This station provided to some extent similar environmental conditions to the Nicaragua research sites. The results from this study were used to adjust milk productivity values used in the ex-ante analysis.For the scenario 3, data was statistically analyzed to see if there were differences in maize productivity across treatments: i) the traditional maize-bean rotation and ii) the maize-Canavalia rotation. The effect of different treatments was analyzed for the maize grain yield harvested in 2007 and 2008 by applying an ANOVA analysis using STATISTICA (Version 7;2004). Unfortunately data of soils does not cover a period of time long enough to determine possible changes due to the incorporation of Canavalia to the soil. So the ex-post analysis for this scenario is focused on the probable improvements on maize productivity after including the legume in the rotation as green manure and not in the biophysical and environmental effects.The environmental ex-ante evaluation was focused on the effects that the incorporation of Canavalia into the crop rotation might have on environmental externalities such us sediment and water yields.This analysis was conducted applying SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) for an area with biophysical conditions similar to those found in the visited farms. These conditions refer to soil, climatic and topographic characteristics and that were collected for the study area.The ex-ante analysis was conducted in two phases according to the availability of basic information. The first phase was conducted in 2008 using mainly secondary data and the second phase aimed to improve the assessment by increasing the input of primary local data. The second phase conducted in 2009 is not considered here as an ex-post analysis as the soil sampling conducting in the field occurred during the experimentation of the Canavalia rotations and then did not capture the effects of this management alterantive on soil characteristics. Therefore, an ex-post analysis will require soil sampling in plots with continued application of these practices and after a period of time that is long enough to capture these types of effects on soils.For the first phase the value of soil characteristics considered were obtained from the analysis of local soil samples conducted by the soil research component of this project (Douxchamps, 2008, personal communication). It includes information of texture and total C for the superficial soil horizon. In addition some information about soil type units was extracted from the Land Use Plan of Estelí (Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial in Spanish) and use to complement the information on texture and organic matter for subsurface soil horizons.Using the soil texture information, the hydraulic conductivity, available water content and bulk density values were derived using the Soil Characteristic Tool that is applicable to mineral soils.In Table 1, the values used in the first phase of the ex-ante analysis are shown. In the second phase, soil characteristics were obtained through direct measurements in the study area conducted by this project. Data for saturated hydraulic conductivity, percentages of sand, clay and silt, and carbon content were provided for 9 different sites and horizons. In addition, available water content was calculated based on the percentage of water content obtained in the lab at different pressures. Bulk density values were obtained using the Soil Characteristic Tool and using the granulometric information collected in the field.Two sites were selected for this ex-ante analysis as they were representative of the variation found across the 9 sites. Thus one of them is a sandy loamy soil quite similar to the other 4 sampled sites, and the other is a clayey soil similar to the other 5 sites. Thus, these represent two contrasting soils in terms of texture. In Table 2, it is shown the values of soil characteristics used for the ex-ante analysis (second phase) and from the two selected sites. The topographic data was directly obtained from the Digital Elevation Model of the River Pire watershed at a resolution of 90 m. To do this an area of 154 ha was selected near the farms where experiments on Canavalia were held, and data for each geographical location were captured using GPS during the field visit in 2007.The climatic, soil and topographic data were integrated in SWAT to derive the values of sediment and water yields, surface runoff, lateral flow, percolation, evapotranspiration, and soil water for the following land use scenarios: 1) traditional maize-beans-pasture system, 2) maize rotated with Canavalia brasiliensis which residues are left on the soil surface as green manure, 3) maize rotated with Canavalia brasiliensis that is grazed after 90 days of growth.In Figure 1, the schedule of planting specified in SWAT for each scenario is shown. It is worth to note that these scenarios were assessed for the portion of land that is only planted with maize and not followed by other crop such as beans (see description of scenarios 1-3, section 4).  Tables A-1 to A-4 (Appendix A) present the average production costs of maize, beans, milk, and meat as well as average values of productivity, farm area distribution in different land uses, use of family and contracted labor, and herd composition. These values came from the field survey conducted with farmers in 2007. Table A-5 presents the producers' expectations regarding the reduced requirement of fertilizers or the increase in milk production expected with the inclusion of Canavalia as green manure (in the former case) or as animal supplement (in the latter). Table A-6 presents the production costs and expected productivity of this legume.Table 3 shows the values for each scenario used for the ex ante evaluation of potential economic benefits derived from the incorporation of C. brasiliensis into the land use system of producers of the Pire river watershed.• Benefits of Canavalia under the current land distribution scheme (Scenario 1 versus Scenarios 2 and 3) Based on the results obtained, the incorporation of Canavalia as green manure (Scenario 3) slightly decreased the net income as compared with the baseline (5%). The opposite occurred when this legume was used as animal feed (Scenario 2) because the net income of producers was increased by 5% (Table 3).The urea applied in the baseline scenario was replaced in Scenario 3 with the incorporation of the legume into the soil. The reduction in net income obtained by using Canavalia as green manure can be attributed to the fact that, although the incorporation of the legume reduces the cost incurred for purchasing fertilizers, the requirement of contracted labor to plant the legume increases and the purchase of legume seed implies an additional cost. As a result, the benefit represented in reduced fertilizer costs does not compensate for the additional cost of planting the legume.On the other hand, the increased income due to the incorporation of Canavalia for animal nutrition can be attributed to the increase in milk production, specifically during the dry season. Milk production during the dry season increased from 2 to 3 lt/day, representing a 26% increase in the annual production compared to the baseline. In addition, the increase in income is not only due to a greater volume of milk produced during the dry season, but also the higher price of milk during this time of scarcity (US$ 0.27/lt during rainy season compared to 0.32/lt during the dry season).Therefore the benefits of using Canavalia as animal feed are related to the increases in milk production and not to increases in stocking rate or meat production, which instead are maintained.In Table 4, it is shown the variables for which values were adjusted for the ex-post analysis based on the results obtained in the field trials during 2007-2008. It is noticeable that assumptions made in the ex-ante analysis about milk production when Canavalia is used for animal production, maize productivity, and Canavalia productivity were very similar to the values obtained during field experiments. However, there are some changes with respect to beans productivity for which the reported productivity by farmers in 2007 is far from what was measured in the field during the same year. This seems to be related with an atypical low rainfall amount that year and the incidence of some pests and diseases.With this low productivity the ECOSAUT model showed that the optimal solution did not include the production of beans. However, as we were aware that the reported low value can be quite atypical, we also simulated a scenario where beans are cultivated as mentioned by the farmers in the survey. It is probable that even under atypical conditions farmers still cultivate some beans for food security purposes.With respect to maize production costs, the ex-post analysis was conducted using a higher value as any reduction on the application of urea was reported during field trials and it is uncertain at this moment at what proportion this can be reduced throughout the time as Canavalia is used as green manure for longer periods of time.With respect to maize grain productivity in the traditional and in the maize-Canavalia rotations, it was found that the type of rotation did not have any effect (Table 5). For this reason the scenario 3 was not taken into account in the economic benefits assessment as the use of the legume as green manure did not improve maize productivity and therefore we did not test the effects of reduced N fertilizer input as assumed in the ex-ante analysis.In scenario 2, where Canavalia was used as animal feed, the economic net return increased by 8% with respect to the baseline. This increment is mainly due to a 28% improvement of milk productivity. This improvement is marked during the dry season, which increased from 3 to 3.45 lt/day. The increment on number of cows per ha increases slightly, from 6.7 to 7.3, so the main reason of improving milk-related income is due to the increase in milk productivity (Table 6).   The results from SWAT modeling showed that the incorporation of Canavalia -regardless if it is used for green manure or forage increases both, the sediment and water yield. Also the lateral flow and percolation are improved. Thus, these two options have the same effects in terms of water and sediment yields as well as on the other water balance variables (runoff, lateral flow, soil water, percolation and evapotranspiration, Table 7). However there is a different effect on surface runoff of incorporating this legume depending on soil type. Surface runoff is increased in the clayey soil rather than been reduced as occurred in the sandy loamy soil (Tables 7 and 8).In addition, the incorporation of Canavalia improves the retention of water in the soils at the end of the simulated period (20 yr-period) (Table 7) and in a monthly basis, this improvement occurs specially during the dry months (Figures 2-4)The trend of these simulation results is very similar that obtained in the first phase ex-ante analysis. The only discrepancy is in the surface runoff which was predicted to decrease with the Canavalia scenario during the first phase ex-ante analysis. However the type of soil in that initial analysis was a clayey loam and loamy soil similar to the soil type 2 for which similar results were obtained in the second ex-ante analysis.It is worth noting that the first attempt to model the hydrological effect of the incorporation of the legume was done using secondary and very general data where many of the parameters were predicted and therefore with a high level of uncertainty. In the second attempt the availability of data for local soil profiles has permitted to distinguish the effect of the legume in different types of soils and with lower uncertainty as most of the soil data came from direct measurements.   It is especially meaningful that water yield increase occurs also during the dry months. In Figures 5 and 6, the difference on monthly water yields between traditional maize-based system and Canavalia system is shown for the two soil types. Contrasting this with soil moisture measurements done only for dry months (November-January) it was found that the improvement is significant for only soil type 1 (sandy clay loam) (p<0.05). Instead, in clayey soils the treatment has no significant effect on soil moisture content (Figure 7, Table 9). However these measurements were taken once and it is unknown whether it has an effect for the whole year and also for multiple years.  With respect to sediment yield it increased with the Canavalia-related rotations, and this particularly occurs during the wettest months when Canavalia is sown (Figure 8 and 9). It is worth noting that the effect of Canavalia varies throughout the years as the rainfall varies yearly. The precipitation datasets showed that there is a great variation on annual rainfall (Figure 10). The lowest rainfall was registered in 1992 with 493 mm/yr and the highest in 1998 with 1384 mm/yr. During the wettest year the average sediment yield for the traditional maize rotation was 17 and 68 t/ha/yr in the sandy loamy and clayey soils, respectively; and for the Canavalia-based scenarios it was 68 and 289 t/ha/yr. In the driest year it was for the traditional rotation system 0.35 and 8.9t/ha/yr for the sandy loamy and clayey soils, respectively and 1 and 5.7 t/ha/yr for the legume-based scenarios in the two mentioned soil types. 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 year Precipitation (mm) Is it feasible to achieve these proposed Canavalia-related rotations? One prerequisite is stability in the prices of maize, beans, and milk, which helps producers perceive greater economic security to incur in the initial investment that this type of change requires. The aversion of producers to assume the risk implicit in the increase of area planted to crops or the introduction of new crops and pastures was confirmed during the field visit, when producers said that price instability was the principal limitation to increasing the area planted to crops. This was corroborated by the fact that the area on farms dedicated to crops is very similar, regardless of the variations in total farm size. For example, either a 17-ha farm or an 8-ha farm will always have 2 ha planted to crops. In farms under 5 ha, the area planted to crops is only slightly less.Another factor that could limit the feasibility of incorporating the proposed changes in these scenarios is the local availability of labor. Contracted labor would necessarily increase from 90 to 384 man-days as compared with the baseline, or the family labor dedicated to agriculture activities would increase by more than 100%.Another factor that could currently be hindering the expansion of the agricultural area and the purchase of livestock are the high interest rates reported by producers. These rates range between 10% and 26% in real terms. As a result, the system never generates sufficient surplus to support higher investments in the future. The effective term is substantially reduced, which especially affects long-term investments in livestock.The income change in percentage terms of incorporating Canavalia for animal production in the traditional rotation are very similar to predicted changes in the ex-ante analysis, and mostly explained by the fact that input data used during the ex-ante analysis was very close to the values actually measured in the field during the trials. In absolute terms, the ex-ante analysis overestimated the net revenues of the simulated baseline and scenario 3 in 26%. This overestimation is explained by the difference on beans productivity reported by the farmers during field surveys in 2007 and the measured productivity by Douxchamps et al. (2009). Thus the economic methodology for estimating ex-ante impacts of introducing Canavalia as forage showed a good performance and this is a function of the accurateness of available secondary data, especially data related to expected crop and milk productivity increases. However, it is clear that ex-ante analysis approaches and tools can not anticipate atypical behavior of some variables as was the case of the bean productivity that decreased below the levels reported by the farmers.With respect to scenario 3 which consisted on using Canavalia as a green manure, it was evident that the ex-ante estimations did not match with the results from the field trials. However this is due to the assumptions behind the use of the legume as green manure rather than to the tool used. It was assumed -based on previous studies that the incorporation was going to reduce fertilization costs. However this effect was not showed by the one-year experiments. It could be necessary to extend the experimental time period to confirm whether or not Canavalia can reduce N fertilization by improving N soil content and further more if the accumulated effect of the legume on soil quality has repercussion on subsequent crop harvests.The results from SWAT modeling permit to quantify the environmental effects that the incorporation of Canavalia would have on environmental externalities that are important to society such as sediment and water yields 1 . It is clear that the main benefit of incorporating this legume to the current land use system is that the water yields could be increased particularly during drier months when water yield is most important as an externality. This effect is related with the increase on water percolation and lateral flow and the reduction of the evapotranspiration (Figure 2). However this is not the case for sediment yield. According to the simulation results, the sediment yield is increased when Canavalia is either planted as forage or as green manure even though the surface runoff is reduced in clayey soils. This occurs mainly during the wettest months when Canavalia is sown. In the baseline the soil is covered with weeds and pastures that invade the land once the maize starts drying out.The benefits of improving water yields should be valuated to determine if that increment at the watershed level could be significant if Canavalia is introduced in several farms.On the other hand, the lack of differences between using the Canavalia as a green manure or as forage could be due to differences in rainfall behavior. It was simulated that both, the cut of green manure and its posterior deposition on soil surface or the grazing of the legume, occurs after December when the crop biomass is high enough for these purposes. Since in December the rainfall is minimal; the impact of having a cover crop is insignificant because the soil is not exposed to the impact of rain drops.In consequence, from the farmer perspective, the environmental benefits of incorporating Canavalia to its current land use system could be the increment of soil water as Canavalia is grown (especially in sandy loamy soils). However these predicted and partially tested impacts need to be verified during the implementation of the Canavalia-based scenarios in the selected farms. Also, at least for the period of time that field trials were conducted, there was not any significant effect of Canavalia on subsequent maize harvests so that improvement on soil water can not be related to increases in maize productivity.It is worth noting that SWAT results were not calibrated as water flows were not measured, such as surface runoff, lateral flow, percolation and evapotranspiration. Thus, these results only could indicate the trend of the effects of incorporating Canavalia in the rotations but the absolute values can not be taken for granted as the model was not calibrated with measured data.In the same sense, the results of the modeling exercise demonstrated that the trend of results is consistent in the different ex-ante analysis attempts but the absolute numbers changed as input data are varied. Thus, the utilization of this model should not only involve calibration but also should try to improve the quality of input data as the model showed to be very sensible to this (first phase vs. second phase SWAT simulations) Apart from the farm-level effects, the aggregated effect of having several farms under the Canavalia-based scenarios in the watershed could be greater and significant in terms of water yield improvement. For this purpose it is still indispensable to obtain soil data for all existing soil types in the watershed and river flow measurements in order to run and calibrate SWAT at this scale. This step will be crucial to establish the trade-offs between increasing sediment yields vs. water yields. In case of confirming the potential increment on total water yields after the incorporation of Canavalia to the production systems, it will be necessary to compare the total benefits of introducing the legume to the system (economic farmer benefits derived from improvements in dairy or maize productivity + society benefits derived from water yield improvement) with the cost for the society derived from total sediment yield increase.To conclude, the improvement on measured data and a hydrological modeling at the watershed scale will permit to determine accurately the impacts on water and sediment yield in order to establish the trade off between these two environmental externalities derived from different land use scenarios.In the survey, producers expressed that they would be willing to adopt Canavalia as green manure if the use of fertilizers was reduced by 112 kg urea/year (i.e., 51 kg N/ha) and 112 kg NPK/year (i.e.,. Taking into account that legume productivity in this ex ante evaluation was considered to be 2 t DM/ha per vegetative cycle and that this legume presents 20% protein, producers' expectations would be satisfied because this represents 64 kg N/ha (without counting the N fixed through Rhizobium. However, this hypothesis could not be tested in the ex-post analysis as the N fertilization was not suspended in any treatment during field trials.Regarding the adoption potential of Canavalia as animal feed, producers said that they would be willing to incorporate this forage into their systems if the daily milk production increased by 1.95 kg/cow/day during the dry season, which is almost a 100% increase (currently the reported production during dry season was 2.1 kg/cow/day). If Scenario 1 (baseline) is compared with the other scenarios, the incorporation of Canavalia alone increases daily milk production, but does not succeed in meeting producers' expectations. Production barely increased by 15% in Scenario 2. However, on-farm milk production can be increased beyond the expectations of producers by increasing the carrying capacity of farms as a result of incorporating other technologies such as sugarcane and improved pastures. These alternatives were analyzed during a preliminary ex-ante analysis.According to ex-ante and ex-post results, the use of Canavalia brasiliensis for animal nutrition permits to increment milk productivity. According to the ex-post assessment this represents an increase on farmers' net income of 8%. However, the use of this legume as green manure did not represent any increase on farmers' net income as neither subsequent maize grain productivity increased nor a reduction in nitrogen fertilizer application was confirmed. This was opposite to anticipated effects of this scenario during the ex-ante evaluation. The absolute income simulated in the ex-ante analysis of using the legume as animal feed was different for that obtained in the ex-post results due mainly to an atypical low bean productivity measured during the experimental period and far from what is used to be harvested by farmers in regular years.Although, results showed that from the economic perspective it is more favorable to use Canavalia to feed livestock, the obtained milk increases seems to be unable to meet farmers' expectations. Probably, the adoption of this forage legume crop should be combined with a strategy to increase the carrying capacity of farms as a result of incorporating other energy sources such as sugarcane and improved pastures.On the other hand, the simulated environmental benefits of cultivating Canavalia as forage or green manure are related to increments on water yields and soil moisture during dry season. However, the magnitude and significance of this effect is affected by the type of soils, the effects being significantly higher for soil moisture and for water yield in sandy loamy soils than in clayey soils. Nevertheless, these results need to be calibrated with longer-term field measurements. Also it was demonstrated that modeling results are very sensitive to the level of uncertainty of input data (primary vs. secondary data) but still the trends of predictive results are maintained. "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"417a644200523f1ba5d91319a2ea325b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/94cc8da9-9bbf-4621-83f5-76545fc72939/retrieve","id":"1787883750"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4cd68874-2279-4e1f-8b1e-0a9d24fff2a9","content":"The CGIAR's Sustainable Animal Productivity for Livelihoods, Nutrition and Gender Inclusion (SAPLING) program, particularly its Innovation Package 1 (IP1), is a unique initiative. It focuses on gender-sensitive behaviour change communication (BCC) to enhance sheep and goat productivity through the adoption of integrated technologies. This approach, delivered by 'livestock champions', combines interventions in health, nutrition, reproduction, genetics, and breeding as part of a behavioral change campaign. Its goal is to reduce mortality, morbidity, weight, and reproductive losses, thereby improving the productivity of sheep and goats. The application of the BCC approach by small ruminant breeders aims to promote the intensification of sheep and goat production systems, including sheep fattening, combined with improved manure production and utilization to enhance crop yields. Cascading, gender-sensitive capacity building activities were launched to achieve this change.In Mali, after the first phase of capacity building in November 2023, a second one was organized in eight sessions, which included two for livestock technical services, two for community (human) health workers and the village sanitation committees, and two for small ruminant farmers and fatteners and their associations/cooperatives in the regions of Ségou and Sikasso. Two more were organized for the multistakeholder platform in Farakala and Gongasso in Sikasso.The training sessions were conducted in person in the chief towns of two districts, Sikasso and Baroueli. The multistakeholder platform trainees were trained in the commune of Farakala and Gongasso in the Sikasso District.The trainings took place from 28 April to 17 May 2024.The training was led by a team of highly experienced International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) staff, including a postdoctoral researcher (Olivier Zannou) and the capacity building officer (Ahmadou Sow). These experts, along with a team of scientists from ILRI, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), and the Alliance Bioversity & CIAT, developed the training manuals, ensuring the highest quality of training.The training was designed to build the capacity of livestock champions and other key players in the small ruminant value chain. It aimed to enhance their knowledge and skills in health, nutrition, genetics, and breeding, with the ultimate goal of increasing the productivity of their small ruminant herds.The training program took place over sixteen (16) days, including ten days for the Sikasso site. Days 1 to 6 (28 April to 4 May 2024) were spent in the District of Sikasso; days 7 to 10 (6-9 May 2024) were spent in the Commune de Farakala et Gongasso, while days 11 to 16 (11-16 May 2024) were spent in Baroueli District. See Appendix 1 for details of the entire program of events at each site.The meticulous process of selecting participants for the training was guided by the expertise of each location's veterinarian, animal production, industry personnel, and human health technical services personnel. The local multistakeholder platform and the livestock organizations in the small ruminant value chain also played a crucial role in identifying participants. This careful selection process ensured that the training was tailored to the specific needs of the participants, enhancing its effectiveness.The eight (8) training sessions brought together 132 participants, representing a diverse range of roles in the small ruminant value chain. This diversity included 91 (68.94%) from Sikasso, 28 (21.21%) from technical livestock services, 39 (29.55%) from the multistakeholder platform, 27 (20.45%) from the community (human) health workers and village sanitation committee, and 38 (28.79%) from the small ruminant farmers and fatteners group. This diverse representation ensured that all key players in the value chain were included, and their perspectives were considered in the training.Women were represented by 22/132 participants, which makes 16.67%. Of this percentage (16.67%), 6.82% were from the multistakeholder platform and community (human) health workers and the village sanitation committee, respectively. Small ruminant farmers and fatteners were 2.27%, and only 0.76% were from technical livestock services.In terms of age range, 78.79% of participants were 36 years and above, and 21.21% were 35 years and under. The 36 and above age group was dominated by men (69.70%), followed by women (9.09%). The youngest age group (35 and under) comprised 13.64% males and 7.58% females.Livestock champions will train the other players including feed manufacturers -forage and forage seed producers, retailers (e.g., AGRI Sahel), feed producers' associations, and community extension agents, who act as the health and immunization support agents in each of the SAPLING communes. The livestock champions will work with the multistakeholder platforms to build the capacity of livestock farmers upon request during the next capacity building phase. A data collection sheet will be used to capture as much data as possible to monitor capacity building activities.Section 1: Refreshing the knowledge of veterinary services, animal production and industries services, and veterinarians with health mandates.Existing types of parasitosis in small ruminants were identified. The classification was also made according to parasite location, notably internal, external, and blood parasites. Based on gastrointestinal, blood, and external parasite control requirements, the prophylaxis plan was presented to the livestock champions. The clinical signs of parasitized animals and the differential diagnosis of certain diseases with common symptoms were reviewed. Treatment based on the administration of boluses against gastrointestinal and hepatic parasitosis, administration of anti-trypanosomiasis products and those against external parasites and the use of products against external parasites in pour-on and/or baths were points shared with the participants.The types and groups of feeds for small ruminants were presented. Distribution was done in two ways and according to production objectives, especially for stalled animals, and it was discussed in detail. Feed budgeting was developed for better planning of breeding activities related to the available feed and production targets.The importance of animal habitat was highlighted. The different types of habitats and materials used for their construction were presented. Variable density was discussed, depending on production objectives and habitat type. The orientation of the animal housing structures itself, was explained. The regulatory distance between animal and human habitats was presented, considering the realities on the ground.Participants discussed the sex ratio of animals and how to maintain it. They also discussed the reproductive performance of males and females according to production objectives and type of breeding. Emphasis was also placed on animal welfare. The choice of a good sire was an important point of discussion.The various components of animal welfare were reviewed. They cover feed, health, housing, and transport. Each component was detailed and explained to the livestock champions.The importance of administration, management, and data recording on a small ruminant farm was explained to the participants, and examples were shared.The identification and diagnosis of a sick animal was presented. The steps to follow were explained, and it was recommended that field diagnoses be supplemented by laboratory diagnoses.This session covered management of sick animals in the household including the disadvantages of letting sick animals roam.Participants were taught the disadvantages of leaving animal habitats unsanitary and the importance of ensuring hygiene in the yard and animal habitats.Training was also provided on the circumstances that can lead to children's contact with animal feces, the advantages and disadvantages of allowing children to come into contact with sick animals, and the need to limit contact between children and animal excrement.Techniques for assisting females to give birth were taught, and the associated risks were highlighted. Good hygiene practices while assisting females during parturition were also recommended.The participants were also taught various milking techniques for females, the risks of contamination during milking, and good milking hygiene practices.The local slaughtering practices and the associated risks were discussed, and good slaughter practices were highlighted.Part 7: Consumption of meat, milk, eggs, and by-products from sick animals Participants were taken through what happens to milk, meat, and eggs produced by sick animals, their consumption risks, and the best management practices for animal products and by-products.Priority diseases targeted for immunization and the difficulties faced in implementing immunization campaigns were discussed.We also discussed diseases common to humans and animals and themes of transmission from animals to humans or humans to animals.The stakeholders were taught how to create an environment conducive to collaboration and innovation, identify solutions to producers' problems, and use good coaching to achieve common goals.Creating a revitalized steering committee and enhancing collaboration and communication between players were highlighted as key to ensuring fruitful discussions among the team members.This involves drawing up an annual action plan, identifying the general problem, the proposed activities, the proposed period, the expected cost, and the source of funding. The person(s) in charge of the activity and monitoring indicators are also proposed.Monitoring and evaluation cover the activities in the multistakeholder platform's annual action plan. Photo 13: Group work by the small ruminant fatteners, small ruminant breeders, and small ruminant dealer on the integrated management of small ruminant herd health at Baroueli, 15 May 2024 (photo credit: Ahmadou Sow/ILRI). Photo 14:Training small ruminant fatteners, small ruminant breeders, and small ruminant dealers on the integrated management of small ruminant herd health at Baroueli, 16 May 2024 (photo  "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8cd14144110a40bbe3e8ddf9b0b1732f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9386b858-3df1-45ee-9607-1103449f92e6/retrieve","id":"1714289587"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"17632890-03b8-416c-8ab9-3a99f53b826b","content":"Per capita sweetpotato production in Rwanda is among the highest in SSA-76 kgs per capita in 2014. Major growing areas have bi-modal rainfall regimes and year-round consumption of the crop. However, market chains are poorly developed; roots are bulky and costly to transport long distances. There are seasonal gluts when prices plummet with farmers complaining of lack of markets. Processing of sweetpotato into products offers the opportunity to increase demand for the crop and create value-addition, thereby expanding the incomes of smallholder producers.Rwanda is densely populated at 490 persons per square kilometer and 61% of the population is less than 25 years old. The population is expected to double by 2020, with the percentage of total population living in urban areas increasing from 20% to 30%. Urban consumers demand more processed, faster cooking foods with less energy demand than their rural counterparts. There is expanding demand for wheat-based products, but wheat flour is relatively expensive and its world price steadily increasing. Our research in Rwanda has shown that boiled and mashed sweetpotato (purée) can profitably substitute significant percentages (30-50%) of wheat flour in bakery products and contribute nutritionally significant amounts of pro-vitamin A.What has been lacking is getting the appropriate research-public-private sector partnership to move from small-scale efforts to marketing sweetpotato products on a commercial scale. Solid evidence regarding which organizational structure actually would benefit poorer smaller farmers and in particular women farmers in such a partnership is minimal. There is also concern that as sweetpotato is increasingly commercialized men will dominate and control the proceeds from sales of this crop, or families will shift from consuming nutritious crops at home to selling to the market.This project sought to build an effective public-private sector partnership. We wanted to investigate whether sweetpotato processed products are profitable and acceptable to urban consumers. A private-public sector partnership was established between Urwibutso (SINA) Enterprises, a national level agro-processor specializing in juices, bakery products, and hot pepper sauce, research organizations (the International Potato Center (CIP), the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB)) and implementing non-governmental organizations (Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Imbaraga, and Young Women Christian Organization (YWCA)). Antonio Magnaghi of Euro Ingredients Ltd. provided critical technical expertise in product development and processing equipment and students at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology conducted various studies on food science topics related to the project. Imbaraga backstopped 8 groups in 2 districts in the Northern Province (Rulindo and Gakenke) and YWCA backstopped 12 groups in 2 districts in the Southern Province (Muhanga and Kamonyi). In total, the groups had 471 registered farmers. Urwibutso had an agronomist responsible for backstopping up to 45 individual growers in Rulindo district, the district where its factory is located. All extension personnel received technical support from a CIP agronomist on production issues (Fig. 1) and a CIP agricultural economist on value chain issues.• Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB), co-lead  The best performing category of direct beneficiaries were farmers in groups by Imbaraga (Table 5). They had the highest profits and profit margins, and were the most economically efficient. One dollar invested in these farmers generated $1.8 dollars in net profit. Both spillover households (indirect beneficiaries who just received vines, but no training or direct market linkage support) and YWCA supported households were more economically efficient than individual growers for SINA or control households (no project intervention). These results indicate that farmers benefited more from being in NGO supported groups than being individual growers linked to SINA through verbal contracts.4. Changing the Image of Sweetpotato. In spite of high per capita consumption (>80 kg/capita/year) and huge potential for yield increase, sweetpotato is not part of the government's crop improvement program (CIP). That is because it is considered a low value crop with seasonal gluts causing significant price drops. Under the CIP program, traditional access to marshlands for either conserving vines or producing sweetpotato roots was restricted.The Rwanda Super Foods program engaged a young, dynamic radio and TV presenter to assist implement its communication strategy. In addition to Urwibutso Enterprises and NGO supported farmer groups participating in several agricultural fairs annually (Fig. 5), the team conducted more than 60 media events on radio, TV, and on-line media. A major launch The team established two active sites on Facebook to attract the young generation, and produced 23 issues of a monthly newsletter. Materials are shared on the Rwandan Ministry of Agriculture and the governments' communication resource site, in addition to the Sweetpotato Knowledge Portal. Four videos have been produced internally and posted on YouTube and the Facebook sites. In addition, Urwibutso produced an advertisement promoting the Golden Power Biscuit that was shown nightly on Rwanda's leading TV station for 12 months, beginning in January 2013. These activities have raised awareness that sweetpotato can be incorporated into many different food products, increasing market opportunities for farmers and that OFSP is a rich source of vitamin A, and it is essential for good health.Overall, the impact on policy has primarily been at the district level where the project operates. Three of the four districts (Rulindo, Gakenke and Muhanga) have permitted sweetpotato growers to access valley bottom land and two districts (Rulindo and Gakenke) have included significantly increased sweetpotato production into their performance targets. Eighty-nine percent of endline survey respondents felt sweetpotato should be included as part of the CIP program in their district. At the national level, OFSP promotion is included in the in the recent version of the National Food and Nutrition Policy for Rwanda.  We have learnt lessons on how to develop efficient and/or gender-equitable organizational model(s) for sweetpotato value chains and enhance revenues for 500 participant households during the last 3 years. An endline survey was conducted 852 households in September 2014. The main objectives the project specifically sought to test were: 1) Whether it would be possible to develop economically-viable sweetpotato processed products, acceptable to Rwandan consumers 2) Whether development of a sweetpotato value chain for processed products, linked to a private sector actor leads to better returns for male and female sweetpotato producers than just accessing the local market 3) Whether men and women farmers benefitted more by being organized in groups and backstopped by NGOs, than by just being linked as individuals to the agro-processor 4) Whether the promotion of OFSP processed products resulted in a change in the image of sweetpotato at local and national levelsWe implemented the project in four districts in Rwanda: Rulindo, Gakenke, Muhanga, and Kamonyi.What did we learn?During year 1, the project developed, tested and costed out four orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) based processed products: bread, mandazi (doughnuts), queen cakes, and biscuits. Consumer studies and economic analysis revealed that products made with OFSP purée (boiled and mashed sweetpotato) were superior in quality and lower in cost to those made with OFSP flour. The owner of Urwibutso Enterprises selected the biscuit as the key product to develop. In year 2, modern equipment was procured, packaging designed and procured, and the recipe refined to produce the Akarabo Golden Power Biscuit (GBP), which replaces 43% of wheat flour with OFSP purée (Fig. 2). A major launch event was held at Urwibutso on November 2012; followed by a consumer acceptance study among over 1000 consumers in 10 markets. Sina has 11 shops nationwide. From November 2012 through June 2014, Sina earned $364,410 in sales of OFSP products (Fig. 3). Urwibutso mostly concentrated on the production of 2 OFSP products, the GPB and mandazi.2) Returns for male and female sweetpotato producers.Considerable investment was made in strengthening RAB's tissue culture and pre-basic planting material capacity at their station in Rubona, Rwanda and training decentralized vine multipliers (individuals and groups) on how to produce quality, disease-free planting material (Fig. 4). Increasing yields was requisite for farmers to have surplus for sale. In total, RAB produced 189,900 disease-free tissue culture plantlets, and distributed 8,132,200 cuttings of quality planting material. Yield increases over local varieties were significant, and varied by variety and season, due to unpredictable drought.The project linked participating farmers, either as individual growers or as NGO-supported farmer groups to the Urwibutso factory. Endline survey data comparing sweetpotato growers from control (no intervention) households, with those participating fully in the project, and spillover households (those receiving vines from beneficiary households, but no project value chain support) demonstrate that both female sweetpotato growers and male sweetpotato growers that participate in the Super Foods project substantially benefitted from being linked to Sina's factory and received higher average prices (145 and 149 Rf/kg, respectively) if they sold to Sina than if they sold to traders (111 Rw/kg) or directly to consumers (103 and 88 Rf/kg, respectively (Table 1). Moreover, female participants accounted for 42.5% of total sweetpotato sales transactions, compared to 11.5% for male participants. These results are not surprising in that Sina Gerard was encouraged to offer a small premium above the going market price to assure regular supply. Only 50% of control households sold any sweetpotato in 2013/2014, compared to 80% of participant households and 60% of spillover households.Women dominate sweetpotato production in Rwanda, as evidenced in the gender breakdown of the randomly selected control and spillover households in Table 2. On average, male participant households had the highest profits and were the most economically efficient. Female spillover households appear somewhat more efficient than female participant households driven by their lower variable costs. Concerning economic efficiency, men appeared to improve more dramatically either with partial (spillover) or full participation compared to control households (the norm) than women did.Although less efficient, on average, Super Food participant households with women as the dominant sweetpotato grower produce and sold just as much sweetpotato as male sweetpotato growing households (Table 3). Note that for all categories of household, retention of sweetpotato for home consumption was a priority. Urwibutso already had established systems for purchasing crops, mostly fruits, from growers within its home district of Rulindo and providing seed inputs to its growers and some technical backstopping. This system did not depend on written contracts, but orally made commitments between processor and grower 1 . In addition, the project decided to test a second model of how to link farmers to the agro-processor. In this model, farmers were organized into groups that received technical backstopping from a local non-governmental organization (NGO), who in turn were backstopped by the International NGO, CRS. The farmer organizations supported by the two NGOs were very different in nature: Imbaraga-supported farmer groups were market-oriented; YWCA backstopped groups consisting of vulnerable households, including households headed by widows or children and those affected by HIV. Moreover, because of a specific commitment to improve women's lives, targets were set that at least 75% of beneficiary households, whether individually linked to Urwibutso or in farmers' groups, had to have women in charge of sweetpotato production.The three beneficiary groups were quite different in terms of composition and well-being (Table 4) and provide an opportunity to examine how value chain linkages benefitted persons of differing socio-economic status. Whereas Imbaraga supported farmer groups had already been formed with a clear market orientation, YWCA purposely supported vulnerable groups, including those affected by the genocide (more households headed by women and young adults) and those affected by HIV. The individual growers were the wealthiest, followed by Imbaraga support farmers; then the YWCA growers.Participant Spillover 1. Urwibutso and the project agreed to institute written contracts. However, in Rwanda written contracts require farmers to obtain an identification number for tax purposes. This proved to be a major barrier to willingness to move from oral promises to written contracts.Total produced (kg/HH) "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3703d30ed75668f4a6a8259bd2714391","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e2d1886c-3d14-4c5e-bb8f-e848fe2db868/retrieve","id":"-652216613"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"46a05fc2-95a8-497f-a9e3-8f7ab93189c2","content":"• Relative importance of known and \"unknown\" cattle diseases• Assess farmers knowledge of cattle diseases Multipathogen survey Purposive animal sampling:• \"SICK-suspected\" cattle  • Farmers capacity to diagnose is low;(still they treat their animals! -resistance)• …Still many things to \"dig\" into: "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7c77bf03bff21cfcb600d871d0ef8ef9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3fd2eb47-3213-4851-8fee-fb7536332289/retrieve","id":"672898319"},"keywords":["11","032 seeds G40585: 14","869 seeds G40627: 16","796 seeds"],"sieverID":"45426468-d6ce-4ea5-b7a4-f4504d05b316","content":"Permite evaluaciones, pero necesita renovación periódica Riesgo de contaminación en los centros primarios de diversidad Distribución tanto nacional como internacional no es permitida BANCO in vitro Puede certificarse como material limpio Necesita subcultivos periódicos aún bajo crecimiento frenado Distribución nacional e internacional es permitida Fuente: Aranzales E. CIAT-PRG, 2012. BANCO CRIOCONSERVADO Permite conservación a largo plazo Necesita subcultivos, aunque no frecuentes Inadecuado para distribución Inversión en personal y equipos BANCO DE SEMILLAS Permite conservación a largo plazo Necesita regeneración periódica, aunque no frecuente Adecuado para conservación y distribución de especies Tipo de comportamiento: ortodoxo, intermedio, recalcitrante? Conserva genes, no genotipos ALTERNATIVAS DE CONSERVACIÓN EX SITU Fuente: Aranzales E. CIAT-PRG, 2012. BANCO DE POLEN BANCO DE ADN Permite conservación a largo plazo Posible uso en mejoramiento Conserva genes, no genotipos, tampoco citoplasma Distribución internacional es permitida Uso potencial en investigación Uso limitado a estudios de genómica Efectividad en costos• Estrés abiótico (tolerancia a sequía, etc.) • Calidad Genética: Definición genética del material que se desea conservar, evitando los cambios de la composición del mismo. Guardando lo que se ha confiado por parte de los países y distribuyendo lo que se dice.• Calidad Fisiológica: Consiste en evaluar la viabilidad de los materiales a través de pruebas de germinación y/o bioquímicas con sales de Tetrazolio. El PRG trabaja con tasas por encima del 85%.• Calidad Fitosanitaria: El laboratorio de sanidad de germoplasma tiene la responsabilidad de reportar el estado fitosanitario del germoplasma distribuido por el Programa de Recursos Genéticos y otros programas del CIAT, certificando que éstos se encuentran libres de enfermedades cuarentenarias.• Las semillas ortodoxas con una viabilidad alta sobrevivirán más tiempo en almacenamiento a condiciones bajo cero.• El tamaño de la semilla no determina el comportamiento de almacenamiento.• Generalizar el comportamiento de las semillas dentro de una especie, no es posible.• La distribución geográfica y la ecología, pueden ayudar a determinar las temperaturas de almacenamiento óptimo.• Especies nativas de ambientes húmedos tienen comportamiento de semillas en las tres categorías: ortodoxas, intermedias y recalcitrantes.• Las Normas para bancos recomiendan que la primera prueba de monitoreo se haga después de haber almacenado las semillas durante 10 años a -18 o C.  "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6af7d8547d1c837081087428cf241759","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/847a9299-6e9c-46a9-8658-468f8312b63a/retrieve","id":"-634793038"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"13191079-42bc-42ee-aa06-538bd52d48f8","content":"Who cares? Why be accessible?• Our data information or knowledge assets should have benefits that can travel across boundaries• They need to be:-Described and stored for posterity -Easily found and accessed -Easily shared and re-used -Available, accessible and applicable without restrictions AAA• Availability -able to identify a 'publication' (metadata at least)• Accessibility -able to 'get hold of' the 'whole thing'• Applicability -able to adapt and re-use or re-purpose the 'publication'AAA Pathways• Promising technical and institutional routes to more or better accessibility• Repository of outputs of people and projects (hosted at ILRI)• Publishing and alerting platform• Repository for projects, institution, CRP?• Gateway to Google and beyondChoices we made Future ?• Index/make available limited access items (to the CGIAR with Active Directory?)-Full text articles / Internal documents "}

main/part_2/0137119103.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a59783906380e35861889d5909a5f85f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d1e0805a-7b62-4e46-ac20-8f3b67c31f5e/retrieve","id":"610430596"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"cb57627c-0e1f-4130-9ae9-3e1ed1e56481","content":"T T he research on the conservation and use of bamboo resources has been the concern of countries in Asia, particularly in south, southeast and east Asia where utilization of bamboo has been a traditional and cultural practice of many countries. The fast pace of development that is progressing in many countries in the region has threatened much of the natural resources including bamboo. IPGRI's support for the conservation and use of plant genetic resources has garnered the awareness of national governments that have hitherto begun to provide much-needed support for the increased R&D activities on plant genetic resources, including bamboo resources.The ex situ collection of bamboos established at the Rimba Ilmu Botanic Garden, University of Malaya is perhaps the most comprehensive living collection of bamboos in Malaysia. IPGRI is proud to have been associated with Prof K.M. Wong in setting up this bambusetum for reference, research and education. The establishment of this ex situ collection has resulted in the present publication, which introduces the diversity of bamboos not only in Malaysia, but Southeast Asia as well. The publication has also included information on the conservation of some rare bamboo species in the region. This effort, we are sure, will continue to stimulate and promote the concern for conserving the diversity of bamboos, which, hopefully, will also encourage efforts for sustainable management and increased economic use of the bamboo resources.vii Fore Fore w w ord ord T T he fundamental importance of bamboo as a plant resource has led to many international agencies, including the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), supporting research and collection of genetic materials in a number of countries. In the countries of Southeast Asia, bamboo is an important feature of landscapes and traditional use. Yet, the taxonomic inventory of the bamboo flora progresses slowly, by force, because of the incomplete exploration of the flora and the inadequacy of scientific collecting. As landscapes change to an even greater extent, the ability to recognize the diversity of bamboos and efforts towards the conservation and collection of the important or rare species become even more significant.One of the projects recently concluded was the establishment of a Bambusetum for national conservation and research at the University of Malaya's Rimba Ilmu Botanic Garden in Kuala Lumpur. The site was most appropriate because of its strategic location within the research environment of the University of Malaya, the oldest university in Malaysia and the presence of the specialist, Prof K.M. Wong, who has tremendous interest in research on bamboos. The successful conclusion of that establishment, and its encouraging progress since then, has led to the present account, which seeks to make available an introduction to bamboos as a useful plant resource and the multiple facets of their diversity and biology, in a way that draws attention to the many interesting features of bamboos in Southeast Asia in general. Malaysia and Singapore are the only countries in Southeast Asia where modern taxonomic accounts of the bamboo flora as a whole exist, and some other countries are approaching completion of their own guides.It is the hope that this account will stimulate general interest and provide some perspectives into bamboo morphology, ecology and the taxonomic research required for understanding and conserving the diversity of bamboos. IPGRI continues in its efforts to promote the identification and conservation of the most important components of genetic resources among bamboos, and in making the associated information and approaches as accessible as possible.Percy E. Sajise, Regional Director, APO, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, IPGRI (Opposite). Teratological form of Gigantochloa scortechinii with multiple primary branch buds at each node.1amboos, botanically considered a specialized group in the Grass family, are fascinating for different reasons. To many Chinese, Japanese, Indians and the peoples of Southeast Asia and South America, bamboos are intricately linked to both culture and even survival, since ancient times. The many uses of bamboo range from handicrafts made ad hoc in village settings, such as personal ornaments, utensils and a most incredible variety of baskets and other containers, bird cages, poultry coops, musical instruments, to water pipes, bridges, house construction and fishing contraptions (Kurz 1876, Wong 1995b) . Bamboo scaffolding used during construction of buildings (Fig. 7), including high-rise structures, so evident in parts of India, Bangladesh and China, looks set to stay as a simple, inexpensive technology even in today's world of modern innovations. From bamboo blowpipes and small animal traps familiar to the more primitive technologies, the use of this material has graduated to modern factory-based production of paper, bamboo blinds   and barbeque skewers. The living bamboo provides edible shoots, fences, windbreaks, ornamentals and a means to counter erosion in some situations.To the botanist, the 1200-1500 species of bamboo the world over still represent a diversity that is not well understood, with many species to be discovered or better documented, and very incomplete agreement as to how the many forms are to be classified. The silviculturist and agronomist, whose job it is to cultivate trees and bamboos profitably for economic products, are interested in their growth attributes, cultivation aspects and potential utilization. Resource managers are interested in ensuring that rare forms are conserved, and useful types of bamboo are better understood and made available for developing useful materials that can help people. The forester is concerned about which bamboos occur where, and in what abundance, and whether these have potential usefulness or may become weedy in their growth, smothering other more useful plants. A recent perspective is the realization that living bamboo stems house interesting animal communities, including some with specific associations (Kovac 1993).One thing is certainly agreed among those who are conscious about the usefulness of bamboos. These very interesting and mostly useful plants can be better understood, more systematically documented and managed as a resource. It is important to first understand the fundamental attributes of these plants, so that this basic knowledge can help foster better identification, utilization and conservation of the many species.It is the aim of this book to provide a basic understanding of the bamboos and to give an introduction to some of the main types of bamboos found in Southeast Asia, where they are linked to everyday living, to the environment, industry, culture and folklore. The present account was precipitated by the establishment of a research collection of bamboos at the Rimba Ilmu Botanic Garden, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), under the auspices of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). It complements earlier accounts of Peninsular Malaysian bamboos by the author (Wong 1995a(Wong , 1995b) ) and Sabah bamboos by Soejatmi Dransfield (1992), and various ongoing inventory projects in various parts of Southeast Asia. It also assembles, in a brief way, information on growth habit and structure, tips on identification of the more important bamboos, and notes on the main groups and species encountered, with a discussion of the importance of carefully established and documented, ex situ conservation collections. How bamboos are classified B B amboos are part of the Poaceae (sometimes also called Gramineae), the family of grasses. They share certain characteristics that place them apart from other grasses: segmented, typically hollow stems (called culms, as in all grasses) that are somewhat woody, which sprout from the underground stem portions (or rhizomes); a complex system of branching; and flowers that typically each have three perianth-like structures (lodicules) and 3-6 stamens (Soderstrom 1981).Yet, the woody bamboos share other characteristics with some herbaceous (non-woody) grasses, notably leaf blades that have a distinctive internal organization of the tissues (including \"arm cells\" and \"fusoid cells\" not found in other grasses) and which are basally narrowed to form a stalklike connection with the leaf sheath (sometimes called a \"pseudostalk\"). These are called the herbaceous bambusoid grasses. Different species of the bambusoid grasses (both woody and herbaceous) are grouped into genera (singular: genus) on the basis of similar characteristics, and genera further as subtribes and tribes (Soderstrom & Ellis 1987). The various tribes then comprise the bamboo subfamily (Bambusoideae) of the Grass family.Bamboo classification or taxonomy is difficult because, often, relatively little is known or documented as many collectors shun collecting bamboos because of their size or the difficulties in trying to make good scientific specimens (Holttum 1958, McClure 1966) (Fig. 8). A comprehensive, natural classification of subtribes is still actively pursued and it is expected that advances in understanding DNA characteristics will shed more light on the relationships.Fig. 8 (Opposite). Blanco did not list reference specimens when he named a bamboo Bambusa levis, so Merrill chose this to represent the species, which he recognized as a Gigantochloa instead, creating the new combination G. levis. The specimen has no culm sheaths and it is difficult to visualize the living plant from this alone.n many parts of Southeast Asia, bamboos have long been recognized as village or cultivated bamboos and native or forest bamboos. The cultivated bamboos include known introductions to a number of places from their place of originfor example, Bambusa bambos and Dendrocalamus strictus (native in India, Myanmar and Thailand), Shibataea kumasasa (originally from southern Japan) and Thyrsostachys siamensis (from Myanmar and Thailand)and others that were first known in cultivation and not yet found wild anywhere, such as B. heterostachya in Peninsular Malaysia or D. asper generally in Southeast Asia.In some cases, such as some species of Gigantochloa that are known only in cultivation in Peninsular Malaysia and Java, it is possible their present-day distribution reflects the historical migrations of people in the region. Indeed, some bamboos known only in cultivation may be products of selection over a long period of cultivation, following introduction from wild stock. One example is Gigantochloa balui, which is common in many parts of Borneo where it is known only in cultivation or near settlements, never truly wild, but which has later been found wild in Peninsular Thailand. Although this bamboo was first diagnosed scientifically from material from Borneo, yet in fact it must have been carried there from somewhere in the Malay Peninsula or Thailand a long time ago.Around 200 species of bamboo occur in the Southeast Asian region, from Myanmar and Indo-China to Papua New Guinea, and including the Malay Archipelago (Dransfield & Widjaja, 1995). Among the countries of this region, there are few modern accounts of the bamboo flora published. This situation is understandable, given that very few specialists are involved in bamboo exploration and taxonomic work, many reference specimens (on There are common or well-known bamboos, and rare or little-known ones. Bambusa vulgaris (which, as its Latin name implies, is the \"common bamboo\") probably originated in Southeast Asia and is now pan-tropical, being commonly planted as an ornamental and for household uses in villages. Some bamboos, in fact, border on being weedy. In Peninsular Malaysia, three native species, Gigantochloa scortechinii (which is also the most useful species there), Dendrocalamus pendulus and Schizostachyum grande (Fig. 9), are very common and occur naturally in the foothills and valleys of mountain ranges, as well as colonize disturbed forest sites in the lowlands generally. In the northern part of Borneo, the climbing species of Dinochloa can become so common in logged-over lowland forest that they smother the tree regeneration (Fig. 10), forming a thick blanket of growth over the residual vegetation that appears penetrated only Cultivated or wild, common or rare 10 The dwarf bamboo locally called pek, Vietnamosasa pusilla, forms extensive undergrowth in deciduous forest and thickets in scrubland in the seasonal areas of northeast Thailand (Fig. 11) and Indo-China (Dransfield 2000a). This species flowers and seeds gregariously, so large patches of regeneration are possible. In the high mountains of Taiwan and Luzon (Philippines), another dwarf bamboo Yushania niitakayamensis colonizes entire mountainside landscapes, effectively forming grasslands, by its sheer ability to spread (Figs. 12 & 13); indeed, its efficacy of spread has prompted its use in erosion control.This commonness is due to various reasons. The first is an ability to adapt to many different site conditions, such as differing amount of light or shade, or nutrient status, although it is true that moderate to strong exposure and moist, fertile (non-acidic) conditions most favour the growth of the common species. Another reason is the ease of vegetative propagation, such Cultivated or wild, common or rare 11   as the sprouting of new plants from bits of scattered rhizome (e.g., during land clearance using tractors) or some culm and branch portions bearing buds. In the case of some native species, relatively frequent seeding, or seeding of a big population of individuals, can also play a part in their spread and increase in abundance, especially where disturbance has brought about suitable conditions for establishment (Wong 1986).Some species are rare because their distribution is restricted to isolated localities, such as mountain peaks or specialized substrates, including limestone hills or swamps.Such places are \"ecological islands\", having very different conditions from the surrounding landscape, which engender the establishment of unique or specially adapted species. Many species of Racemobambos, for example, are known only from one or several mountain peaks (Dransfield 1983). R. glabra, an elegant montane bamboo, is found only on several peaks in the Meligan-Brunei-Mulu region of northwest Borneo. R. hepburnii (Fig. 14) and R. gibbsiae are sister species occupying lower and upper terrains, respectively, on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo and apparently have non-overlapping periods of flowering (Wong, Chan & Phillipps 1988). Temochloa liliana is a delicate scandent bamboo known only from some limestone sites in Peninsular Thailand (Dransfield 2000b). Some bamboo species can be possibly endangered, too. In Peninsular Malaysia, the clambering small bamboo, Schizostachyum terminale was once more common, growing in seasonally inundated sites along slow-moving streams and within mosaics of freshwater and peat swamps. It was first discovered in 1940 in Peninsular Malaysia, on the banks of the Krian River in Kedah state, and then only recorded again in the 1980s in the Rantau Panjang area near the coast in Selangor state, represented by a few remnant clumps in a roadside patch in the midst of a ricefield region. It is now no longer seen or easily found in Peninsular Malaysia's west coast, which has undergone tremendous changes in natural landscape during development that spanned more than a century. Only two other localities in Peninsular Malaysia, both in the east coast state of Pahang, have ever been known for this speciesone, in 1988, at the Krau Game Reserve, and the other, in 2003, during an IPGRI-motivated bamboo survey in the coastal Merchong swamp area, where it appears to be uncommon and not abundant. Thanks to recently active collection in Borneo, this species is now also known to exist in similar habitat there (Fig. 15). However, it is clear that S. terminale is truly rare and vulnerable to extinction in Peninsular Malaysia.In Peninsular Malaysia, S. lengguanii, another smallish elegant bamboo, is known only from the Tasik Chini and Merchong swamp areas. Elevation of the water level at Tasik Chini for tourism-related development caused the inundation and death of many lakeside clumps there, and logging activities at the Merchong area have included a track that ran through a population of this species. In southern Sumatra and South Kalimantan, in similar habitat, forest fires are a threat to the survival of this species (Muller 1998a).This story reminds us of two things regarding species rarity. First, a species can be little-known and even rare in one instance, but is in fact more generally present, only it has not been discovered and documented elsewhere. Also, a species, although represented by more than one population, can disappear or go locally extinct over a period of disturbance and change to its natural habitat. This is particularly so if the species is specific in its requirements and landscape changes or disturbances especially affect its habitat. In Southeast Asia, isolated or restricted ecosystems vulnerable to destruction or intense change, where specialized species may be threatened, include places like swamp forests (prone to logging and conversion to cultivation), limestone hills (prone to quarrying for road metal and cement) and mountain peaks (prone to clearance and fires associated with recreational activities and development).Rare species can also exist in the lowland forests generally, apart from the easily recognized \"specialized\" ecosystems. The impression that lowland forests are a \"generalized\" ecosystem with a uniform species composition could not be farther from the truth. Ecological research shows that a small number of species makes up the common ones, which are most abundant or widespread. In fact, the bulk of the species in a piece of rain forest are represented by small numbers of individuals, either scattered far apart or occurring only in certain patches. Also, in the lowland rain forest, many of the smaller plants, including especially herbaceous species, tend to be more restricted in distribution or site-specific. Thus a species can be rare in terms of a very scattered distribution of individuals (low frequency), or due to occurrence in only one or very few localities (narrow endemism).It is not true that all forest bamboos become weedy when they are present in forest being badly disturbed, although the weedy ones (often the bigger ones) make their presence felt strongly. In Peninsular Malaysia, for example, there are a few rare, true forest bamboos adapted to forest understory conditions. One such bamboo is S. aciculare, known only as small clumps in a few localities in Negri Sembilan, Johor and the Kelantan-south Thailand region. Another rare understory bamboo is the clambering, pencilthin Racemobambos setifera, which is rare or extinct outside the upper Endau River area in Johor (Wong 1987). It survives only in a narrow strip of forest bordering pristine streams and will not tolerate excessive exposure (as will occur with logging) or inundation (as will occur with river impoundment). Also a rare lowland endemic, Soejatmia ridleyi (Fig. 16) is only known in very few sites in Pahang and the Bukit Timah forest in Singapore. The unusual clambering bamboo Temburongia simplex, sole representative of its genus, is restricted to streamside forest in the Temburong district of Brunei (Dransfield & Wong 1996).Some species are rare in the core rainforest region of Malaysia and Indonesia because they are naturally centred in the region farther north or south, where conditions are more seasonal. Species of the twining bamboo genus Dinochloa are most diverse and more easily encountered in the northern parts of Borneo (e.g., Sabah) and Peninsular Malaysia probably because of their preference for more seasonal conditions (the genus is also known in Java). The little-known Gigantochloa rostrata is known growing naturally only in Myanmar and the summit of Gunung Raya on Langkawi Island, in the extreme north-west of Peninsular Malaysia, a region more seasonal in climate than nearer the equator. Gigantochloa balui, native to the lowlands of Peninsular Thailand, has only been recently documented growing naturally in neighbouring Kedah, one of the northern states of Peninsular Malaysia.Indeed, the narrow \"neck\" of the Malay Peninsula, including Peninsular Thailand and the extreme north of Peninsular Malaysia, by relative isolation through its intercalation between the land mass of Thailand proper and more equatorial Peninsular Malaysia, appears to be a special biogeographical region with its own specialities. The slender, small Dendrocalamus elegans occurs gregariously (i.e., in large numbers in an area) on the ancient weathered limestone on the Langkawi group of islands, where they grow on a thin soil from sea-level to the tops of cliffs, including in cracks and on ledges on cliff faces (Fig. 17). It also occurs on the Gua Musang limestone (Kelantan) and in peninsular Thailand. D. dumosus is another such limestone bamboo from the same region, and recent field work has discovered other 17   bamboos special to Peninsular Thailand. Temochloa liliana, mentioned above, is also a speciality of this region. Some bamboos can be locally common but are in fact rarities on a regional or wider geographical scale. Holttumochloa magica (Fig. 18) is documented only from the Fraser's Hill and Cameron Highland areas on the Pahang-Selangor border, at 1200-2000 m, in the cloud forest. H. korbuensis is known only from the summit of Gunung Korbu (Perak) and H. pubescens only from the summit of Gunung Stong (Kelantan). These bamboos are a significant component of the dwarfed cloud forest between about 1500 m and 2100 m. They form an undergrowth in short, extensively mossy forest but can be thicketforming on very exposed, disturbed ridge-tops (Wong 1995b).Likewise, in northwest Borneo, Kinabaluchloa nebulosa is often encountered on the high mountains of the Crocker Range and associated ranges. In Java, Schizostachyum aequiramosum is documented only from the Meru Betiri National Park in the extreme southeast of the island, where its culms are even used by people. S. caudatum, peculiar among members of its genus for its solid culms (Fig. 19), is endemic to southern Sumatra (Widjaja 2001). The stem A A bamboo stem has an underground part, called the rhizome, and an emergent portion called the culm. If we examine the rhizome, the culm and its branches, we can see that they are segmented, i.e., there is a series of nodes (appearing as rings along the culm, where the sheaths, buds and branches arise) and intervals between the nodes that are simply called internodes. The internal space within the bamboo culm is compartmentalized into a series of hollows by each node bearing a transverse plate. It is this basically hollow cylinder-like structure with crosswalls placed at regular intervals along the culm that gives bamboo its inherent strength and flexibility.Not all species have conspicuously hollow culms: sometimes species are encountered which have their culm walls so thick that the central hollow is inconspicuous or even absent altogether (Fig. 19). Not all bamboos have erect culms, either. There are some forest bamboos, in Southeast Asia for example, which have slender culms that can twine around tree trunks as they ascend during growth, behaving as other twining plants do (Fig. 20). Also, not all rhizomes are hollow. Bamboos growing in clumps where the culm bases nearly touch typically have solid, thickened and relatively short, spindle-shaped rhizomes. Those with a \"running\" habit where the culms are spaced out farther from one another usually have rhizomes that are slender and hollow, just like in the erect culms. The nodes on the rhizomes and, sometimes, at the basal portion of culms develop verticils of short roots.The clumping or \"running\" habit of bamboos is a consequence of its rhizome growth behaviour. Typically, the rhizome that turns upwards to 21  continue as a culm also bears new rhizomes, which again also upturn to become culms, and these will then bear further \"daughter rhizomes\" and so on. In other words, wave-like successions of rhizomes build up as repeating units, which are of successively newer generation; this is said to form a sympodial series of rhizomes (Fig. 21). Sympodial rhizome systems most frequently bear short, thickened spindle-shaped rhizomes that form culms placed closely together, as distinct clumps. On occasion, the sympodial rhizome units have slender and elongated \"neck\" or proximal portions, and so carry well-spaced culms, but these are not common (Figs. 22 & 23).True \"running\" bamboos are those with slender, hollow rhizomes that grow horizontally without typically upturning to form a culm; buds developing along the rhizome will either form new rhizomes or form culms directly, with the result that the culms are typically well spaced out over a wider area. Such rhizomes are also called monopodial rhizomes (Fig. 21). These form groves of single culms (Fig. 24), and not clumps. Monopodialtype bamboo genera are generally uncommon in the tropics and occur mainly in the temperate zone, where both types may be found also. In some bamboo species, a mixed condition occurs, with monopodial and sympodial rhizome portions in the same plant. A new culm shoot always emerges with the same diameter at its base as it will have when full height is reached; the lack of actively dividing tissues which allow stem thickening means that internode diameter at any point along the culm is fixed. This is why a young bamboo plant will produce the smallest culms first and only gradually produce new culms that are progressively larger, until its mature dimensions are reached.Although sometimes buds (and hence, branches) may not form at the lowermost culm nodes, they are usually present from at least the middle of the culm upwards. Generally, the mid-culm branch complement (the array of branches forming at a node in the middle portion of the culm) is the most fully developed and diagnostic of a particular species or group.  . Some bamboo branch complements: many slender branches from many individual primary buds, Holttumochloa (A); many slender branches from a single primary bud, Schizostachyum (B); dominant primary branch and smaller branches proliferating from its base, Bambusa (C); pair of unequal main branches from one primary bud, Phyllostachys (D); three subequal main branches arising together, Chimonobambusa (E).The form of the branch complement is determined by the characters of the bud, which can be different among bamboos (Fig. 25). Nearly all bamboos in Southeast Asia have branch complements developing from a single bud at each node. An exception is found in Holttumochloa, in which the branch complement develops from several to many individual, very small primary buds arranged closely together in roughly two ranks in the small space occupied by the branch-bud complement at each node. This results in the branch complement having several to many slender primary branches at a node which produce a few similar-looking secondary branches at their base. These branches typically do not branch further away from their base.In some bamboos, the primary (original or first) branch axis can grow bigger and longer than other subsequent branches that arise from its base (i.e., it is dominant over them) (Fig. 26), or the cluster of branches developing at a node may consist of a number of somewhat equal (subequal) branches (Fig. 27).In the bamboo plant the leaves can assume two forms, with different functions. One of the forms is represented by the thickened, rigid, scroll-like structure that is held around and encloses much of an internode as it lengthens during early culm growth. Such \"culm sheaths\" (or \"culm leaves\", as they are also called) play a protective role in encasing the tender lower part of an internode while its tissues actively divide and lengthen. Culm sheaths can be green or some other colour but they are usually persistent to a certain degree even after turning brown and can remain on the mature culms for some time. The other (perhaps more immediately recognizable) form of a bamboo leaf is that of the foliage leaf on the finer branches, with conspicuous, green blades, whose role is photosynthesis.If both forms are examined, their basic structure is found to be the same (Fig. 28). Each type has a main stiff lower body, or the sheath proper, which bears a blade-like structure at its top and, often also, other associated parts. In the case of the culm sheath, the blade is small and does not remain green for long, while the sheath proper is conspicuous because it is an adaptation for protectively encasing the cylindrical culm internode during growth. The foliage leaf blades are well expanded as thinner, green structures with the full tissue complement for gas exchange and photosynthesis; these leaf-blades are attached to less conspicuous, lower sheath portions that still play a protective role encasing the young branch internodes. In fact, even the rhizomes are clothed in sheaths as they develop, only these are seldom well observed because they are underground and easily damaged during excavation. The rhizome sheaths are much reduced and sometimes the blades are not at all distinct. All these leaf-like structures, whether on rhizome, culm or branch, and variously adapted for a mainly protective or photosynthetic function, are said to be homologous, i.e., with fundamentally the same structure and derived from one fundamental organ type. Thus we find that sheaths or leaves on the bamboo plant are arranged in two rows along any axis (rhizome, culm or branch) and arranged alternately left and right.Culm sheaths and leaf sheaths often bear other parts in addition to the sheath proper and blade. The so-called \"auricles\" are smaller parts resembling lobes or rims at the base of the blade margin on both sides. They can be smooth or hairy on the edges, small to truly ear-like, depending on the species. In addition, there usually is an inconspicuous rim that develops at the junction between blade and sheath proper, on the inner side; this is called the \"ligule\" and can be variously smooth, cleft, toothed or hair-fringed. The shape and form of such structures, together with the general form, colour and hairiness of the sheath and its blade, often supply many characters for identifying a bamboo (see also .Young bamboo shoots just emerging from the ground may be edible, but in the youngest stages they yield few characters for identification. It is the shoots which have grown to 0.5-1 m high or higher, on which are found welldeveloped culm sheaths that show the best formed characteristics. For identification from mature plants, the culm sheaths at the middle of the culm are often taken because they show the fully developed characters typical of the species.In bamboos, the inflorescences or specialized flower-bearing branches have complicated structures. The fundamental flower-bearing unit is the same as in grasses and is called a spikelet, the whole only several millimeters to a few centimeters long. The spikelet is really a tiny branch (the \"rachilla\") with two rows of overlapping scales, some of which hide the tiny flowers.A single spikelet typically consists of one to several \"empty\" scales or bracts at its base called glumes (which do not embrace any flowers), and 1-several more specialized scales above these, called lemmas, each of which protects a flower (Fig. 29). A flower subtended by its lemma is termed a floret. Such spikelets are found in most grasses and bamboos such as Chimonobambusa, Nastus, Racemobambos and Temburongia. In some other bamboos, the short rachilla also bears 1-several small bracts, which each protect a tiny branch bud, at the very base of the spikelet proper. This kind of spikelet-bearing branch with bracts subtending buds at its base has been termed a \"pseudospikelet\" (Fig. 29) and is characteristic of many groups of bamboo in Southeast Asia. It is often impossible to distinguish among these different types of bracts without examining what occurs inner to each.True spikelets not only lack the branch buds at their base, they also remain as single units as they mature (Fig. 30). In contrast, pseudospikelets not only possess basal bud-bearing bracts at their base, they also develop into  The bamboo specialist F.A. McClure (1966) has called the bamboo inflorescence an indeterminate (or iterauctant) type if it has pseudospikelets as the basic units, because there is more than one period of spikelet production in the inflorescence. He called the bamboo inflorescence a determinate (or semelauctant) type if it had true spikelets as the basic units, as the ultimate flowering branch cannot then further branch and form any more flowers.Each flower, enclosed by its attendant lemma, is in fact a tiny sidebranch of the rachilla (Fig. 29). The whole flower is embraced by a membraneous structure with two inflexed edges called the palea, which hasThe structure of the bamboo plant 32 its back against the rachilla. Distal to the palea and wholly enclosed by it, the floral axis typically bears three smaller membraneous structures called lodicules (comparable to the perianth, or sepals and petals, of an ordinary flower), stamens, and a female complement comprising the ovary and its style and stigma(s).The flower is sometimes described as perfect when it has both male and female parts (represented by the stamens and ovary-style structure, respectively) within its palea. If these structures are not formed within the palea or lemma, the flower is simply called \"empty\" or \"vestigial\".In bamboos, the fruit is a one-seeded structure that does not split when ripe. Most often, the fruit is dry (as opposed to fleshy) and is technically called a caryopsis (Fig. 32), not much larger than a grain of rice or wheat. In a few genera of bamboos, such as Cyrtochloa, Dinochloa, Melocalamus, Melocanna and Sphaerobambos, the fruit is a fleshy, spherical to pear-shapedThe structure of the bamboo plant 33 structure (Figs. 33 & 34) and in some species can reach the size of a large plum. In some (not all) of the fleshy-fruited bamboos, the seed germinates viviparously (i.e., while the fruit is still attached to the parent plant) (Kurz 1876, Stapf 1904, Dransfield 1981).The structure of the bamboo plant 34 n most bamboos, every leafy branch can potentially develop into a flowering shoot. When this begins to happen, the leaves of such branches turn brown and gradually all drop off, and the branch apex starts to lengthen, bearing much smaller leaves or only reduced sheaths without expanded, green blades. Each such branch then develops the flowering units (pseudospikelets or spikelets) at its nodes and apices, and frequently also flowering side branches develop from its basal parts. A flowering culm can eventually have all of its originally leafy branches transformed into flowering shoots (Fig. 35), and buds at culm and branch nodes can also develop directly into pseudospikelet clusters.In nature, the flowering of such bamboos (e.g., Dendrocalamus pendulus, Gigantochloa scortechinii, Schizostachyum zollingeri, Vietnamosasa pusilla) is often gregarious (i.e., involving most or all clumps over a large area in a kind of mass flowering) and at long intervals in some cases (up to many decades), and the clumps then die or regenerate from remaining rhizomes, with most replacement from seedlings (Figs. 36 & 37). These  species, and others, can also flower in a diffuse and sporadic manner (with just a few branches, culms or individual clumps coming into flower).In many species of Schizostachyum in the everwet parts of the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, the flowering habit is different. After the leafy branches present on a culm start flowering and then gradually dry up at their tips, they produce a next crop of side-branches with normal leaves. This new set of branches repeats the cycle of leafing and flowering and in turn produces a further crop of branches that behave similarly (Fig. 38). About four to five such cycles of branch development occur on a single culm before it dies, so that the mature clump, with many culms at different stages of development, has more-or-less continuous flowering (Wong 1995a).Flowering in the forest climbing bamboos Dinochloa and Maclurochloa is typically restricted to one or a few branch complements which become transformed into specialized, huge and sometimes much-branched (even fan- like) flowering structures (Fig. 39). These large, flowering branches often protrude from tree crowns climbed by the bamboo, where presumably pollination by wind is more effective than within the tree crown.In days gone by in India and Bangladesh, after the muli bamboo (Melocanna baccifera) had flowered over large tracts around settlements, the resulting intense fruit crop (the fruits are the size of small pears in this unusual bamboo) would fuel a population explosion of rats-and, then, either crop destruction or disease would be the tragedy of the day. The muli bamboo flowers and fruits every 30-60 years or so. Other gregarious bamboo fruiting events have also brought additional grain to relieve famines. However, most bamboo flowering has not been so dramatically linked to human affairs. T T he identification of a bamboo or other plant is a means of finding out its identity (by a name, whether scientific or common name) through recognizing its special characteristics. Being able to tell the identity of a species or genus often helps in searching for other information we may require: in this sense, the name \"unlocks\" further information. Identification is easier when it is possible to use easily examined features. This is often different from taxonomic classification, which seeks to recognize naturally related groups through the use of characters considered most stable during evolution of the group and which may have \"grouping\" utility (i.e., reflecting common ancestry). Such characters often include those found in the reproductive parts (spikelets or flowers) and other material ordinarily difficult to examine (such as chemical or DNA characteristics, or internal structure of organs). This can be quite an involved and difficult process because of the need to check and collate many categories of information that are often not easily available for all bamboos at any one time.The bamboo botanist examines as many features as possible by referring to the original reference specimens used when scientific names were first given (according to the International Code for Botanical Nomenclature that taxonomists agree to use). Botanists also study new evidence first-hand, where possible. Their objective is to make a list of bamboos in a particular group (such as a genus), or of a particular region (such as a district or country) using names they interpret to be correct. They might be interested in making improvements to the classification of a group, or simply in compiling an up-to-date account of one or more aspects (cultivation, uses, ecology, etc.) of the bamboos of a certain region and following an available classification.Nevertheless, apart from unfamiliarity and lack of reference material, bamboo identification can sometimes be difficult. This is often caused by not knowing the full characteristics of key parts of a bamboo species, e.g., when there are few specimens known of a species, or poor material or documentation of the main vegetative parts of the plant. Attempts to identify bamboos using older accounts can turn out to be frustrating because they may not always include adequate descriptions of the most accessible parts of a bamboo plant (such as the culm or culm sheath characters). This is because an old scientific account may have named a bamboo species based on its unique spikelets or flowers, and did not have any diagnostic vegetative parts included, but the living bamboo plants most often accessible to us may not be flowering, remaining in a vegetative state for a very long period. This is in fact the case for many countries, unless newer revisions of older works have managed to incorporate missing information. This kind of research usually involves re-collecting a comprehensive set of fresh material (including good flowering and vegetative material) for study against the old, incomplete specimens on which names have been based (see also Fig. 8). Many bamboos of the Indian-Myanmar and Indo-Chinese regions, for example, have names, but it is not a straightforward task to know which names apply to which bamboo plants because of this situation.To obtain a reasonably modern and adequate revision of the bamboos for a developing country, the following are prerequisites: one or more trained botanists who can give time to studying bamboos; modest facilities and funds sufficient for collection, documentation and curation of materials in the home country; recourse to some or all reference specimens that have usually been incorporated in the research holdings kept overseas of past collectors and visiting specialists; and, preferably, collaboration and the support of one or more relevant specialists in the taxonomy of the group(s).Here, we provide two aspects that may help with understanding the process of identification, at least of the commoner bamboos of southeast Asia. The first is a brief consideration of the kinds of characters found useful in recognizing species and genera. The second is a key to identifying the common or especially interesting bamboo genera of the region, using these various features. a bamboo species immediately, except when this is done among a very selected few. More often, a combination or suite of character states is employed in identifying or classifying bamboos.Culm habit. Although many bamboos have comparatively rigid culms that arch only slightly outwards from the clump, some have pronounced arching so a clump that is well developed assumes a kind of \"mushroom\" shape. The culms in some species can be so weak they bend nearly to the ground, whereas in others they are quite flexible or even actually twine.EXAMPLES. Some stiffly erect culm habits are very distinctive, as in Bambusa heterostachya, Chimonobambusa quadrangularis, Thyrsostachys siamensis or Schizostachyum brachycladum (Fig. 40). The culms of some forest and forest-edge bamboos arch over to the ground if not supported by surrounding trees. This is seen in the reasonably big bamboos, S. grande (Fig. 9) and Dendrocalamus pendulus, and the smaller-sized Kinabaluchloa wrayi, Maclurochloa montana, Melocalamus compactiflorus (Fig. 41), Racemobambos setifera, S. terminale, Soejatmia ridleyi and Sphaerobambos hirsuta. It seems that these bamboos have adapted to the forest environment and come to depend on the support of adjacent vegetation. The slender, twining culms of Dinochloa species (Fig. 20) must be one of the most specialized culm habits known among bamboos, making them easily recognizable. This vine-like habit allows the bamboos to behave like some rainforest lianas and ascend to tree crowns where abundant foliage develops. The culms can twine both clockwise and anti-clockwise, not necessarily only in one direction as for some other climbers.Culm form and hollowness. The culm internode is typically cylindrical (e.g., Figs. 19,27,44) but can be angled in exceptional bamboos, or have ridges and grooves that vary its overall form. Normally hollow, the internodes can be obliterated by the culm walls being very thick or when the central hollow space is filled up by tissue. Internodes can be basally swollen.EXAMPLES. The culm base is often squarish in cross section in C. quadrangularis. Chimonobambusa and Phyllostachys culm internodes also have a flared portion bearing a ridge near the bottom of each internode and just above its node. In these genera, the internode also tends to be deeply grooved all along their length on the same side as the branch bud or branches (Fig. 25D). Internodes of the other bamboo genera are not, or only inconspicuously, grooved. Solid culms, or those with only narrow central hollows, are typical of the lower culm portions of many climbing species of Dinochloa, in Schizostachyum caudatum (Fig. 19), some Gigantochloa ligulata and T. siamensis. Internodes with basal swellings give the unusual appearance of a series of inflations along the culm and bamboos with this character, such as B. vulgaris cv. wamin (Fig. 42) or pot-grown B. tuldoides, are sometimes called \"Buddha's Belly Bamboo\". In Dinochloa species, every culm internode has a peculiar slight bulge or swelling at its base, related to the development of bending during growth in these climbing bamboos. Unusually long internodes reaching around a metre or more are typical or common in Kinabaluchloa (Fig. 43), Nastus spp. and S. jaculans.Node characters. The nodes do not show any special characters in most species. Thus, when there are conspicuous thickenings, or presence of roots, thorns or hairs, the appearance may be distinctive.EXAMPLES. Unusual thick, leathery \"girdles\" formed by external thickenings at the culm nodes (joined to the culm sheath base) are characteristic of M. montana and some Schizostachyum species, especially S. grande and S. iraten. A narrow plate-like or shelf-like extension (patella) 43  Culm surface hairiness and wartiness. The culm internode surface in different species may be glabrous (hairless), or may be scantily or densely hairy. These irritant hairs, and also the itch caused by them, are called miang in Malay. The type of hairs and their colour are diagnostic, but may be lost (sloughed away or dropped off) from old culms. It is often safest to inspect both young and old culms when examining this feature. Wartiness is much less familiar as most bamboos have generally smooth culm surfaces (at least under their hair covering, when present), but when (rarely) present, the warts occur as small, rough protrusions or breaks over the culm surface.EXAMPLES. Scattered dark hairs are frequently found on the internodes of many bamboo species (Fig. 45). However, short, appressed, white to palesilvery hairs are found scattered over the internode surface in D. longispathus, G. albopilosa, all species of Schizostachyum (e.g., Fig. 27) and T. siamensis. A thick band of velvety silvery white, appressed hairs occurs just below each culm node in M. montana. But perhaps one of the most easily remembered characters in identification is the thick, complete covering of velvety brown hairs all over the basal internodes of the large-diameter D. asper (Fig. 46). This velvety hair covering does not detach easily and is not normally irritant to the skin. The lower and middle culm internodes of C. quadrangularis are typically rough warty-papillate, with scattered tiny prickly warts, instead of being generally smooth.The culm internodes may also be powdery white-waxy in a number of species (Fig. 47). However, this is often best observed on fresh culms and, as with some hairiness, the character can be lost on very old culms frequently washed by the rain.EXAMPLES. Whereas in many taxa (e.g., B. polymorpha, D. giganteus), the white-waxy bloom is distributed generally over the culm internodes, in Melocanna (Fig. 52) and Schizostachyum the white waxiness is restricted to, or more pronounced at, a zone just below each node. Thus, from afar, the newer culms appear as if there are regularly spaced, pale or white narrow \"bands\" along their length. Waxiness can be used to distinguish closely resembling species. G. scortechinii, one of Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra's most easily recognized bamboos, is intensely waxy on its culm surface, whereas the closely related G. wrayi is not. G. thoii, which is also generally waxy on its culm surface, has likewise been confusable with G. levis, which is not.Aside from the branch complement developing from one bud (e.g., Fig. 44) or many individual buds    the branches do not normally rebranch along their length, but in the other bamboos mentioned, the branches rebranch clearly several times.In D. pendulus, the dominant branch at each node becomes a remarkably long, whiplike branch bearing further leafy branchlets at its nodes (Fig. 50). These long flexible branches often entangle with adjacent trees, deriving some support. In smaller bamboos that effectively clamber over or climb other plants, viz., S. terminale, Dinochloa, Maclurochloa and Soejatmia, the dominant branches often grow as long and thick as the original culm and repeat its development. One record of Dinochloa andamanica having \"culms up to 90 m\" probably refers to a series of such repeated branchings.Less diagnostic in value is the extent of development of \"basal branches\" in a bamboo clump. In B. bambos, B. blumeana, Dendrocalamus hamiltonii (Fig. 51) and D. strictus, basal branches often form a thicket around the base of the old clumps. EXAMPLES. Sheaths of Melocanna baccifera have 1-2 characteristic transverse undulations (forming waves or grooves) across the upper part of the culm sheath (Fig. 52). In Cyrtochloa, Dinochloa, Melocalamus, Neololeba and Soejatmia, the very basal portion of the culm sheath is highly diagnostic because of a narrow zone of minute transverse wrinkles.Culm sheath colour, hairs and wax. Sheath colours can be highly distinctive but best observed on growing shoots and young culms, as they turn brown or fall off in older culms. Some species have culm sheaths that are glabrous (hairless) or variously hairy or waxy.EXAMPLES. The sheaths of B. bambos and B. vulgaris cv. vittata (Fig. 53) are medium green and often with yellow to orange streaks, those of G. scortechinii are often a diagnostic bright orange (Fig. 54), and those of S. brachycladum are a golden yellow-brown. D. pendulus sheaths often grade from green at their base to orange or pink near their apex. Nastus elegantissimus culm sheaths are pale greenish pink. Otherwise, sheaths tend to be generally green when still fresh. Glabrous culm sheaths are seen in B. multiplex, B. tuldoides, Chimonobambusa quadrangularis, Soejatmia ridleyi, sometimes in B. bambos, and frequently in D. strictus. The sheaths have jetblack hairs in B. farinacea and Schizostachyum zollingeri, red-brown hairs in S. brachycladum, dark-brown hairs in B. blumeana, and pale silvery white hairs in D. longispathus, G. albopilosa, G. balui (Fig. 55), Maclurochloa montana and T. siamensis. Some species, like B. farinacea (Fig. 56), D. hirtellus and D. pendulus, have copious amounts of conspicuous white wax as well on the back of the sheaths.Culm sheath blade characters. The position of the culm sheath blade is often diagnostic because it is either stiffly erect or patent (spreading out) to reflexed in many species. Only in a few species is the blade orientation variable at different stages of culm development. Blade shapes and colours can also be helpful in identification. EXAMPLES. The blade is erect in nearly all known Bambusa (Fig. 56) and Neololeba species, some Dinochloa, some Gigantochloa, Melocanna baccifera, some Schizostachyum (Fig. 19), Soejatmia ridleyi and T. siamensis. It is spreading to reflexed in some Dinochloa, many Gigantochloa, some Schizostachyum (Figs. 27,57) and many other bamboos. The blade is broadly triangular to dome-shaped in nearly all species of Bambusa (e.g., Figs. 53,56), in some species of Gigantochloa and some species of Schizostachyum as well, where they are also often somewhat inflated (e.g., S. brachycladum, S. grande, S. zollingeri). Lanceolate blades are found in very many bamboos, as in Dendrocalamus, some Dinochloa spp., some Gigantochloa spp. (Figs. 54,55), Maclurochloa, Phyllostachys, east Java and New Guinea, each auricle is a stiff, erect, narrow lobe resembling a miniature finger or horn. The culm-sheath ligule is a low, subentire rim in many species of Bambusa and some species of Dendrocalamus, but is hairy or ciliate on the margin in S. aciculare, S. brachycladum and T. siamensis. The ligule margin bears fine bristles in Holttumochloa, Kinabaluchloa, Racemobambos (R. setifera), and S. jaculans (Fig. 59); coarse bristles or teeth in D. hirtellus, D. pendulus and a few species of Gigantochloa (Fig. 58); and irregular coarse divisions or clefts in D. asper, G. ligulata, G. thoii, and S. grande. In G. ligulata, the culm sheath ligule can be several centimeters long and very conspicuous! The ligule is hardly developed in some species, such as S. terminale.In general, the foliage leaf blades yield fewer useful characters. In a few cases, size, hairiness and variegation are distinctive, as are leaf auricles (Fig. 61) or ligules (Fig. 62).EXAMPLES. Very narrowly linear leaf blades (often less than 1 cm wide) are typical of Holttumochloa spp. (Fig. 49), Racemobambos spp., T. siamensis and B. multiplex cv. riviereorum. In contrast, leaf blades reaching  truncate, whereas in some other bamboos the blade is more gradually tapered to a wedge-shaped base.Spikelet and pseudospikelet characters. The essential difference between spikelets and pseudospikelets, discussed above (under \"Structure\"), is of value in classification and is a fundamental character of groups of genera. Spikelet structure, as influenced by the length of the rachilla and number of flowers and overall size, provides several consistent characters.EXAMPLES. The pseudospikelet appears big (some several centimeters long) when there are more than 1-2 flowers and rachilla internodes are distinctly elongate, as in Bambusa, Holttumochloa, Kinabaluchloa, and Soejatmia. The rachilla internodes are jointed just below the lemma attachment and the internodes detach easily, so that pseudospikelets easily break apart, in these genera and also in Maclurochloa and Thyrsostachys. There are 2-3-5 or more perfect flowers per spikelet in Bambusa, Gigantochloa, Holttumochloa, and Soejatmia. Only 1-2 perfect flowers per spikelet are found in some species of Dendrocalamus, and in Dinochloa, Kinabaluchloa and Maclurochloa. The number of glumes below the flowers is not constant but is usually just one or two; Maclurochloa, however, has 3-5 glumes below the flowers. Each tuft of pseudospikelets is subtended by a conspicuous, semi-persistent spathelike bract in Melocanna, and secondary and higher-order pseudospikelets are characteristically subtended by a large bract almost as long as the lemma in Kinabaluchloa. A vestigial terminal flower (with only a lemma, or just a lemma and palea, often reduced in size and without other flower parts) in the spikelet is typical of a number of genera but more difficult to ascertain without special instruments, as are other details of the spikelets and flowers.A number of flower details are of importance in classifying species and telling them apart from closely related ones, but these are best learned through more specialized books or papers and by first-hand dissection using the microscope.EXAMPLES. The palea of a bamboo flower typically has two sharp folds (\"2-keeled\" in structure) when it backs onto the rachilla internode below the next flower (as in Bambusa, Schizostachyum and others). The palea may not be keeled or only slightly so when there is just one flower (e.g., Dinochloa) or when it is found in a terminal flower which does not back onto any extension of the spikelet rachilla (e.g., in Dendrocalamus strictus, D. pendulus and allied species). In Sphaerobambos, the palea keels have a narrow extension or \"wing\". The palea apex may be rounded to acute (e.g., Bambusa), bifid (Schizostachyum), deeply cleft (Thyrsostachys), or with two hooked projections (Soejatmia). The number of veins on the back of the palea and on each inflexed edge is sometimes diagnostic of a species.There are typically three lodicules per flower in Schizostachyum and Bambusa, two in Melocanna, or none in Dendrocalamus, Neololeba and a number of species of Gigantochloa. Exceptionally, a variable number have been found, e.g., 3-10 in S. latifolium. Whole subtribes and genera can have three stamens (in a single whorl) (e.g., Chimonobambusa and Phyllostachys) or six stamens (in two whorls of three) (e.g., the native genera in Malaysia) in the flower. In the Indian genus Ochlandra there may be numerous stamens in a flower (and at the same time more than just three lodicules). Transitions between stamens and lodicules are known in S. latifolium, and in K. wrayi the normally free stamens are occasionally found attached to the inner surface of fused lodicules. Stamen filaments are sometimes fused into a tube, as in Gigantochloa (Fig. 31) and some Schizostachyum species. The anther may be yellow or maroon and this is sometimes diagnostic for some species; this is possibly the easiest flower character to note during collection as the anthers are extruded and dangle from mature flowers in the spikelets or pseudospikelets.In many bamboo genera, the style arises from the apex of the ovary, but in Melocanna and Schizostachyum, the ovary apex is extended as a tapering shell around a central strand of tissue thought to represent the true style. The style may be so short that the stigmas appear to arise directly from the ovary (e.g., some species of Bambusa, Holttumochloa and Kinabaluchloa) but typically it is elongate. A single stigma is found in some species of Bambusa, Dendrocalamus and Gigantochloa, but normally three in many species of Bambusa, Nastus, Schizostachyum and Soejatmia.tatements about the character states found in one species or group, as opposed to those in others, are often presented as contrasting pairs (or couplets, each comprising two leads), so that the reader can select which lead is applicable and be guided to the species or group being identified. A series of such statements make up an identification key, and the identification process goes through a series of \"true or false\" decisions.Clearly, a particular identification key is constructed with definite species or groups in mind; hence, if one attempts to use a particular key to identify something not included in the set of entities represented by the key, wrong interpretations may result. It is also possible that an entity may not been catered to in a key because it is simply unknown to the author.Here we attempt a key for identifying the groups and genera of Southeast Asian bamboos that are botanically better known. Remember that some species and groups have yet to be completely documented and many obvious parts, such as shoots and branching, are not well known, so it is difficult to present a \"simplified\" key. 4A. Branches at each mid-culm node all comparatively short and typically not rebranching away from their base. (In some cases, such as Racemobambos, the primary branch remains dormant and develops into a long dominant branch only later, so young culms appear to have clusters of short, simple branches; in other cases, such as Neololeba, new flowering side branches appear, bearing smaller leaves, as the branch enters a flowering phase, but these are not normally present prior to flowering.) 5A. Rhizome system mixed, basically monopodial, bearing culms directly as well as clusters of sympodial rhizomes; the culms well-spaced or in several clusters. Culm nodes prominently swollen. Branches at culm nodes each bearing just 1-2 leaf blades. The last group of genera is difficult to key out with simple, easy-toobserve features mainly because of the closely related Bambusa, Dendrocalamus and Gigantochloa having many species with a large range of characteristics, and inadequate study of (and thus long-standing confusion about) the definition of Dendrocalamus. Botanically, some botanists recognize the genus Sinocalamus and a stricter definition of Dendrocalamus (using the differences given above). Studies to establish these limits will also need to address the status of some related species in the Indo-Malayan area that cannot be placed in one genus or the other with certainty.C C onservation of bamboos, as is the case with many other plants, addresses two groups of species, those of known usefulness and (especially economic) importance, and other species that may be rare or vulnerable to endangerment.It is natural for useful plant species to be maintained or conserved by human communities. Len Muller (1996aMuller ( , 1998b) ) discusses the possible role of selection in maintaining useful bamboo clones. He surmises that, in a place like Java, where a long history of folk agriculture exists, certain clones may have been historically maintained for their usefulness, just as Holttum (1958) had suggested the distribution of cultivated Gigantochloa species may well reflect the ancient migration of peoples.In a number of bamboo species, clumps grow vegetatively for a certain period (even decades) and then flower intensely and gregariously (all together) before dying off, with the seeding producing a new generation. If hybrids between different species of bamboo existed, then in a number of them, seeding may be aberrant and unsuccessful. Furthermore, some of the hybrids, or variants of species, may not flower or die from their limited flowering and so make good cultivation subjects for a sustainable production of shoots or culms, traditionally the most useful items from bamboo (Fig. 63). Thus, where the diversity of bamboo species is great, such as in the case of Gigantochloa spp. in the Myanmar-Thai-Sumatra-Malayan region, hybrid swarms would yield a great number of such potential clones. In a place like Java, where an interesting range of Gigantochloa clones appears to have sustained for long periods without intense flowering and then death, such selection of bamboos from a swarm of hybrids may have taken place. These swarms are perhaps in distant lands from where ancestors of the present people had migrated.Apparent sterility is met with in such cultivated forms as Bambusa vulgaris (no fertile seed known). More extremely, some clones may not even flower for long periods. The horticulturally popular B. glaucophylla, a bushy plant with variegated leaves whose precise origin is not determined, is not known to have flowered; it appears not to be a true species but a cultivar derived from some other species, possibly B. heterostachya (Muller 1999). G. robusta clumps planted in the Bogor Botanical Garden in 1844 during the time of the botanist Hasskarl have remained alive for over 150 years, i.e., they at least did not die from flowering, if any. Muller (1999) has referred to such bamboos as \"ancient enduring clones\", which are preferable for many pragmatic reasons. For example, death following the 1994-95 gregarious flowering of Dendrocalamus asper material raised from a narrow genetic base for large-scale cultivation in Thailand has caused much economic loss (Thammincha, Suksard & Maneekul 1995, Muller 1996b). Apparently, 38,000 hectares of land planted with this bamboo became unproductive and 35,400 farmers lost their livelihood as a result. In contrast, it appears that there is a clone of D. asper in Java, possibly a selected form, that has only flowered diffusely, not intensely, over more than 60 years, so that whole-clump death has not resulted (Leu 1999). We know very little about such variation.Some variation in natural species can be readily observed. One of the most obvious characters that can vary conspicuously is variegation in culms, in the form of pale striping of otherwise wholly green culms. Clumps (representing individuals) with either entirely green or pale-striped culms can be seen within populations of G. ligulata in northern Peninsular Malaysia or G. balui in Peninsular Thailand, for example. Where these have seeded (Fig. 64), some albino seedlings (producing only white leaves) occur among \"normal\" seedlings (with green leaves). Do these albinos represent a portion unable to produce chlorophyll normally and which will die off, and the green seedlings other offspring that will either produce wholly green or palestriped culms? Systematic observations on this have not yet progressed very far. On the Mount Mirinjo farm at Innisfail, Queensland, Muller (1998b) observed the germination of seeds collected from a single parent clump of G. ridleyi (introduced from Bali) that had flowered. Roughly half the seedlings that germinated lacked chlorophyll and perished. This is difficult to interpret as it is, but at least, as a rough guide, collecting or planting both types of material, from such clumps with wholly green or pale-striped culms, would at least have gathered some degree of genetic diversity.A green culms and others with striped culms have distinct flowering times. At Khao Sok National Park a total of 271 clumps observed along a 5-km trail segment included 179 flowering clumps and 55 non-flowering clumps of the green form; all 37 clumps of the striped form were not in flower. At a second locality near Sontphenong village, 78 flowering and 39 non-flowering clumps of the green form were noted, and all four clumps of the striped form were not flowering. In these populations, at least, the striped form was fewer in number than the green form and they seemed to come into flower at different times.In India, Dendrocalamus strictus is a very variable species in many attributes, from overall size to the thickness of the culm wall, and drought resistance characteristics. There, documentation of character variation in this bamboo already exists and continues, aiding the identification of clones suited for particular purposes, but this kind of work is generally little done for other species, with the exception of D. asper (which is important for shoot production) and a few similarly useful species in various countries.The agenda for conservation of useful bamboo species can therefore be thought of as including the following major elements: a) identification and gathering of as many of the useful species as possible (a baseline collection that emphasizes species diversity); b) recognition, gathering and study of distinct clonal material for species desirable for particularly important reasons, such as supporting the selection of high-yielding and sustainable material for cultivation purposes (in relation to an identified product, usually either culms or edible shoots) and the likelihood of the clone surviving in a productive state over as long a period as possible (emphasizing clonal diversity of selected species); c) procurement of hybrid or suspected hybrid material from new sources, and their maintenance and study for the introduction of new, documented material.The conservation of natural species is best done through protection of wild populations (Fig. 65). In some cases, this can only proceed when there is a sufficient knowledge of the species found in a region and their relative commonness or rarity, as well as possible endangerment, if any. Usually, during associated field work for such surveys, it is feasible to collect representative living material for ex situ conservation at a relevant centre, such as a research station or botanic garden.In addition, a pragmatic assessment of both threats to particular wild populations, and to the species in general, as well as appropriate conservation measures, must be made. Highlighting the situation and recommendations to relevant parties and in reports, both technical and popular, often helps raise the level of awareness for conservation.The idea of developing special living bamboo collections, or bambuseta, has not been a widely applied one in Southeast Asia, as traditionally, the preservation of the best clones is left to the (usually village-based) people who use bamboos most, and knowledge of the native bamboo flora is not always satisfactorily developed or easily accessible. As many landscapes are being altered now in the face of development, it is even more important to have the range of clones collected, documented and conserved.Large, ex situ conservation collections can be land-extensive ventures if they aim to be somewhat comprehensive in scope. Both vegetatively propagated material (such as from rhizome offsets) and seed material would be of interest. Even then, there is a limit to the number of plants per species to be included, unless the collection more specifically targets a few species of some recognized importance. Thus, the existence and documentation of both small and larger collections are of importance, and the value of a number of small collections in secure places in each country or region should not be underestimated. An agency such as the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), in pooling together expertise and resources for bamboo conservation, can probably encourage a systematic, organized collection for conservation purposes through its network of parallel or participating organizations.In the Appendix here, we list selected facilities with collections of Southeast Asian bamboo species maintained for long-term research or conservation. amboo specimens are collected as research material or vouchers (representative evidence or records) of the species occurring in a particular locality or region. Because the whole plant can be very large, representative portions are taken as samples. All parts are individually tagged with the same collecting number or code as used for the collector's field notes recording features thought to be distinctive and which will not be retained with the samples, including those that will change with drying during preservative treatment later. Soderstrom & Young (1983) have given a very detailed protocol for such collecting, and here we describe the main features.The parts to be collected as a set representing a particular bamboo plant (note that there can be more than one set, for distribution to various specialists or institutions) include: 1) a portion of the culm or at least one intact internode where feasible (alternatively, a section that includes one node with a short length of the internode at each end); 2) culm shoots with intact well-developed culm sheaths at least 0.5-1 m high (or several culm sheaths in good condition from the mid-culm portion, which may need to be collected from the ground); 3) a mid-culm node that bears a developed branch complement with the branches all trimmed back (as in Fig. 26); 4) one to several smaller branches bearing foliage leaves; and 5) flowering branches with spikelets or pseudospikelets, or fruits in good condition, if any. If not overly bulky, portions of the rhizome system can also be taken as specimens; these should display how culms are connected.The minimal notes to be recorded for the collection would typically include: collector name and number; date; locality; elevation; habitat notes; common name and uses if known; rhizome type (monopodial, sympodial or variations thereof); culm habit (widely spaced or clump-forming, erect or otherwise); culm characters (total length, diameter and length of middle internodes, culm wall thickness, special features such as colour, hairiness, waxiness, etc.); special culm node characters if any; culm sheath characters at the mid-culm region (colour, hairiness, waxiness, blade position; auricle and ligule form, dimensions and their margins, whether bristled or otherwise); form of the branch complement at mid-culm; foliage leaf characters; and spikelet or pseudospikelet characters if known (e.g., colour of the lemma and its marginal hairs, if any; anther number and colour, filaments free or fused, stigma number).Of course, some bamboo clumps are in an entirely vegetative state (without flowering material), and a flowering clump may not be producing young shoots and lack well-preserved culm sheaths altogether. Should some of these parts need to be taken from a different plant, even in the same locality, they should be considered a different collection with different numbering.The parts collected are trimmed or folded down to a standard size that allows them to be pressed between newsprint folders of around 42 cm × 25 cm, and small bundles of these are protected with firm boards, secured tightly and dried thoroughly in a plant-drying oven at around 55°C. They are then suitably mounted (glued and stitched at relevant points) onto standard specimen boards of around the same size, together with a printed or neatly written note sheet containing the collecting information (the specimen label) (see specimen in Fig. 8). Specimen pressing and mounting is done such that the features are displayed maximally, e.g., both upper and lower leaf surfaces, and both sides of the culm sheath. Any photographs of the plant or its parts can be included with the specimen.These mounted specimens are then archived in a cabinet or special room or building, which constitute the herbarium, a systematically curated reference collection of dried, preserved plant specimens. Bulky items, such as the trimmed branch complement of a large bamboo, need not be mounted and can be kept separately in boxes but retaining the same collecting number or herbarium accession number as the mounted specimens. Surplus or small amounts of flowering or fruiting material (spikelets or pseudospikelets), young culm buds, foliage leaf blades and root tips can be directly kept, with a tag, in FAA (90 parts of 50% ethyl alcohol, 5 parts glacial acetic acid, 5 parts formalin) or other preservative solution in suitable containers; these preserve without losing their form too much and can be more easily examined when required or (young spikelets and root tips) used for cytological studies. Duplicate material to be sent to others need not be mounted but kept (together with a copy of the specimen label) between folders or boxes to be separately dealt with. Such specimens are then amenable to study and interpretation by the specialist. Collecting and processing equipment, boards and containers, as well as preservative solutions, can often be obtained from herbaria, usually established in forestry research organizations, botanic gardens or university plant sciences departments, provided a set of the specimens goes to their holdings.This book introduces the bamboos of Southeast Asia, a region well known for its incredible range of bamboo utilization and diversity. The author, a bamboo specialist in Malaysia, discusses the salient aspects of bamboo structure, biology and conservation and provides brief perspectives into the sometimes difficult tasks of bamboo classification and identification."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d7ba38b355f5f6fb74e62d69bf7ce654","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2d710363-ff95-41f5-83ed-00f03c63e9da/retrieve","id":"-744420235"},"keywords":["Abbreviations: IWGSC, The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium","PAV, presence-absence variation Writing -review & editing. Jacqueline Batley: Writing -review & editing. David Edwards: Project administration","Writing -review & editing Bayer, P. E., Petereit, J., Durant, É., Monat, C., Rouard, M., Hu, H., Chapman, B., Li, C., Cheng, S., Batley, J., & Edwards, D"],"sieverID":"1f084c05-8cc8-4d78-9eef-e2185d49781f","content":"Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of humanity's most important staple crops, characterized by a large and complex genome with a high level of gene presenceabsence variation (PAV) between cultivars, hampering genomic approaches for crop improvement. With the growing global population and the increasing impact of climate change on crop yield, there is an urgent need to apply genomic approaches to accelerate wheat breeding. With recent advances in DNA sequencing technology, a growing number of high-quality reference genomes are becoming available, reflecting the genetic content of a diverse range of cultivars. However, information on the presence or absence of genomic regions has been hard to visualize and interrogate because of the size of these genomes and the lack of suitable bioinformatics tools. To address this limitation, we have produced a wheat pangenome graph maintained within an online database to facilitate interrogation and comparison of wheat cultivar genomes. The database allows users to visualize regions of the pangenome to assess PAV between bread wheat genomes.Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most widely grown crops, yet there is a significant challenge to increase yield to meet the projected demands of a growing world population. With predictions of climate-change-related yield losses ranging from 17 to 31% by the middle of the 21st century (Obembe et al., 2021), improved genomics-based breeding approaches are required to produce climate change-ready wheat cultivars. Wheat genomics has made rapid advances in recent years with the first draft genome assembly produced in 2014 (The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium [IWGSC], 2014) based on the shotgun sequencing of isolated chromosome arms (Berkman et al., 2011(Berkman et al., , 2012;;Lai et al., 2015). A first near-complete assembly of the 'Chinese Spring' was produced in 2017 (Zimin et al., 2017) with a final reference genome assembly available in 2018 (IWGSC, 2018). This reference assembly was rapidly followed by assemblies of 15 additional cultivars from global breeding programs (Walkowiak et al., 2020).The increasing availability of reference genome assemblies made it clear that there is significant presence-absence variation (PAV) between individuals (Bayer et al., 2020;Golicz et al., 2016Golicz et al., , 2020;;Hurgobin & Edwards, 2017). This insight has led to the production of pangenomes that reflect the gene content of a species rather than an individual (Bayer et al., 2021;Franco et al., 2020;Golicz et al., 2016;Jensen et al., 2020;Montenegro et al., 2017;Rijzaani et al., 2021;Ruperao et al., 2021;Song et al., 2020;Zhao et al., 2020). Pangenomes are now available for several plant species; the first bread wheat pangenome representing the gene content of 16 bread wheat cultivars was published in 2017 (Montenegro et al., 2017). This wheat pangenome was assembled using an iterative mapping approach, which efficiently identified new gene space and called gene presence or absence between individuals. This kind of pangenome is, however, limited in that the physical location of the new gene space can be difficult to determine with accuracy. With the availability of multiple whole-genome references, this limitation may be addressed through the production of a graph-based pangenome. Graphbased pangenomes have recently become popular thanks to the graph data structure, which can accurately represent the physical locations of genomic and structural variants with minimal reference bias with tools such as vg (Hickey et al., 2020), seqwish (Garrison & Guarracino, 2022), minigraph (Li et al., 2020), and PHG (Jensen et al., 2020) being successfully applied to build variation, sequence, or haplotype graphs.A major limitation of pangenome graphs is that few tools are available to visualize these complex graph structures. Genome visualization tools, such as GBrowse (Donlin, 2009), JBrowse2 (Buels et al., 2016), or Circos (Krzywinski et al., 2009), are designed to display information relative to a linear reference genome, not a graph of several genomes, while graph viewers, such as Bandage (Wick et al., 2015), or pangenome viewers, such as ODGI (Guarracino et al., 2021),• Graph pangenomes represent more genomic variants than reference genomes. • We present a wheat graph pangenome based on 16 public assemblies. • We present Wheat Panache, an online visual representation of this graph. • Wheat Panache lets users search the graph for presence-absence variants. • We also distribute the graph preindexed for Giraffe utilization.focus on visualizing the graph itself but display little other information such as genome annotations.Panache is a recent pangenome visualization tool that can process linearized assembly graphs and display shared regions as a web-based dynamic heatmap (Durant et al., 2021). Panache has so far only been applied to visualize PAV in the banana (Musa acuminata Colla) pangenome (Rijzaani et al., 2021) but has the potential to be expanded to other species even for crop genomes as large as wheat. Here, we present a graph pangenome representing 16 bread wheat cultivars hosted within a public Wheat Panache database with a new web-based browser for visualizing genomic regions across the wheat pangenome along with the graph formatted for min-imap2 (Li, 2018) and Giraffe (Jouni et al., 2021). This tool offers researchers and breeders the ability to assess genome variation between these cultivars, mining the diversity present in this large and complex genome.We used publicly available genome assemblies including 15 high-quality bread wheat genome assemblies (Walkowiak et al., 2020) and the IWGSC v1 Chinese Spring assembly (IWGSC, 2018) to assemble a graph using minigraph v0.14 (Li et al., 2020). To optimize assembly, we used k-mers that appear <100 times (-f.1) for the graph assembly and assembled the graph genome by genome starting with IWGSC v1 followed by alphabetical order of cultivar names and ending with the spelt [Triticum aestivum L. subsp. spelta (L.) Thell.] PI190962 assembly. All assemblies were aligned with the final graph using min-imap2 v2.18 (Li, 2018) and alignments were converted to BED format. The main graph was linearized using gfatools gfa2bed v0.4 with default parameters (https://github.com/lh3/ gfatools/releases) and merged with all minimap2 alignments using bedtools v2.30.0 multiinter (Quinlan & Hall, 2010). The The data was converted to Panache JSON format and a Panache instance was set up to serve the data (Durant et al., 2021). To make the display feasible on a regular workstation, we retained only blocks overlapping with Chinese Spring genes and then merged adjacent blocks if they showed identical PAV behavior across all individuals.We constructed a graph pangenome using 16 high-quality wheat genome assemblies representing the global variation of modern bread wheat cultivars. The assembled graph had a total size of 15.8 Gbp compared with the founder genome assembly sizes of 13.9-14.2 Gbp (Walkowiak et al., 2020).After aligning all genomes back to the graph, these 15.8 Gbp were split up into 2,791,482 segments present in at least one individual. The segments had an average size of 5.6 Mbp (median, 498 bp) ranging from 2 bp to 37.6 Mbp (Figure 1a). Realignment of the 16 genome assemblies to the graph revealed that out of the 2.7 million segments, 542,711 (19%) segments were present in all individuals (total size, 10.2 Gbp (65%) ranging from 2 bp to 4.9 Mbp; average size, 19 Kbp) with the remaining 2,248,771 segments (total size, 5.6 Gbp) being present in a median of eight individuals with an average size of 2 Kbp (Supplemental Figure 1). The 10,437 segments (0.4% of all segments) with a total length of 19.9 Mbp (average length, 1.9 Kbp) were not covered by any genome assembly during the realignment step, probably because these segments were too small or too repetitive.Interestingly, the cultivar with the most unique segments was the reference cultivar Chinese Spring, with 158,503 (7%) of segments with a total size of 140.5 Mbp being only present in Chinese Spring (Figure 1b). These 158,503 segments contain 2,216 genes present only in the Chinese Spring reference assembly. We searched for these genes in the IWGSC functional annotation (IWGSC, 2018). We compared the 2,216 genes present only in Chinese Spring with the IWGSC functional annotation and found genes known to be highly variable such as transposable elements or transposable element candidates (235 genes [10.6%]; P < .05 Chi-squared test) and disease resistance genes carrying an NB-ARC domain (PF00931, 107 [5%]; P < .05 Chi-squared test). These results indicate that these genes have been lost in modern cultivars relative to Chinese Spring.This may be due to the genomic distance between Chinese Spring and the other cultivars, consistent with previous observations (Montenegro et al., 2017), and reflecting Chinese Spring's age (collected around 1900) and its lack of agronomic characters that were selected for in modern cultivars (Sears & Miller, 1985). The distance between the Chinese F I G U R E 2 Wheat Panache screenshot showing an Aegilops ventricosa introgression at the beginning of chromosome 2 in cultivars Stanley, Jagger, Mace, and SY Mattis (Gao et al., 2021;Keilwagen et al., 2022). Black boxes were added to show the region missing in cultivars where the introgression replaced parts of chromosome 2A. The graph assembly started with the IWGSC v1 assembly leading to linearized regions following the same naming scheme as the IWGSC v1.0 assembly (chr1A_part1, chr1A_part2, chr2A_part1, . . . ). CS, 'Chinese Spring'. Shown here is the beginning of the first part of chr2A. Black blocks are gene models. White regions correspond to regions that are present in the graph but contain no genes Spring assembly and the 15 other assemblies is also supported by 1.2 Gbp of the graph in 901,475 segments not being present in Chinese Spring but in at least one other cultivar, reflecting the complex history of introgressions in modern bread wheat (Keilwagen et al., 2022;Walkowiak et al., 2020). We aligned the IWGSC v1 gene annotation for Chinese Spring (IWGSC, 2018) back to the graph by intersecting the linearized graph with gene positions. We found a position in the graph for 110,790 (100%) genes confirming that the graph assembly contains all gene models of the IWGSC assembly.We compared the wheat graph pangenome with the earlier published iterative-mapping-based wheat pangenome (Montenegro et al., 2017); this wheat pangenome contains 51,460 (32%) genes lost in at least one individual and 109,071 (68%) genes present in all individuals. We intersected the graph pangenome with the IWGSC annotation to count which IWGSC genes are lost in at least one of the assemblies. Within the 16 individuals, 47,454 (31%) genes are lost in at least one individual and 104,270 (69%) genes are present in all individuals. Even though our graph pangenome contains different accessions than the Montenegro et al. (2017) pangenome, the wheat graph pangenome gene numbers are remarkably similar, indicating general patterns of gene variation occur-ring in both sets of cultivars relative to the Chinese Spring reference.Using this graph, we built a web-based Panache instance (Durant et al., 2021), allowing users to visualize regions or genes of interest for presence or absence across the chosen wheat cultivars. The webserver is online (http://www. appliedbioinformatics.com.au/wheat_panache).Wheat Panache displays a linear version of the pangenome graph subdivided into blocks based on the presence or absence of the selected individuals. A block is defined to have no internal PAV and to contain at least one gene. Blocks are named based on the pseudomolecule they originated in, and, as we started the assembly with the IWGSC assembly, most blocks (1,890,035 out of 2,791,483 blocks, 67%) are named after their position in the IWGSC assembly.The interface displays the linearized pangenome as a chain of such graph segments with one horizontal track per cultivar (Figure 2). Coordinates are based on the pangenome graph assembly. Genes are represented as black dots above blocks, and hovering over a gene reveals its coordinates within the The Plant Genome assembly and exon structure. Three summary tracks below the cultivar tracks show which blocks are core or variable based on a user-definable threshold, how long the block is, and how often the block is repeated within Panache. Users can zoom into blocks or search for 'hollow areas' (areas of consecutive absence based on a user-defined threshold) using the Hollow Area Finder, which is a convenient way to automatically focus on large PAV areas. Users can sort the cultivars alphanumerically, by gene presence or absence status, or by a phylogeny based on Mash v2.3 (Ondov et al., 2016). The graph assembly displayed in Wheat Panache, including a version preindexed for vg v1.37.0 Giraffe (Jouni et al., 2021) is available online (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6085239) (Bayer et al., 2022), allowing for downstream analyses of the population graph.In summary, we present the first wheat graph pangenome assembly based on 16 cultivars with an online visual representation of the graph within the Panache visualization tool. The graph assembly will be a valuable tool for wheat genomics researchers looking for a more accurate reference assembly. The web platform Panache allows users to interrogate this graph and search for structural variants around regions of interest. We plan to incorporate new wheat genome assemblies into Wheat Panache as they are being released and to update the Wheat Panache instance as new versions of Panache are being released.The graph assembly displayed in Wheat Panache, including a version pre-indexed for vg v1.37.0′s Giraffe (Jouni et al., 2021) is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6085239 (Bayer et al., 2022)."}

main/part_2/0166987092.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5e55aac08d524a09b366c05595436f73","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2b97c01e-c7ff-4564-ad83-5a03e68a38d3/retrieve","id":"-1120345818"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0fe0f6be-842c-4644-86ab-5b356baf53ff","content":"Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) delivers research-based solutions that address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.The Alliance focuses on the nexus of agriculture, nutrition and environment. We work with local, national, and multinational partners across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and with the public and private sectors and civil society. With novel partnerships, the Alliance generates evidence and mainstreams innovations to transform food systems and landscapes so that they sustain the planet, drive prosperity, and nourish people in a climate crisis.The Alliance is part of CGIAR, the world's largest agricultural research and innovation partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources. www.bioversityinternational.org www.ciat.cgiar.org www.cgiar.org Makerere University's vision is to be the leading institution for academic excellence and innovations in Africa. It provides innovative teaching, learning, research and services responsive to National and Global needs. https://www. mak.ac.ug/ International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) ILRI envisions a world where all people have access to enough food and livelihood options to fulfil their potential. ILRI's mission is to improve food and nutritional security and to reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock-ensuring better lives through livestock. https://www.ilri.org/ The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock aims to create a well-nourished, equitable and environmentally healthy world through livestock research for development. For more information, please visit https://livestock.cgiar.orgTraining Manual Silage: A type of fodder made from green foliage crops that have been preserved by acidification achieved through fermentation.Stress: Stress covers the behavioural and biological responses to a wide range of abiotic (non-living) stressors such as social interactions or rough handling, common farm practices (castration) such as dehorning, teeth clipping, improper feeding, and exposure to adverse climatic, exercise, transport conditions, etc. Sow: Adult female pig that has farrowed one or more litters of piglets.Temperature-humidity index (THI): Is an index that combines air temperature and relative humidity in an attempt to determine the perceived equivalent temperature (how hot it feels). The body normally cools itself by perspiration, which evaporates and carries heat away from the body. However, when the relative humidity is high, the evaporation rate is reduced, so heat is removed from the body at a lower rate, causing it to retain more heat than it would in dry air.Temperature-humidity Index (THI) thresholds: Is the THI at which different levels of heat stress are expected.Weaner: A newly weaned pig. This manual looks at the widespread issue of heat stress in pigs being reared in hot climates and presents best practices to help farmers recognize, alleviate or mitigate heat stress situations in pig rearing, with a particular focus on Uganda. This manual is targeted to extension officers and technical staff working to support smallholder pig keepers in Uganda. The objectives of this manual are to:1. Create awareness amongst technical and extension staff working in pig production about climate change and the related heat-stress implications for pigs, and the need to take action.2. Build the capacity of technical and extension staff in pig production on practical skills and techniques to support farmers in taking appropriate actions to reduce heat-stress related suffering of their pigs, improve their pigs' wellbeing and protect their investment. Pig production is an important source of income and food for a large proportion of the population in Uganda. In terms of meat production, it is second to beef (Figure 3). As of 2017, Uganda had approximately 4.2 million pigs (UBOS, 2019). In 2013, the country had the highest per capita consumption of pork in East Africa, estimated at 3.4 kilograms per person per year (FAOSTAT, 2020). In the face of climate change, temperature and humidity are increasing (Section 2), which is worsening heat stress in animals. Heat stress includes a series of conditions whereby the pig's body is under stress from overheating (Section 3). Heat stress reduces growth, reproduction and makes pigs vulnerable to diseases, resulting in potential economic losses.In the USA, annual losses due to heat stress in the livestock industry is estimated at nearly US$1 billion for swine (Key and Sneeringer, 2014). There are various actions that can be taken to reduce heat stress in pigs, and these should be employed (Section 4).Uganda's climate is changing and seasonal mean temperatures have increased over the last 50 years. Average temperatures are projected to increase by 1 to 3 0 C by the 2060s, and 1.4 to 4.9 0 C by the 2090s (McSweeney et al. 2007). The increase in temperature is expected to become more notable over time (KNMI, 2020; Figure 4).Climate change can affect the livestock production systems in many ways, with potential heat stress being one of the major adverse expected impacts (Rojas-Downing., et al., 2017). Climate change will significantly increase humidity, Training Manual magnifying the effects of environmental temperature and thus increasing the likelihood of heat stress being experienced by animals. In addition to heat stress, animals may be exposed to other stress conditions such as under-feeding, lack of water availability or restricted use of water due to changes in climatic conditions. In order to cope with these adverse conditions, pigs develop adaptive survival mechanisms. These adaptive mechanisms may be biological adjustments in their physiology, or they may be behavioral. A better understanding of the behavioral responses of pigs to stressful climatic conditions will enable the farmer to monitor and assess those responses so that they can take immediate steps to identify and minimize the stressful conditions faced by their pigs. They can then keep their animals in a comfort zone by employing better management strategies.The heat-stress risk to pigs, from the combination of higher temperatures and humidity, is likely to increase in future. The maps in Figure 5 show the frequency (percentage of time) of severe heat stress conditions during the historical  and future projected (2071-2100) periods for pigs in Uganda. The redder the district is, the more it is associated with severe heat stress. Districts labeled in blue will be affected with low heat stress level if any. Based on model projections, 96% of all districts will experience severe heat stress for pigs between 2071 and 2100 (Mutua et al., 2020). Various studies conducted over recent years have already documented the occurrence of pig heat-stress in Uganda. In Kitayunjwa Subcounty in Kamuli, heat stress was the major cause of pig death, explaining 34% of all pig deaths (Dione et al., 2014). A study by Zaake (2019) of Ojwina and Barr sub-counties in Lira, found 51.5% of the pigs to be heat stressed at the time of the study.Training ManualHeat stress denotes a series of behavioural and biological responses by a pig after exposure to excessive heat.Responses include reduced feed intake, which has a negative impact on growth and other production parameters.When heat from the sun adds to heat from the body arising from metabolic activities inside the pig, the pig's body temperature can exceed a threshold beyond which the pig is unable to maintain homeothermy (constant body temperature). This situation is referred to as \"heat stress\".Heat stress results from failure of a pig to thermo-regulate within a given environment. Indices that predict physiological comfort of livestock within a given environment have been developed (Buffington et al., 1983). One such index is the temperature-humidity index (THI), which describes the physiological comfort of livestock by integrating air temperature and relative humidity. In addition to humidity, other factors including ventilation and flooring may interact with the ambient temperature to result in the so-called \"effective temperature\", which will determine whether or not the pig enters into a state of stress.Iowa State University has developed a temperature-humidity index that combines the effects of both temperature and relative humidity to classify three heat-stress levels (alert, danger and emergency) for grower-finisher pigs, as shown in Figure 4. While this chart does not directly relate to the pig breeds being reared in Uganda, nor the Ugandan pig production system, it effectively illustrates how combinations of temperature and humidity can be associated with different levels of pig heat stress. This chart shows that the lowest level of heat stress alert starts with 24 and ≥75% relative humidity. In addition, at temperatures above 27 0 C, coupled with any relative humidity, there will be a heat-stress alert, danger or emergency situation. These conditions regularly occur during afternoons in the dry season in Uganda. Heat stress can also occur at temperatures below 27 0 C depending on either the relative humidity (Figure 6) or if the pig is considered to be in a high-risk category (Figure 7). Most animals can avoid entering into the state of heat stress because they have the ability to maintain their body temperature and form an inbuilt cooling system to eliminate internal heat to the outside of the body. They do so by sweating and panting using their lungs. Unfortunately, pigs cannot do the same, because they do not have functioning sweat glands and therefore cannot sweat. They also have relatively small lungs and a thick subcutaneous fat layer that counteracts heat loss through conduction and convection. These physiological limitations make pigs more prone to heat stress.Factors that affect metabolism and environment of the pig influence heat stress (Zaake, 2019). Farmers should be concerned about heat stress for all pigs, but particularly for those that are at a very high risk, as illustrated in Figure 5 and discussed further below. The other factors that influence heat stress are described in detail here:Reproduction phase (lactating and pregnant): Lactating and pregnant pigs tend to suffer high heat stress because of high metabolic function during these two phases of the reproduction cycle.Breed and colour: Whilst the difference in heat tolerance between local and exotic pigs in Uganda has not been explicitly studied, it is likely that the local breed is more heat tolerant. Fully-white pigs, which are typically either cross-or exotic breeds, were reported to have higher heat stress than those that were not fully-white (Zaake, 2019). A review done in the US reported that the new genetic lines of pigs produce nearly 6% to 41% more heat than their counterparts in the early 1980s, due to the increased metabolic activity of the genetically-improved pigs (Brown-Brandl at al., 2011).Size: Bigger pigs are generally more prone to heat stress and the consequent reduction in growth performance is greater than for smaller pigs. A meta-analysis of secondary data from multiple publications by Renaudeau, Gourdine and St-Pierre (2011) reported that average daily gain (ADG) in weight starts decreasing when 75kgpigs were exposed to ambient temperatures of above 23°C, whilst for 50kg-and 25kg-pigs the ADG startedTraining Manual to decrease at temperatures of 25°C and 27°C, respectively. Fatter pigs are associated with higher heat stress because of high metabolism and the thicker sub-cutaneous fat that counteracts heat loss.Management: Pigs kept in a well-designed pigsty, or pigs that can find other sources of shade, are protected from harsh solar radiation. By contrast, pigs kept in sties that are hot, poorly ventiated, overcrowded or that do not have access to shade, are exposed to high solar radiation and high heat load, which greatly increases their risk to heat stress.The six common indicators for heat stress are physiological and include: (i) high rectal temperature, (ii) high skin temperature, (iii) high vaginal temperature, (iv) high tympanic (inner ear) temperature, (v) high respiration rate and (vi) high pulse (heart) rate (see Figure 8). Thresholds for selected heat-stress indicators are shown in Table 1, however, additional research is needed to validate these thresholds.  An infra-red thermometer (Figure 9) measures skin temperature. By restraining the pig and with proper training in the use of a digital thermometer, measurements can be made to find rectal (Figure 10), vaginal and tympanic temperatures. Respiration rate can be measured simply by human observation when the pig is at rest and involves counting the number of breaths for one minute by counting how many times the chest rises. Pulse rate can be measured by counting the number of times the heart beats each minute. Both respiration rate and pulse rate can be measured by using a stethoscope. Measurements of respiratory rate and pulse rate depend much more on the examiner and thus require closer and longer contact with the pigs. These parameters must be measured when the pig is fully comfortable and not struggling, otherwise an erroneous figure will be recorded.A farmer who is familiar with her/his pigs can compare what is normal and what is not normal. Typically, a farmer can observe a heat-stressed pig based on behavioural changes, for example the pig will seek shade (as shown in Figure 11), drink a lot of water, experience reduced feed intake, breathe very fast and sometimes it may start panting.Other effects of heat stress may be evident in production efficiency in terms of weight gain per unit of feed energy, growth rate and reproductive efficiency. Reduced growth: A pig experiencing high temperature (heat stress) consumes little feed each day and gains little weight, therefore growing slowly. A review by Patience et al. (2015) at Iowa State University (USA) reported that heat-stressed pigs will experience feed intake decline by about 1% (growing pigs) and 2% (finishing pigs) for every degree of heat increase. The biological consequences of heat stress (reduced weight gain, lower reproductive performance etc.) are all associated with economic losses.Poor reproduction efficiency: During high-temperature spells, the pig may not even mate because the heat reduces libido in male pigs (boars), and fertility in female pigs (gilts and sows). Even when mating occurs, the female pig (gilt if she has never produced before or sow if she has farrowed) may not conceive. If the female pig conceives while suffering from heat stress, the fetus may grow slowly or not survive. Heat stress reduces the number of piglets produced at one farrowing/birth (litter size), increases the likelihood of still-birth (number of dead piglets at birth) and increases the number of weak piglets (Renaudeau, et al., 2011;Kumar, 2011).The pork from heat-stressed pigs will be of poor quality, including being fatty (high unsaturated to saturated fatty acids ratios), smeary, low protein and with low shelf life due to rapid oxidation (White et al., 2018).Weak immunity and death: Heat stress lowers a pig's immune system resulting in increased susceptibility to disease.When pigs experience heat stress (even for as little as two to six hours), blood is diverted to the skin and results in reduced blood flow in the interior body (gut, stomach, spleen and liver). The intestine's tight junctions are disrupted and permeability increases, which significantly compromises the intestinal defense systems. This makes it easy for harmful (pathogenic) bacteria such as salmonella bacteria and swine dysentery-causing bacteria to invade the body (Pearce, 2011). Hot environments also promote high multiplication of bacteria. Thus, heat stress can create secondary infection if sanitary conditions are poor.If heat stress continues, pigs start to drink excessive amounts of water (increasing loss of electrolytes) and accumulate acids produced within the body (causing a loss of acid/base balance). This may eventually result in diarrhea or death in severe cases. In face of climate change, farmers must adapt their practices to cope with pig heat stress. It is important to note that the farmer should immediately contact the area veterinary practitioner in the event that heat stress persists after initiating the coping strategies, which we list below.To manage heat stress, the pig should have access to a larger quantity of drinking water at all times in order to cool down. As a general rule, you should provide pigs with drinking water equivalent to 10% of their body weight, however, heat-stressed pigs typically drink up to six times more than normal. Wherever appropriate, it is good practice to mix 1kg of feed with 2.5 liters of water as this has a co-benefit of reducing heat stress.Figure 12: Models of optimal pig sheds with grass/hay-thatched roofs, and roof orientation that creates shade to protect against solar radiation (adapted from FAO, 2009) Training Manual A pigsty can be constructed using whatever materials are available to make simple pig-housing structures as illustrated in Figure 12. To prevent heat stress, a pigsty should optimally have a natural grass/papyrus/thatched roof. Incase an iron sheet/metal/tin roof is to be used, there is need to ensure that the pigsty is positioned in a completely shaded area. In addition to strategic positioning, a pigsty should be well designed. Pigs should be reared in a well-ventilated clean pigsty, for example by increasing the roof height, by having walls with aeration spaces/holes/windows or by being open sided to allow the air to circulate around the pig. The pigsty should be constructed with its longest axis in an East-West direction (protected from the afternoon sun; only allow morning and evening sunlight to enter). Shade (preferably tree shade) should be provided to pigs to reduce exposure to solar radiation so it is important to plant trees as shown in Figure 13. Studies show the positive value of supporting pig behavioural mechanisms of swimming/wallowing/self-mudcoating with regard to temperature regulation, because it helps cooling. Pigs should therefore be allowed to cool themselves by wallowing, swimming or bathing in water.For health reasons, farmers should not allow pigs to wallow in swamps, water source points, behind bathrooms and at utensil washing points, as shown in Figure 14. This is because contaminated water causes worm infestation (for example Taenia solium and Askaris Lumbricoides) in pigs, in addition to other diseases. Farmers should construct wallows either by digging out soil or by making a concrete wallow. Figure 15 shows a pig wallowing in a soil/earth wallow. Concrete wallows are better because they offer high water-use efficiency, retaining the water for longer, but dug-out wallows allow pigs to coat themselves with mud. The mud coat dries on the pig's skin forming a protective insulation against solar radiation and has the added benefit of reducing lice on the pig's skin. When water is poured on a pig's body, as shown in Figure 16, it effectively helps the pig to cool down. After pouring water on the animal's skin, heat conveyed to the exterior of the body helps the water to evaporate and, during the process, heat is absorbed directly from the body of the animal and the surrounding air. We therefore recommend pouring water on the pig for 1-2 minutes every 20-30 minutes to allow moisture to evaporate off the pigs' skin before starting the process again. However, farmers should avoid pouring water on an extremely heatstressed pig as a cold shock might seriously harm the animal. An extremely heat-stressed pig should be taken to a shaded area or shade can be brought to wherever the pig is located to allow it to cool down slowly. In the case of extreme heat stress or when the situation does not improve after the coping measures have been implemented, a veterinary doctor should be called. Pigs like lying on the ground. However, during periods of heat stress, even the ground is extremely hot. So, it is important to pour some water on the ground where the pig typically lies. However, this practice is limited in that it requires a concrete floor and a hygienic pigsty, otherwise it may expose the pig to bacteria and increase the pig's risk of disease.The space per pig in a pigsty or pen should be enough to allow the air to flow around each pig to enable it to cool effectively, as shown in Figure 17. Provide enough space in the pen according to the size of the pigs, so that all the pigs can lie down and still access feeders, water troughs and the dunging area without coming into contact with each other. General guidance on the optimum space per pig is provided in Table 2.  Local breeds are more adapted to local climatic conditions than exotic breeds. Currently, farmers increasingly prefer more productive (quick growth, high litter size) breeds. However, there is need to select for breeds that are both productive and less sensitive to heat stress.Local breeds are expected to be acclimatized to local conditions and therefore less affected by heat stress. However local breeds may be less productive. The main purpose of breed improvement is to introduce a positive characteristic into a local breed. For example: by crossbreeding an indigenous sow with an exoticTraining ManualSecond feeding time 5pmboar the offspring is likely to inherit the body shape and good growth rate from the father and the tolerance to environmental stress from the mother. Therefore, it is important to select crossbreeds that have both benefits of high production levels and resistance to heat stress. When exotic breeds are reared, heat stress prevention and mitigation strategies need to be intensified. Figure 18 shows a boar kept for community breeding purposes.Figure18: A boar kept for community breeding purpose at a farm in Lira, Uganda (Credit: CIAT/P. Zaake) Figure 19: Recommended pig feeding times at cooler times of the day to increase feed intake.Typically, heat stress reduces feed intake, which is associated with reduced pig growth. It is important to counteract this by feeding the pig during cool times of the day (early morning and/or late evening). Firstly, it allows the pig to grow well by giving it adequate feed and, secondly, it reduces the risk of heat stress as a result of metabolism. Avoid feeding between 10.00am and 4.00pm (the hottest period of the day). The feed should be given in two equal parts: one half in the morning (9am) and the other half in the evening (5pm), as illustrated in Figure 19.Training ManualThere are several strategies that can be recommended to farmers for improving feeding and maximizing intake during times of heat stress, especially the dry season. During dry season, it is recommended to have a more energy-dense diet to compensate for decreased feed intake under heat stress (Li et al., 2017). When feeding concentrates for heat stress management, a decrease in the level of undigested protein and an increase in the use of more synthetic amino acids based on the ideal protein concept is recommended in order to facilitate production of less metabolic heat (Morales, et al., 2018). Farmers should also grow drought-tolerant varieties of forages (like sweet potato vines, Cratylia argentea, Fleminigia macrophylla, Canavalia brasiliensis, Centrosema brasilianum, Lablab purpureus, Vigna unguiculata), which can withstand the dry conditions associated with periods of heat stress. Other alternatives include diversification and conservation of available feeds and forages. Feeds can be conserved for example as hay (conservation process illustrated in Figure 20) and silage (process illustrated in Figure 21). During the dry season, supply the pigs with feeds that are available throughout the year (such as banana peel and leaf, papaya leaf, brewers' waste, maize bran, cottonseed meal, sunflower meal, sugar cane, oyster shells, limestone, and ground sun-dried fish) as well as those available only during dry season (for example jack fruit and mango) (Carter et al., 2015;Carter et al., 2016). Generally, it is cost effective to feed a commercial diet until the pigs reach 10.9kg and/or 11.9kg in body weight, before shifting to feeding forage-based diets such sweet potato silage (Carter et al., 2017). This training manual provides an overview of the need to act against heat stress in pigs, which is enhanced by increasing temperature and humidity due to climate change.This technical manual can assist in training extension and technical staff in heat stress detection and management in pigs, which is steadily increasing due to higher temperatures and humidity as a consequence of climate change.Technical staff and extension officers can increase awareness and capacity among pig farmers, with a particular focus on best practices for reducing, coping and adapting to heat stress, as summarized in Figure 22. "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2a1542069f1c9fffd895908417211673","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/00a96522-9d38-415a-b8d3-ace989948059/retrieve","id":"-961732122"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"40fd2f68-83ff-4570-8797-e274e537da54","content":"Common bean is an important crop with potential to curb malnutrition in poor Sub-Saharan African populations. Yields of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are, however poor, limited by low soil phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N) and poor biological N 2 -fixation. On-farm experiments were carried out to study the effect of N, P and rhizobia inoculation on common bean yield and yield components during the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 cropping seasons in Eastern Zimbabwe. Experiments were conducted on five farmers' fields located in two agroecologies; three fields were considered to be degraded with soil organic carbon (SOC) < 4 g kg −1 and available P < 6 mg kg −1 , while the two non-degraded sites had SOC > 7 g kg −1 and available P > 15 mg kg −1 . Two common bean varieties (Gloria and NUA45) were tested in a split-plot arranged in randomized complete block design. The main plot factor was the combination of N (0 and 40 kg ha −1 ) and P (0 and 20 kg ha −1 ), and the sub-plot factors were variety (Gloria and NUA 45) and inoculation with Rhizobium tropici strain CIAT899 (+/− inoculum). At planting, both N and P were applied at 20 kg ha −1 , with an additional 20 kg ha −1 N top dressing applied at flowering. Analysis of variance indicated common bean did not respond to rhizobia inoculation (P > 0.05) whilst P significantly increased the number of nodules and active nodules per plant (P < 0.001), and grain yield. Application of 40 kg ha −1 N significantly increased the number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, and grain yields. A significant NP interaction was only observed on grain yield for non-degraded soils. Co-application of N and P in non-degraded sites increased grain yields from 0.27 to 1.48 Mg ha −1 during the first season and from 0.37 to 2.09 Mg ha −1 during the second season. On degraded sites, NP application resulted in uninspiring grain yield gains of 0.09 to 0.19 Mg ha −1 during the first season, and from 0.16 to 0.28 Mg ha −1 in the second season. In general, effects of N or P were not significantly different, suggesting that farmers could invest in either of these nutrients for increased common bean grain yields. Strategically, P investments would be more logical as residual P effects to rotational cereals improve overall cropping system performance. The response of common bean to inoculation in Zimbabwe still needs to be widely investigated for these and other varieties.Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important grain legume throughout the world providing a source of protein, dietary fibre, starch and minerals such as potassium, thiamine, vitamin B6 and folic acid in diets affordable by the poor (Garden-Robinson and McNeal, 2013). Edaphic and environmental factors that constrain bean production in most areas where the crop is grown include nitrogen and phosphorus deficiency, soil acidity (including aluminium and manganese toxicity) and drought (Bationo, 2004;Amede et al., 2004). Due to these factors, current bean yields in Southern Africa average only 0.6 Mg ha −1 compared to attainable yields of > 1.5 Mg ha −1 (Chianu et al., 2011).A hallmark trait of agriculturally-useful legumes is their symbiosis with rhizobia bacteria which fix atmospheric nitrogen (N2) within root nodules and make it available to the host plant (Giller, 2001). N 2fixation is dependent upon factors such as adequate supply of micro and macro nutrients which are needed by both the plant and the rhizobia bacteria (Musandu and Ogendo, 2001). Although common bean has good potential for N 2 fixation, it is reported to have the lowest N2fixation rate among the most widely grown grain legumes (Giller, 1990;Martinez-Romero, 2003). Inoculation of common bean with rhizobia strains has been shown to be beneficial in increasing nodulation thereby enhancing biological nitrogen fixation, but in many cases, effective nodulation is also affected by competition from high populations of competitive but ineffective native rhizobia (Giller, 2001). Plant available P in soils is particularly important for sufficient nodulation and N 2fixation. Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for various metabolic processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, and signal transduction, among others. Phosphorus application for on common bean consistently showed a positive response on yield, shoot dry matter and number of pods (Turuko and Mohammed, 2014;Fageria and Baligar, 2016). Nodule number, weight and volume also increased with the addition of P, indicating more effective N 2 -fixation (Singh et al., 2008;Rifat et al., 2008). Nitrogen fixation in common bean has also been established to be more affected by P deficiency than in other legume crops such as soybean (Fageria and Baligar, 2016), with Gidago et al. (2011) reporting adequate P rates for maximum yield and yield attributes as high as 40 kg ha −1 .While most grain legumes only require 'starter' N to initiate early growth before the N2-fixing symbiosis is established, in Zimbabwe, market-oriented farmers on sandy soils often apply additional topdressing N fertilizer for high yields. In Brazil, Henson and Bliss (1991) noted that there was a positive yield response when N was applied to common bean plants grown on N-poor soils. They recommended application of N during vegetative growth as the best management system. However, large amounts of plant-available N tend to inhibit rates of N2-fixation (Giller, 2001), suggesting that farmers could forfeit the ecological benefits of integrating common bean in their cropping system.In this study, our intention was to build on the existing knowledge from other studies on common bean nutrition. Our objectives were to:(1) investigate the effect of N, P and rhizobia inoculants on productivity of common beans across different soils and in two agro-ecological zones where common bean is typically grown on smallholder farms, and (2) provide an alternative fertilization strategy for common bean in the context of common crop sequences.Five on-farm experiments were implemented in two smallholder farming communities of Domboshawa (17°36´S, 31°10´E) and Murehwa (17°45´S, 31°34´E) in Eastern Zimbabwe, during the 2014/15 and the 2015/2016 cropping seasons. We intended to set up experiments on at least two farms, with soils representative of degraded and non-degraded soil fertility conditions in each of the two farming areas. We therefore initially took soil samples and analysed for SOC content for 20 field sites in each of the farming communities. Soil organic carbon is known to be a robust index for soil health (e.g. Nandwa, 2001). Prospective field sites were grouped into those that had SOC < 4 g kg −1 , and those that had SOC > 7 mg kg −1 . We subsequently used this information to narrow our field selection to the five field sites we used (Table 1).Domboshawa is located in natural agro-ecological region IIa (NR IIa) that receives reliable rainfall averaging 900 mm year −1 , while Murehwa is located in a relatively drier NR IIb, receiving about 750 mm year −1 annually. Rainfall is unimodal, and is received from November to April. Zimbabwe is divided into five natural agro-ecological regions (NR I-V) with NR I having the most favourable conditions, receiving > 1000 mm rainfall while semi-arid NR V receives annual average rainfall of < 500 mm (Vincent and Thomas, 1960). Rain-fed common bean production is mainly confined to NR II, that is further sub-divided into 'a' and 'b' zones for finer targeting of crops that are sensitive to temperature or rainfall amounts. In these areas, farmers generally grow improved common bean varieties as sole crops while local landraces are often intercropped with maize. Farms average about 3 ha, with maize occupying at least 50% of the cropped lands. Other major grain legume crops in the study sites include cowpea and groundnut.Before the cropping season, composite soil samples consisting of five sub-samples were collected from the plough layer (0-20 cm depth) along the fields' diagonal and bulked for each of the five sites. The soil samples were air-dried, and those for total N, available P, extractable bases analysis were passed through 2 mm sieve, while those for SOC analysis were passed through a 0.5 mm sieve. Total SOC was determined by the modified Walkley-Black) (Okalebo et al., 2002), while total N and available P were determined by the micro-Kjeldahl and Olsen methods, respectively (Anderson and Ingram, 1993). Extractable bases (K, Mg and Ca) were extracted using ammonium acetate. Potassium (K) was determined by flame photometry, and Ca and Mg concentrations were determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Soil pH was determined using the 1:10 water method and soil texture was determined using the hydrometer method (Gee and Bauder, 1986).Experimental treatments were designed to explore the interaction of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and rhizobia inoculation (+I) on two common bean varieties (Gloria and NUA45) using site as a random factor. In each field, the experiments were laid out in a split plot arranged in randomized complete block design replicated in three blocks. Main plots were nested within the blocks and sub-plots were nested within the main plots. The main plot treatments were fertilizer management [no fertilizer, N, P or NP], and subplots were randomly assigned to +/-inoculation and variety, resulting in the following treatments: i) Control (no fertilizer or rhizobia added), ii) NP + I [ammonium nitrate (34.5% N) + single super phosphate + inoculation], iii) NP (ammonium nitrate + single super phosphate), iv) N + I (ammonium nitrate + inoculation), v) P + I (single super phosphate + inoculation), vi) N (ammonium nitrate only), vii) P (single super phosphate only), and viii) +I (inoculation only).Two improved varieties, Gloria and NUA 45 that are both Research Laboratory, Marondera) was used to inoculate the bean seed prior to sowing, using a rate of 100 g inoculum per 25 kg of seed as recommended by the manufacturer. Phosphorus was applied at 20 kg ha −1 P at planting, while N was applied in two splits, 20 kg ha −1 at planting plus an additional 20 kg ha −1 N applied at flowering stage, for a total N rate of 40 kg ha −1 . All treatments that had P applied also received 12 kg ha −1 sulphur since single super phosphate also contains 5%. Sulphur is generally deficient on these sandy soils. Land preparation was done using ox-drawn plough and plots were established at 4 m × 4 m size. Planting for the first season was done on the 28 and 29th December 2014 during the 2014/15 cropping season, and on the 1st and 2nd of January 2016 for the 2015/2016 cropping season. Planting was done about 6 weeks after the onset of the rains to prevent physiological maturity from coinciding with the normally high rainfall during February. Common bean was planted using an inter-row spacing of 45 cm and intra-row spacing of 10 cm for a plant population of 222,000 plants ha −1 . Prior laboratory seed germination tests had established a nearly 100% seed viability for both varieties, which was also achieved in the field. The plots were kept weed-free by handhoeing throughout the growing seasons. Cumulative daily rainfall for the two seasons and major agronomic events are shown in Fig. 1.At 6-7 weeks after germination, destructive sampling of plants was done within a 1 m × 1 m quadrat in each plot, excluding the border rows and the net plot. Ten common bean plants were randomly sampled from the uprooted plants, carefully washed in water to remove excess soil. The number of nodules per plant was determined by counting all nodules on each of the 10 plants and computing the average. Number of active nodules was determined by cutting nodules on each of the 10 plants and observing the colour inside the nodule. Active nodules were identified by a pink to reddish internal colour. Fresh weight was then determined by immediately weighing all the uprooted plants using a digital scale. The samples were then oven-dried at 65 0C for 3 days and weighed to determine dry biomass.At physiological maturity, all the plants in 1.8 m × 1.8 m net plots (4 rows × 1.8 m long) were cut at soil level and heaped at the centre of the plot. Random sampling of 10 plants was done and all the pods on each plant were counted and recorded to determine the number of pod per plant. A sub-sample of the pods was used to determine the number of seeds per pod. Later, all pods from the net plot were harvested into perforated harvest bags, sun-dried for 14 days and threshed. The grain was then weighed and grain moisture content determined using a John Deere SW moisture meter. Yields reported here are adjusted to 10% moisture content.The number of nodules and active nodules per plant, number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod were transformed using quantile normalization and subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) using R Version i3863.32. Table 2 shows an example of ANOVA table for grain yield obtained using a split plot model at one site, with different errors for main plots and subplots. The magnitude of the difference in all variables measured from degraded and non-degraded sites was huge; therefore data from these soil fertility domains was analysed separately with site considered as a random factor.All sites had low clay content, ranging from 8-12%,while two sites that had poor SOC content of less than 0.4% were concomitantly acidic (pH < 5.5) and acutely deficient in available P (Table 1). These infertile fields are subsequently referred to as \"degraded' and the remainder of the sites as \"non-degraded\". We evaluated the response of common bean to management separately in the degraded and non-degraded fields due to these distinct differences in soil fertility.There was no significant variety effect; therefore, data presentation is at the crop level throughout the paper. In degraded soils with SOC < 0.4%, none of the tested factors significantly influenced nodulation and pod loading. During the first season, analysis of variance showed significant differences in the number of nodules per plant when 20 kg ha −1 P was added (p = 0.006). The number of nodules per plant increased from three in the control to eight in the P treatment (Table 3). Similar results were observed during the second season where P application significantly increased (p < 0.001) number of nodules per plant from four in the control to nine in the P treatment (Table 3). Phosphorus also significantly (p < 0.001) increased the number of active nodules per plant for both seasons, from two in the control to a maximum of six in the P treatment during Year 1 (Table 3). Co- application of phosphorus and rhizobia (P + I) did not result in significant increases in the number of active nodules during both seasons.Analysis of variance showed that pod numbers were significantly increased by 40 kg ha −1 N in the first season (p = 0.02) and the second season (p = 0.003). Increases in pod number from four in the control to eight in the N only treatment were observed in the first season, and eight to 11 during the second season (Table 4). The number of seeds per pod were significantly (p = 0.03) increased by the addition of N for both seasons. In all cases, N application more than doubled the number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod (Table 4).Common bean dry biomass was significantly increased by application of N, P and NP in both degraded and non-degraded soils, but biomass was a maximum of only 0.17 Mg ha −1 under degraded soils compared 1.2 Mg ha −1 for non-degraded soils (Fig. 2). There was no response to rhizobia inoculation on degraded soils for both years, while only marginal biomass gains were observed on non-degraded soils. In all cases, co-application of N and P did not result in biomass yield differences from the N or P only treatments.Application of N or P equally significantly increased common bean grain yields, but there were generally no benefits of co-application of N and P for both degraded and non-degraded soils (Fig. 3). The exception was during Year 2 when NP application resulted in larger yields under non-degraded soils. Under degraded soils, grain yields without any fertilizer were a paltry 0.27 Mg ha −1 and 0.37 Mg ha −1 , for Years 1 and 2, respectively, and only a maximum of 0.43 Mg ha −1 with NPI application during Year 2. For the non-degraded soils, grain yields increased from 0.27 to 1.77 Mg ha −1 when NPI was applied during Year 1, and from 0.37 to 2.3 Mg ha −1 with NPI application. Inoculation with rhizobia only did not result in significant yield increases although grain increased in PI, NI and NPI treatments. These results indicate that base yields for non-degraded soils are comparable or larger than yields obtained with NP fertilization on degraded soils. Based on the limited nutrient inputs used and liming to ameliorate soil pH, the practical exploitable yields gaps on degraded soils were only 0.13 and 0.28 Mg ha −1 (A 1 and A 2 ), while the potential benefits of fertilizing non-degraded soils were 1.5 and 1.93 Mg ha −1 (B 1 and B 2 ) (Fig. 3). Inoculation with rhizobia only or in combination with N and P did not influence common bean productivity for both varieties.While common bean originated from regions with moderately fertile soils, globally, the cultivation of common bean by smallholder farmers on degraded soils has contributed to poor productivity (Beebe et al., 2012). In many farming communities in Africa, farmers often preferentially allocate cereal crops to more fertile fields on their farms, with legumes relegated to soils with multiple constraints (Zingore et al., 2007). If soils are not severely depleted in nutrients, this strategy may ensure successful production of both cereals and legumes in cases Table 2 ANOVA table for the split plot design used in this study that had fertilizer management (N and P) as main plot, and variety and inoculation as subplots. This example shows ANOVA for grain yield at a non-degraded Chawonza site for Year 1.  Control 1 ± 0.8 a (3) 2 ± 0.8 a (4) 1 ± 0.6 a (2) 3 ± 0.7 a (3) +Inoculation 1 ± 1.0 a (5) 2 ± 1.0 a (5) 1 ± 0.8 a (3) 3 ± 0.9 a (4) +Nitrogen 3 ± 1.4 a (4) 2 ± 1.0 a (4) 3 ± 1.4 a (2) 3 ± 0.9 a (3) +Phosphorus 13 ± 1. where legumes' ecological capabilities are sufficient to overcome the soil infertility hurdle. This is often the case with cowpea that is drought tolerant and adapted to stressful environments where many crops fail to grow well (Abaidoo et al., 2007;Carvalho et al., 2017). However, common bean has little tolerance to low soil fertility (Singh et al., 2003). Allocating common bean to more marginal fields, as is often the case with cowpea, will not produce the same result. In our study, the performance of the two varieties we tested was consistently poor at three sites that had SOC < 0.4% and over two seasons. Application of both N and P did not result in any significant yield gains on these soils, this contrasted sharply with soils that had SOC > 0.7% (Fig. 3). These results strongly suggest multiple soil fertility limitations for common bean production that cannot be addressed by application of only N and P fertilizers that farmers often use in the study sites. Other than the poor SOC and available P contents, the degraded sites were also acidic (Table 1). Non-responsive soils such as these have been described earlier (Vanlauwe et al., 2015). They develop over time because of several factors, including nutrient mining crop production practices and soil erosion. Lack of adequate organic soil amendments that add basic cations and ameliorate soil pH compounds the problem (Mtambanengwe and Mapfumo, 2005), with farmers ultimately abandoning such fields.Inoculating common bean with rhizobia gave no significant increase in nodulation, biomass or grain production (Fig. 3). Rebeschini et al.(2014) also found that inoculation of beans with R. Tropici gave no positive response. Hungria and Vargas (2000) also reported that inoculation with rhizobia in field experiments rarely increases yield of beans. The poor response of common bean to rhizobia inoculation observed in this study could be attributed to failure by the strains used to adapt to the harsh abiotic conditions. In other studies, abundant native and ineffective rhizobia strains in the soils competed with the introduced inoculum to form nodules, while only certain rhizobia strains had the ability to fix N in specific cultivars (Valverde et al., 2003). The rhizobia bacteria is highly sensitive to moisture stress and requires high amount of photosynthate and P. The interaction of these factors and the environment reduces the capability of most common bean cultivars to fix N in the tropics and subtropics (Fageria et al., 2014).Phosphorus fertilization significantly increased nodulation and number of active nodules, but only for non-degraded soils (Table 3). Strong increases of nodulation with P fertilizer have frequently been found when there is little soil P available (Giller et al., 1998;Leidi and Rodríguez-Navarro, 2000;Tang et al., 2001). Phosphorus fertilization improves early root formation facilitating increased nodulation and enhanced common bean productivity. Nitrogen had a significant effect on pod loading, number of seeds per pod, and yields (Table 4; Fig. 3). Da Silva et al. (1993) reported increased common bean grain yields with application of N in N-deficient soils. Top-dressing common bean Table 4 Influence of nitrogen, phosphorus and rhizobia inoculation on number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod in soils with > 0.7% SOC. Mean separation was done using transformed values that are outside parenthesis. Values with different letter(s) are significantly different at 5% probability.with N has also been reported to increase common bean yield (Arf et al., 2011;Argaw and Akuma, 2015). Chidi et al. (2002), however, reported that common bean response to N varies with cultivars and environmental factors.Application of N or P had comparable effects on common bean productivity, with no clear benefits of co-application of these nutrients in most of the cases (Fig. 3). Market-oriented smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe regularly fertilize common bean with N on sandy soils. With a cropping systems improvement objective, we content that it would be prudent to prioritize P fertilization to common bean and benefit from residual P effects for cereal crops grown in sequence (Rurangwa et al., 2017). Generally, P recovery rarely exceeded 10% when single super phosphate was applied to soyabean on sandy soils in Zimbabwe (Zingore et al., 2008).Application of N or P had equal magnitude of increasing common bean grain yields with no significant benefits of adding both elements. This result is important as farmers in the study area regularly invest more in N fertilizers for common bean than in P. With well documented P residual benefits to crops in rotations, direct P fertilization to common bean is expected to improve cropping system performance. This study also established that the improved common bean varieties that are currently on the market did not respond to rhizobia inoculum currently marketed in Zimbabwe. We also confirmed the existence of degraded non-responsive soils. While some 'wonder' legumes such as cowpea can be successfully grown on infertile soils, attempts to grow common bean on such soils results in very low yields. "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d51f6aadc48e4b5ac02761627293be9f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e57e9b85-a06d-4ec2-bfc8-31fbc6b9827b/retrieve","id":"378029000"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"da699f38-68f5-4151-a12a-4be93a1b392c","content":"By 2050, the United Nations projects that 68% of the world population will live in cities (UN DESA 2019). However, with continuous population growth, the number of people living in rural areas of many low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) will continue to rise. Two-thirds of the extreme poor live in rural areas (World Bank 2016), and the livelihoods of two to three billion rural people, often the most food insecure and vulnerable, still depend primarily on small farms (Laborde Debucquet et al. 2020;Woodhill et al. 2020).There are various estimates of the number of small farms in the world, but they all suggest that these farms are numerous. Lowder et al. (2016) used agricultural census data from 167 countries to estimate that, of the total 570 million 1 farms in the world, 475 million have less than 2 hectares (ha), dominating agriculture in most LMICs, where farm sizes continue to fall. Africa south of the Sahara has the highest rural population growth rate globally, and thus the number of small farms is expected to increase more than in other regions. Africa's share of total world rural poverty is also expected to rise from 39.6% in 2015 to 58.1% in 2050 (Thurlow et al. 2019). Transforming Africa's agriculture sector is thus a priority embodied in the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods (AU 2014). However, to meet the Malabo goals and achieve multiple SDGs in all LMICs by 2030, creating an enabling environment where small farms are included in and benefit from rapid growth and transformation of agrifood systems is urgent (Barrett et al. 2020a).Small farms not only contribute to feeding the households that operate them, but also make two broader contributions. First, small farms are important to the overall food security of LMICs. Samberg et al. (2016) noted that farms less than 5 ha are responsible for 53% of the global production of food calories for human consumption. Herrero et al. (2017) reported that, in Africa and South and Southeast Asia, small farms with less than 2 ha produce around 30% of food and make valuable contributions to micronutrient-rich food production. Ricciardi et al. (2018) estimated that farms under 2 ha globally produce 30-34% of the food supply. Nonetheless, small farm households themselves are often unable to afford a nutritious diet.Second, small farms contribute to the sustainability of agrifood systems by maintaining the genetic diversity of crops and livestock and supporting ecosystem services. Small farms have more crop diversity and harbor greater non-crop biodiversity at the farm and landscape scales than do larger farms (Ricciardi et al. 2021). Subsistence-oriented small farmers plant a greater diversity of traditional crops and maintain genetic resources by cultivating land races (Fifanou et al. 2011;McCord et al. 2015). Small fields have more edges than larger fields, creating a heterogeneous landscape and providing habitat for non-crop species (Ouin and Burel 2002). To the extent that small farms have more tree cover than larger farms, they provide aboveand below-ground carbon storage, with global benefits for climate mitigation (Ritchie and Roser 2017). Trees on farms can also improve water infiltration, a hydrological service that benefits other water users in the landscape and downstream (Anache et al. 2019).For small farms to be part of inclusive and sustainable agrifood system transformation, both innovative technology and market institutions are required to support LMICs' diverse agroecological and socioeconomic contexts. Many debates on the future of small farms focus only on farm production, rather than the whole context of farm household livelihoods, which include off-farm activities, or the agrifood system on which farms depend for buying inputs and selling outputs (Reardon et al. 2019;Giller et al. 2020). The future of small farms should instead be assessed using a holistic livelihoods and agrifood system lens.2 Who Will be Small Farmers in the Future?More than 410 million farms are very small, with less than 1 ha of land, and another 70 million are between 1 and 2 ha (Lowder et al. 2016). However, discussions of farm size often ignore land quality considerations (Eastwood et al. 2010). For example, a 5 ha farm in a rainfed zone with poor quality soil may support less production than a 1 ha farm in an irrigated zone with good soil. Thus, mere farm size ranges tell us nothing about differences in agroecological land quality, or about the socioeconomic contexts in which they operate, such as market and infrastructural conditions (FAO 2014;Graeub et al. 2016). While the product mix of small farms varies depending on this context, many are diversifying that mix, driven by urbanization, consumers' dietary preferences, technology, infrastructure development, and rural-urban links. Moreover, households that operate small farms tend to have diversified income sources, including non-farm activities, and that diversification is expected to increase over time, although at different rates among different sets of small farmers (Davis et al. 2017).Despite the strong heterogeneity across small farms, they can be categorized in ways that make our analysis more tractable. Following Vorley (2002) and Hazell (2018), and based primarily on Hazell (2020), we classify small farmers in LMICs into three groups.Commercial small farmers run their farms as businesses. While commercial agriculture is an important source of income for them, many also undertake rural non-farm employment (RNFE). Most commercial small farmers do not specialize in high-value crops or livestock, as many also produce food crops. Their product and activity mix are conditioned by agroecological circumstances, urban market proximity, rural infrastructure, and the agro-processors, logistics, exporters, and wholesale enterprise investment and density in their area. Climate change and economic transformation also condition their farm businesses and will create new challenges and opportunities even over the next 10 years. Some commercial small farms will continue to focus on today's traditional export crops-for example, cocoa in Ghana, cotton in Mali, and coffee in Ethiopia-while increasing numbers will turn to products that cater to the diversifying diets of burgeoning domestic urban markets, including fruits, vegetables, fish, poultry, edible oils, milk, and feed grains such as soy. Non-cereal products are especially labor-demanding and often offer little or no economies of scale, allowing small farms to be competitive. Over time, we expect to see greater specialization in the farming of high-value products and a movement away from the combination of cash and staple crop farming, similar to what one sees among specialized vegetable farmers in the Shandong province of China (Huang et al. 2010) or specialized poultry and pig farmers near Yangon in Myanmar (Belton et al. 2020).Small farmers in transition often depend heavily on RNFE while also maintaining small plots for home food consumption, plus some semicommercialized food or non-food products. They tend to buy a substantial share of their food. These farmers are in zones where favorable non-farm opportunities exist locally or in near-by towns. With demand growing for high-value farm products in cities, some transitional farmers will commercialize their small farms while continuing their RNFE. However, others may exit agriculture or maintain just small food plots because access to food markets in their area is uncertain, or because the RNFE labor market itself is uncertain or limited (de Janvry and Sadoulet 2006). Thus, many small farmers in this group will continue to have one foot in farming and one foot in RNFE as their major sources of income, and their number is expected to remain large over the next decade.Subsistence-oriented small farmers are marginalized for a variety of reasons, many of which will be difficult to change in the next decade, such as ethnic discrimination, sickness, age, or their farm's location in a remote area with limited agricultural potential. We expect the number of these small farms to fall with economic transformation, but it is unrealistic to expect most will disappear in the next decade. These farm households tend to undertake some RNFE or farm wage labor (usually the domain of the poorest farmers or the landless), but many of the same factors that constrain their farming also prevent them from undertaking remunerative RNFE to become transition farmers. These subsistence-oriented farmers are typically net buyers of staple foods. While market and technology development will help them improve farm productivity, the above constraints limit even this. They need social protection policies and other public support beyond what the agrifood system and rural labor market can provide.RNFE is an important income source for rural small farm households and, on average, occupies more of their working time than farming in many African and Asian LMICs (Dolislager et al. 2020). For commercialized and transition small farmers, who are often in places with favorable agroclimates and adequate infrastructure, RNFE helps fund farming by providing cash or collateral for credit to buy inputs and diversifying income risk from agriculture. This can incentivize experimentation with new production technologies and riskier products like vegetables, poultry, and fish that have higher values. Increases in local RNFE activities often lead to rising rural wages (Lanjouw and Murgai 2009), which can induce the adoption of mechanization (Wang et al. 2016). However, in less favorable agroclimatic zones or hinterland areas, where most subsistence-oriented small farmers are located, RNFE is used mainly to fund food purchases and competes with, but also compensates for, unprofitable farming (Davis et al. 2009).The future of small farms will depend on technological and institutional innovations that are now appearing in some developed and developing country contexts or have yet to be developed (Herrero et al. 2020(Herrero et al. , 2021)). Technological innovations have the potential to benefit small farms in LMICs, but ensuring their appropriateness remains a challenge. High transaction costs, lack of collective action, and failures in production and marketing coordination all introduce risks for small farms and are commonly seen as barriers to adopting modern technologies and participating in value chains. Many subsistence farmers may be too remote from markets or lack the capacity to benefit from new technologies. Transition farmers can be disincentivized from adopting new technologies if they are labor-intensive and compete with their non-farm employment. Even for commercial small farmers, the adoption of new technologies requires enabling conditions from output and input supply chains.Small farmers' adoption of new technologies and the cultivation of higher-value products thus requires that they have the proper profit incentives and market access, which are, in large part, a function of the broad market institutional context. Effective market institutions require improved infrastructure that facilitates input supply chains upstream from the farm and connects small farmers to cities downstream from their farms. Downstream from the farm, output market conditions affect small farmers' prices, risk, and transaction costs. Critical factors include urban market size and proximity; the density and quality of roads between farmers and markets; and the midstream (wholesalers, logistics firms, and processors) and downstream (retailers) accessibility to and conduct toward small farmers. Developments in these enabling conditions in LMICs are themselves local innovations, which often rapidly improve market access for small farmers, as in the examples from Ethiopia, Nigeria, and India discussed below. Changes in these conditions will continue to be the main factor affecting small farmers' technology adoption, income growth, and inclusion in agrifood system transformation in the next decade. Some emerging technologies, such as e-commerce linked to digitalization, are also promising innovative market institutions that will impact the relationship between small farmers and markets in the next few decades.The urban market now makes up the largest share of national food consumption in LMICs (Reardon et al. 2019(Reardon et al. , 2021a, b), b). Proximity to urban markets in primary and secondary cities and small towns asserts a strong influence on market conditions and the technology and product choices of small farmers (Vandercasteelen et al. 2018). Highways and rural roads connecting farmers to urban markets likewise are critical to small farmers' access to these booming urban markets, suggesting the importance of public investment in rural infrastructure (Stifel et al. 2016).The combination of growing urban markets, expanding road connections, and the development of wholesale markets provides favorable conditions for the spontaneous formation of clusters of wholesalers, cold storages, processors, and logistics enterprises that provide crucial services enabling small farmers to access urban markets. The emergence of clusters of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) offering potato cold storages in Bihar, India, is a good example; these have allowed small farmers to store their produce and wait for much higher prices in the off-season (Minten et al. 2014). In Ethiopia, the spontaneous development of a teff value chain connecting rural areas to Addis Ababa has been facilitated by the growth of midstream private SMEs utilizing public infrastructure and improvements in wholesale markets. Midstream market development also spurred the adoption of new technology and a new teff variety by small farmers (Minten et al. 2016). Many thousands of small chicken farmers in Nigeria, mostly women, benefited from the rapid growth of long north-south maize supply chains, operated by thousands of SME wholesalers and feed millers, to market their chicken and eggs in towns and secondary cities (Liverpool-Tasie et al. 2017). Spontaneous clusters of traders and input suppliers are also seen in aquaculture districts of Bangladesh and are a key determinant of small farmer technology adoption (Hu et al. 2019).The relations of supply chain firms with small farmers are a critical determinant of small farmers' participation in markets for high-value agricultural products. These firms not only buy from small farms, but also often provide resources and services that small farmers need to participate in the market, from inputs and credit allowing them to adopt new technologies that meet market requirements to services such as aggregating, sorting, and packing. This facilitation is offered through formal contract-farming arrangements with large processors and retailers (Swinnen and Kuijpers 2019), as well as through informal relationships with SME wholesalers and processors that reduce the price risk for small farms (Liverpool-Tasie et al. 2020). Relative to the \"traditional\" arrangement of spot markets, this facilitation can be broadly seen as a market institution innovation, especially in the poorer LMICs. We expect these relationships to expand over the next decade as the double-pronged food system revolution continues its rapid course, with both the proliferation of SMEs and of modern large-scale firms underpinning the growth of rural-urban supply chains (Reardon et al. 2019).Despite still being in its infancy in LMICs, e-commerce (marketing online) and e-procurement (buying intermediate inputs online) are emerging rapidly. The diffusion of Internet access, mobile phones, and computers helps the spread of \"delivery intermediaries,\" whose expansion has been particularly rapid during the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers tried to avoid in-person shopping (Reardon and Swinnen 2020). COVID-19 accelerated e-commerce growth, for example, from 30% to 70% per year in India, 10% to 20% in China, and 20% to 50% in Nigeria (Vardhan 2020). The benefits of e-commerce for small farmers will depend on three conditions. First, widespread access to e-commerce will depend on mobile phone rates and Internet costs, which currently are particularly high in Africa (Torero 2019). Second, while e-commerce can make it easier for small farmers to sell to urban markets, their costs and product quality must still be competitive with medium and large farmers and importers. Small farmers linked to e-commerce may be better able to compete in more proximate niche markets. Third, e-commerce as digitalization per se only informs a buyer of a seller and a seller of a buyer; the final transaction still relies on delivery intermediaries, roads, and logistics, and the same high transaction costs that have constrained the development of non-digitized supply chains will constrain large numbers of small farmers from participating in e-commerce.Encouragingly, there are interesting examples of e-commerce that are inclusive of small farmers with potential to spread in the future, depending on the three conditions noted above. In Indonesia, the Rumah Sayur Group, a vegetable farm co-op with 2500 farmers, sold to supermarkets, wet markets, and food-service businesses in Jakarta before the pandemic. During the pandemic, they turned to Alibaba's Lazada to sell directly to consumers and retailers. In Malaysia, Lazada connected SME flower suppliers to online florists to gain a new customer base when COVID-19-related restrictions interrupted the traditional marketing system. In Africa, Facebook and other e-platforms have helped small farmers sell directly to consumers. Examples include Koop direk von boer (buy directly from the farmer), a Facebook group of farmers created in May 2020 that attracted 46,000 members across South Africa in just 2 weeks (Masiwa 2020).Upstream from the farm, market conditions affect the input prices, risk, and transaction costs facing small farmers, just as the output market affects the profitability of adopting new farm technologies and the transition to higher-value products, as do input supply chains. Importantly, input market conditions are parallel to output market conditions, affected by many of the same policies and public investments discussed in the context of downstream factors. Again, the development of these conditions is a local innovation. Changes in these conditions can rapidly improve input market access for small farmers, spurring technology change at the farm level.Some particularly interesting market institutions and technological innovations in agricultural service markets appear to be helping small farmers. We characterize them as the development of mobile \"outsource\" services. They include a wide range of services available to farmers on a fee basis. For an individual small farmer, the outlays of capital for machines required would not be affordable given their small scale and the large lump-sum fixed cost for machinery. In the early 1880s, such on-demand operational services emerged in the United States and European countries, where large farmers dominated. Small farmer demand for mechanization and agricultural operational services has risen in recent years in LMICs, first in Asia and Latin America and, more recently, in Africa. These services, perhaps especially as they are facilitated by communications innovations, appear to provide important support to small farming technological change. In general, mobile technology can help service supply and extension reach widely dispersed small farmers (Van Campenhout et al. 2021). For example, mobile mechanization services for land preparation, harvesting, and threshing are hired by many small farmers in South and Southeast Asia (Zhang et al. 2017;Paudel et al. 2019;Diao et al. 2020;Yagura 2020;Belton et al. 2021). They are increasingly accessible for small farmers in Africa (Berhane et al. 2016;Kahan et al. 2018;Takeshima 2018;Diao et al. 2020;Cabral 2021). Mobile phones are widely used for connecting service providers and small farmers, and new digital platforms appear to have potential to reach groups of small farmers. Examples include Hello Tractor in Nigeria, TroTro Tractor in Ghana, Rent to Own in Zambia, and EM3, Trringo, and farMart in India (Birner et al. 2021;Daum et al. 2020).Moreover, other SME services are emerging in various agricultural operations traditionally carried out by small farmers themselves, such as for rice seeding and transplanting in southern China (Li et al. 2015;Gong et al. 2012); spraying, pruning, land preparation, harvesting, and marketing for mango farmers in Indonesia (Qanti et al. 2017); seed propagation, digging wells and ponds, spraying, and loading trucks for vegetable farmers in Ethiopia (Minten et al. 2020); and bee pollination services for vegetable and fruit growers throughout China (Altay News 2019). Many of these services have replaced labor-intensive farming activities with machines or specialized techniques, helping small farmers who lack the cash to invest in machines, the skills to use machines and other techniques, or simply the time to spend farming because of non-farm employment. These services also introduce small farmers to new technologies that they otherwise might have been unaware of had they not been provided as part of a package of services by SMEs, such as flower hormone use to extend the harvesting of mangoes in Indonesia (Qanti et al. 2017).New institutional innovations can also benefit small farmers through contributions to sustainable land stewardship. Market-based institutions that incentivize farmers to maintain ecosystem services and biodiversity have been used for over a decade. With payments for ecosystem services (PES), the private or public sector pays land stewards (farmers) to protect watersheds, sequester carbon through tree planting, or conserve biodiversity (Milder et al. 2010). In the case of carbon, for example, the institution providing payments receives offset credits in the voluntary or regulatory carbon market. Another scheme involves certification of agricultural commodities, such as coffee, palm oil, and cacao. Certification schemes are generally implemented by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and rely on consumers paying a premium for production practices that conform to sustainable social and environmental goals (Brandi et al. 2015;Giovannucci and Ponte 2005;Ruysschaert and Salles 2014). Smallholder farmers have benefited from these schemes only to a modest degree due to high transaction costs, low demand for ecosystem services, and poor access to information.For carbon markets, smallholder participation is impeded by the required technical capacity, as well as the costs of monitoring and complex requirements for reporting (Brandi et al. 2015;Wells et al. 2017). With certification schemes, evidence indicates mixed success for environmental, social, and economic goals. The supply of certified products is generally larger than the demand (DeFries et al. 2017). Insecure land tenure, lack of credit, and insufficient profit to warrant the required investments hamper smallholder participation in both PES and certification schemes.With rising recognition of the importance of land stewardship for climate mitigation and conservation of biodiversity, institutions to incentivize protection of ecosystem services and sustainability goals are likely to become more widespread in the coming decades. Carbon markets, which, to date, have largely been unable to stem land clearing and greenhouse-gas-emitting practices on agricultural land, will likely be a more significant driver of farmers' decisions in the future. In combination with digital technology, institutional innovations have the potential to reduce transaction costs and enable participation by smallholders to maximize their ability to benefit from these schemes, both to boost their incomes and to contribute to society's sustainability goals. Technology and training for smallholders to access and interpret satellite data, monitor their lands, and fulfill reporting requirements are needed if they are to benefit from a growing demand for ecosystem services.This chapter has sought to imagine the future of small farms and identify promising innovations in agrifood systems to improve their prospects over the next 10 years.Because small farms are heterogeneous and dynamic, we classed them into three groups: commercial, in-transition, and subsistence-oriented small farms. Each has its Commercial small farmers are the vanguard of agrifood transformation and best prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that growing market demand for agrifood products will create. They tend to be located in more favorable agroclimates, nearer to cities and towns, and in areas better served by infrastructure and midstream SMEs that facilitate input and output markets. These same market opportunities will incentivize some transitional farmers to invest in their small farms and become commercial farmers. To enhance small commercial and transitional farmers' competitiveness to pursue these market opportunities, the following government policies and public investments are important: own set of challenges and opportunities, and policies and investments that prioritize inclusive small farm transformation must be differentiated to best target the needs of each group as agrifood systems evolve (Hazell 2020).The Future of Small Farms: Innovations for Inclusive Transformation• Increase investments in infrastructure, including rural roads connecting to secondary and tertiary cities, that can create economies of agglomeration and a critical mass of proximate services such as wholesale, logistics, and farm input provision for small farmers in the surrounding rural areas, thus reducing transaction costs. Often, mobile agricultural services are clustered in towns and fan out to serve small farms in a hub-and-spoke model (Zhang et al. 2017). Many new digital technologies applied in e-commerce, information provision, and farm service businesses also depend on good infrastructure. While initial investments need to come from governments, they will serve to lure in private investments from both large companies and SMEs. • Promote education and training programs that target rural youths to develop the skills and knowledge required to support modern agriculture and marketing. These skills are necessary for both farm management and off-farm jobs in logistics, machinery maintenance/repair services, and broader RNFE. • Facilitate co-operatives and farmer groups that can collectively pursue emerging opportunities in urban markets and modern farm technology. Local networks can also be strengthened through village-level innovation platforms to link smallholder farmers with extension and research, such as China's Science and Technology Backyard (Barrett et al. 2020a). These show promise for drawing together the wisdom of (small farmer) crowds and the knowledge of cutting-edge scientific researchers to accelerate discovery, adaptation, and diffusion (Nelson 2019;van Etten et al. 2019). • Support SMEs upstream and downstream from farms by reducing unnecessary regulations and informal restrictions that often discourage SME development.SMEs are more accessible to small farmers than larger enterprises, and small farmers value the mix of services that SMEs provide (Liverpool-Tasie et al. 2020).RNFE is the main economic activity of transitional farmers and is increasingly the main source of income for most small farmers. RNFE provides small farmers with cash, both to purchase food and for farm investments to raise productivity, expand commercial activities, and produce higher-value products. RNFE is also important for some marginalized farmers, helping them reduce their reliance on risky, low-yield agriculture. For these farmers, RNFE development will directly improve food security in a way that marginally boosting agricultural production cannot (ZEF and FAO 2020;Frelat et al. 2016). Public investments and policies that facilitate growth of the agrifood system must pay more attention to creating enabling environments for the development of RNFE and strengthening the synergy between agriculture and RNFE in rural areas. In this regard, the following actions are promising for governments to actively promote agriculture-RNFE synergies for rural development and agrifood system transformation:• Pursue policies that have broad effects across economic activities in rural areas and do not limit interventions to farming alone. RNFE and farming are complementary, and both are needed for inclusive growth in rural areas.• Develop an enabling environment-including basic infrastructure, property rights, and legal systems with enforcement mechanisms-favorable to rural businesses that encourage and facilitate inclusive RNFE (Haggblade et al. 2007). • Identify engines of regional growth through consultation with the private sector and farmers, and conduct supply chain diagnostics for prioritization of strategic interventions (Haggblade et al. 2007). Emphasize differentiated strategies and flexible institutional coalitions for implementation appropriate to diverse rural areas.This chapter emphasizes the importance of market institution innovations for achieving higher agricultural productivity and quality through small farm technology adoption and improving incomes for small farm households through participation in both farm and non-farm economic activities. In addition to the policy recommendations discussed above, some additional policy recommendations are listed here, although adapting and differentiating policies over heterogeneous contexts across LMICs requires context-specific research and consultation with stakeholders (Barrett et al. ): 2020b• Support new technologies that reduce risk and are attractive to small farmers when viewed in a holistic way, taking into account farmers' resource environment, as well as their livelihood strategies. Do not automatically assume laborintensive innovations are appropriate for small farmers, who often want to reduce, not intensify, their farm labor use (Hazell 2020). For transitional farmers who depend on RNFE, proposing new labor-intensive farming activities could fail if they cut into the time farmers have available for RNFE livelihood strategies (Moser and Barrett 2006). • Ensure that agricultural interventions to support sustainable farming practices are economically viable for farmers and provide direct economic benefits. In the longer term, farmers are most strongly motivated to adopt and maintain sustainable practices when they perceive positive outcomes of these practices for their farm or the environment (Piñeiro et al. 2020). • Scale up productive social protection programs for subsistence farmers in hinterland areas who face barriers in accessing markets and other economic opportunities. Safety net programs ease liquidity constraints and increase tolerance for risk among small farms and, when integrated with measures to increase agricultural productivity, have the potential to make significant progress toward the eradication of hunger (Wouterse et al. 2020)."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6ea941467d9455944dc31a9ea64a0f9d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/275fa465-e0dc-4138-a12c-21d686f1f258/retrieve","id":"-1351754281"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5c48b45c-7df0-4f5d-affb-0007723394c4","content":"Micronutrient deficiencies, especially vitamin A deficiency (VAD) remain a public health problem in Uganda. Where about 4 in every 10 children under 5 years (38%) have VAD, this is way above the WHO threshold point of 15%. Main reason being consumption of monotonous diets mainly based on starchy staples with little or no animal source foods and yellow/orange/green vegetables and fruits. Bioversity International is a CGIAR Research Centre. CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. www.cgiar.org Bioversity Headquarters Via dei Tre Denari 472/a 00054 Maccarese, (Fiumicino)• It is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children • It increases the risk of disease and death from severe infections • Among women, it contributes to higher mortality and poor pregnancy outcomes "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"890b4325b5eb2183ac3102a194b19950","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d8f5fec4-c141-4dd4-9376-a9af93f33d22/retrieve","id":"-882421861"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2a33b200-ce7e-441e-8fef-6d6dde9b7e29","content":"Many wild edible species are disappearing due to environmental pressures or to neglect as populations worldwide move away from traditional food systems towards more simplified and energy-rich diets and become averse to consuming traditional dishes that are perceived as \"food for the poor\", only to be drawn upon in times of food scarcity.To reverse this trend and unlock the full potential of wild edibles, the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project (BFN Project) -is working with the governments of Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey -four countries that are biodiversity hotspots -to promote the conservation and sustainable use of nutritionally-relevant local biodiversity. The project, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility and the CGIAR (Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres) Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) research programme, managed by Bioversity International and implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, is doing so by exploring the nutritional properties of a select number of species in each country and building on pre-existing work to identify a list of traditional and/or neglected foods with nutrition potential.One such example is the Plants for the Future initiative in Brazil, which has identified hundreds of species of economic potential that require further characterization. Termites, roots and tubers, leafy vegetables, mushrooms and wild fruits are some of the current contenders from the four countries that, if suitable, will form the basis for an approach to improve dietary diversity: one that puts traditional, culturally-acceptable and nutritious food at its core.Within each country, national BFN project coordination units are in the process of setting up collaborations that bring together the agriculture, health, environment and education sectors in each country in order to integrate information and knowledge of nutrient-dense foods generated by the project into national policies, programmes and strategies addressing food security and nutrition. There is already fresh recognition in the four countries, as well as worldwide (1), of the important role of traditional and wild foods in food and nutrition security policies and programmes. Only last month Brazil launched the Agroecology and Organic Production Plan with a US$ 8.8 million budget in support of initiatives relating to the access, use, conservation and management of natural resources, with special emphasis on local biodiversity, including plans for the nutritional characterization of 40 indigenous species of Brazilian flora of current or potential economic value and the role that these may play in promoting food security and healthy diets.The remaining three countries are not far behind with national biodiversity action plans that recognize the importance of conserving wild foods and indigenous varieties and promoting food security strategies that revitalize regional food production and distribution in areas where price and production volatility, and hunger and malnutrition are rife.As well as promoting exchange, sharing and learning among countries, evidence generated by the project on the importance of wild edibles will be shared with a much wider international arena for greater impact. Given the current level of interest in food and nutrition security and in bridging agriculture and conservation, the BFN Project can play a pivotal role in moving forward the agenda of wild biodiversity. To this end it will link with the Cross-cutting initiative on biodiversity for food and nutrition of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which aims to promote the sustainable use of biodiversity in programmes contributing to food security and improved human nutrition as well as contribute to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the CBD, particularly Target 13 on the conservation of both wild and cultivated biodiversity. Important information on the nutritional value of wild foods can be found in a recent open access article in Sustainability (2).The Project also informs the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture which is tasked with drafting the First Report on the State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture due to be published in 2017. The report will provide a full description of the state of conservation and use of the world's biodiversity for food and agriculture and of its current and potential contributions to human well-being. Since many of these species occur inside and outside protected areas, collaboration will also be Improve understanding of the risks associated with over-harvesting wild edibles and changes to access as they become more valuable.Raise awareness of the benefits and promote the consumption of nutritious wild ediblesPromote better integration of information on nutritious wild edibles into strategies addressing food security, nutrition, conservation and land-use planning and policy.Teresa Borelli is the Programme Specialist of the UNEP/FAO/GEF Biodiversity for Food and Diversity at Bioversity International: t.borelli@cgiar.org Danny Hunter is the Global Project Coordinator of the UNEP/FAO/GEF Biodiversity for Food and Diversity at Bioversity International: d.hunter@cgiar.org"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c2843dffbbe36ae5ff7107574196c6c8","source":"gardian_index","url":"http://awsassets.wwfindia.org/downloads/exec_summary_mail_1_28.pdf","id":"-2109023387"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e1c27caf-ab3d-4752-9f5f-91c0fc8c89a1","content":"Working on this initiative has been a challenge. We would not have reached this stage without the inputs and support of several individuals and institutions that have helped us in our endeavour.Dr. Tom Le Quesne at WWF-UK provided us the initial conceptual framework, taught us about E-Flows and got us started on the journey. We also express our gratitude to Mr. Ravindra Kumar from SWaRA, Government of Uttar Pradesh, who has been a constant source of encouragement and for his valuable contribution to this work. We would like to thank Mr. Paritosh Tyagi, Former Chairman of Central Pollution Control Board, who has been associated with the Living Ganga Programme since its inception and shared his rich knowledge on the subject, and Dr. Savita Patwardhan from Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune for providing us with much needed climate data.Ecosystem integrity as well as the goods and services offered by the rivers in India are getting adversely affected by the changes in quantity, quality and abstractions for agriculture, domestic, industrial and energy use are leaving many rivers running dry, while others are becoming severely polluted.The mighty river Ganga is no exception. During its over 2,525 km journey from Gangotri to Ganga Sagar, there are complex, nested sets of challenges that threaten the very existence of this river revered by millions of Indians. In the upper Himalayan proposed hydropower projects. From the time the river enters the plains, abstractions for agriculture, urban and industrial uses leave the river lean and polluted. As the pollution added on to the lean rivers, the pollution load in the river has gone up. Climate change is adding another set of complexities to the problems of the Ganga and to the hundreds of millions of people who depend on the basin. These complexities prompted WWF-India to initiate its Living Ganga Programme (LGP) in 2008 to develop a comprehensive framework for sustainable management of water and energy in the Ganga basin in face of climate change. For the LGP, one of the need to sustain its functions (social, cultural and ecological). World over, there is rising dying rivers. Environmental Flows (E-Flows) are increasingly recognised as a key to the maintenance of the ecological integrity of the rivers, their associated ecosystems, and the goods and services provided by them.The underlying principle that drove the work on E-Flows under the LGP is that, E-Flows are multidimensional and their assessment is both a social and technical process, with social choice at core as it depends on what the society wants a river to do for them -to support culture and spirituality, promote livelihoods or re-generate biodiversity or all the above functions and more.It is this realisation that prompted WWF to bring together civil society groups, ecologists, engineers, and sociologists) and Government departments to sit together, deliberate and develop a methodology for assessment of E-Flows. This report presents a summary of the process adopted, methodology adapted for the assessment of E-Flows for upper Ganga basin and the preliminary results from this exercise.Environmental Flows are maintenance of the ecological integrity of rivers, their associated ecosystems and the goods and services provided by them. Environmental Flows are increasingly recognised as a vital contributor to the continuing provision of environmental goods and services upon which peoples' lives and livelihood depend. can be altered from its natural state, for the purpose of water resource development and management, while maintaining the integrity of the river ecosystem and accepted levels of intervention within the ecosystem has provided the impetus for an accelerated development of Environmental Flows Assessments (EFA).Various challenges that rivers face reinforce the necessity to consider implementing Environmental Flows (E-Flows) for improving overall river health; especially at this juncture, when water withdrawal and usage has reached a stage where many rivers are completely over-allocated. At present, in addition to the pure engineering approach, a more holistic approach for water resources management is required. This approach of managing water usage and withdrawal. It advocates the development of effective water allocation mechanisms that manage the use of scarce resources. It also calls for the assessment and maintenance of E-Flows.In a nutshell, E-Flows are required for -1. Maintaining river regimes 2. Making it possible for the river to purify itself 3. Maintaining aquatic biodiversity 4. Recharging groundwater 5. Supporting livelihoods 6. Maintaining sediment movement 7. Preventing saline intrusion in estuarine and delta areas 8. Providing recreation of people E-Flows aim to provide the balance between the use and protection of natural water resources for people. The assessment of E-Flows aims to identify the required quantity, people, animals and plants downstream can continue to survive by utilizing the river's resources. E-Flows ensure that water resources are used equitably and sustainably.Photo Credit: Anil CherukupalliThe Himalayas are the origin and source of major Indian rivers, including the Ganga and the Brahmaputra. The Ganga drains a basin of extraordinary variety in fauna, social and cultural life.The Ganga has been a cradle of human civilization -millions depend on this great river for physical and spiritual sustenance. People have immense faith in the healing and regeneration powers of the Ganga. It is unarguably the most sacred river in India and is deeply revered by the people of this country. The river plays a vital role in Hindu religious ceremonies and rituals.The Bhagirathi is the source stream of the Ganga. It emanates from the Gangotri Glacier at Gaumukh at an elevation of 3,892 m. Many small streams comprise the headwaters of the Ganga. Important among these are the Alaknanda, Dhauliganga, Pindar, Mandakini and Bhilangana. At Devprayag, where the Alaknanda joins the Bhagirathi, the river acquires the name Ganga. It traverses a course of 2525 km beforeThe Ganga Basin is a part of the composite Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin draining 1,086,000 km² in China, Nepal, India and Bangladesh, about 79% area of the Ganga basin is in India. It is the largest river basin in the country, constituting 26% of the country's land mass and supporting about 43% of its population (448.3 million as per the 2001 census).The Ganga basin in India includes eleven states: Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Delhi. Rainfall and melt water from snow and glaciers are the main sources of water in the river Ganga. Surface water resources of the Ganga (its long cubic meters (BCM).The average population density in the Ganga basin is 520 persons per square km compared to 312 for the entire country (2001 census). Major cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Kanpur, Lucknow, Agra, Meerut, Varanasi and Allahabad are situated in the basin, and these have large and growing populations. Between 1991 and 2001, the urban population of India has increased by 32%, and this trend is likely to continue. This escalates the pressure on already over-allocated natural resources, including rivers. Further, the rising standards of living and exponential growth of industrialization and urbanization have exposed water resources in general and rivers in particular, to various forms of degradation.On the other hand, the vast irrigation demand, especially in the state of Uttar Pradesh is met by the major canal systems off the river Ganga at various points, namely -Bhimgoda (Upper Ganga Canal), Bijnour (Madhya Ganga Canal) and Narora (Lower sector in the state of Uttar Pradesh. In fact the sectoral water allocation, like other states in India, is highest for irrigation in the state of Uttar Pradesh, i.e. about 96%. However, the state government appears to be determined to reduce this mammoth allocation to 79% by 2050.The Imperial Gazetteer of India allows itself a little poetic license while describing the Ganga:\"There is not a river in the world which hasThe wealth of India has been concentrated on the shade of trees whose roots have been Meyer, William Stevenson, Sir, 1860-1922, et al. Imperial gazetteer of India. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908-1931 Within WWF India's Living Ganga Programme, a key objective was to develop and promote an approach for securing Climate Change scenarios.A global review of current and numerous E-Flows assessment methodologies indicates that they can be differentiated into hydrological, hydraulic rating, habitat simulation and holistic methodologies. An investigation of the different methodologies concluded that the holistic methodologies are most suitable for the Ganga, aspects but also socio-economic and environmental aspects.Of the different holistic methodologies, the working group (or the specialist team) decided to use the Building Block Methodology (BBM) for the assessment of E-Flows disciplinary methodology that can be applied for differing levels of information and data availability. It allows the user to focus on key issues of local importance, for instance -in the case of River Ganga -the spiritual and cultural aspects which are of immense importance. The BBM was found to be the most appropriate process for large river basins with multiple users and interests. As with other assessment methodologies, it is based on the principle that some water can be used from rivers without unacceptably degrading them. The BBM is based on the following steps: condition of the river well as water quality metrics and sediment transport, to identify water depths, velocities, river widths and substrate types that will provide the required habitats water quality, sociology) 3. Flexible -can be tailored to suit local conditions as required, for instance -in this case the cultural and spiritual aspects were integrated 4. Most frequently used holistic methodology around the world 5. Rigorous and well documented, with an explicit user manual With a view to integrate international expertise in the assessment of E-Flows for river Ganga, WWF-India partnered with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and UNESCO-IHE. Initially, WWF-India and IWMI conducted a scoping study on \"E-Flows and Climate Change Impacts in the Ganga River Basin\". The purpose of this study was to set the context and objectives, establish the baseline and decide on the scope for a larger programme.Subsequently, another study on \"The Analysis of Stretches of the River Ganga from Gangotri to Kanpur for Homogeneous Zoning\" was conducted. The purpose of the study was to analyze this section of the river to establish homogeneous zones. Within most sensitive zones with respect to biodiversity. To capture the activities in the near vicinity of the river, a buffer of 50 km was considered on both sides of the stretch of Ganga River, in addition to the main stem of the river.  Following this, an Objectives Setting Workshop was organized to understand and to develop a methodology which would be feasible for the assessment of E-Flows and designation of Ecological Management Classes (EMC) for different stretches of the Ganga.Six classes of river condition or health, A to F, are recognized, these are designated as the Present Ecological State (PES). From these the overall objective conditions, to be sustainable, and are therefore excluded as potential objectives): The outcome of this workshop was about the methodology to be adopted for the study:1. Hydrology of the upper Ganga 2. Fluvial geomorphology and hydraulic modeling of the upper Ganga 4. Cultural and livelihood objectives 5. Establishing the habitat preferences of selected aquatic vertebrates in the selected stretch 6. Analysis of water quality and pollution Following the completion of the studies, a Methodology Workshop was organized during which Terms of Reference for various sub-tasks were discussed, drafted, After this workshop, partnerships with Working Groups and specialists were formalised (the experts were assigned with the sub-tasks mentioned above). With a Kaudiyala Zone I: Gangotri to Rishikesh Site: Kaudiyala Kachla Ghat Zone III: Narora to Farrukhabad Site: Kachla Ghat Bithoor Zone IV: Kannauj to Kanpur Site: Bithoor biodiversity, water quality and ecological and social conditions) were adequate to serve as a template for the environmental objectives for the downstream zones. For more than a year, all the Working Groups were engaged in baseline data collection, sampling and livelihood aspects also undertook surveying and sampling at places other then on cultural and spiritual aspects, interviews and surveys were also conducted during festive occasions in holy towns such as Haridwar and Rishikesh. These towns understanding of cultural and spiritual requirements from the river. Document. It consisted of present and desired conditions of the River Ganga as per the requirements of each component.Prior to this workshop, the hydrology group prepared a report on 'Hydrology of the Upper Ganga'. This report explained the in detail the hydrology of the river and formed Photo Credit: left -Nitin Kaushal/WWF-India; centre & right -Amrit Pal Singh the basis for working groups to develop their recommendations in regard to E-Flows as required by their respective component. This report is crucial for the whole process and to illustrate this, an excerpt of this report is given below: \"The focus of the present study has been on the Upper Ganga -the upper main branch of the River. The Upper Ganges Basin (UGB) was delineated by using the 90 m SRTM digital elevation map with Kanpur barrage as the outlet point. The total area of the UGB is 87,787 km 2 . The elevation in the UGB ranges from 7500 m at upper mountain region to 100 m in the lower plains. Some mountain peaks in the headwater reaches are permanently covered with snow. Annual average rainfall in the UGB is in the range of 550-2500 mm. A major part of the rains is due to the south-western monsoon from July to October. The main river channel is highly regulated with dams, barrages and corresponding canal systems. The two main dams are Tehri and Ramganga. There of the Bhimgoda barrage with a head discharge of 190 m 3 /s, and presently, the gross command area is about 2 million hectare (ha). The Madhya Ganga canal provides annual irrigation to 178,000 ha. Similarly, the Lower Ganga canal comprises a weir across the Ganga at Narora and irrigates 0.5 million ha.In this study, a catchment scale distributed hydrological model was used (Soil-Water infrastructure projects (Dams, Barrages and Reservoirs) in the Upper Ganges Basin in India. The purpose of this exercise was to: 1. understand the Upper Ganges basin in more \"natural\" conditions requirements in four sites along the main channel.\" average, the present annual water volume reduced by 19%, 18% and 25% in EF sites Narora, Kachla Ghat and Bithoor/Kanpur respectively. A primary objective of the E-Flows Setting workshop was to use the information collected in the past year by various expert groups, to recommend dry season, wet socio-cultural aspects of the river. the specialists for each site (Kaudiyala, Kachla and Bithoor) and for each season for maintenance and drought years. Rated hydraulic cross-sections at each site provided group came up with recommended width, depth and velocity from their perspective, unavailability of historical and present discharge data in the public domain.and sites, the working groups made vital comments 4 which are summarized below.and sediment on the lower steps of the ghats will not be washed away. Consequently, the river will no longer be accessible for bathing/worship. However, the people are willing to accept extreme conditions in a drought year to some extent, since they believe that the quantity of water rituals is minimal. To quote one of the pilgrims, \"the water should be enough to cover a cow's hooves, even this will do. But ideally the water should be up to the waist.\" spiritual aspects are not based on a functional demand. It is more of a subjective or emotional need based on a perception of what a mighty goddess-river ought to be like. One comment was that \"boulders in the middle of the river should not be visible from the ghats.\" If the bed is visible, then it means that the river has shrunk to an unacceptable level which is not the mighty river of their imagination.It was cautioned that, in general the present dry season level of water at Kachla Ghat is at the threshold of concern, with the following consequences:1. Cremation rites incomplete -dipping corpse, disposal of remains 2. Bathing not possible as water is above knee depth only in a few isolated pools 3. Washing away of ritual offerings is not possible The recommended the productivity of cucurbit farms is in decline, and this forces people to abandon a livelihood that is a part of the aesthetic heritage of the river.At Bithoor, the local community expects that the temple of Brahma (at Bithoor ghat) be inundated in the monsoon -seeing this inundation as a washing of Brahma's feet. While this might not occur throughout the monsoon, it does need to occur at least once a year, as an expected and welcome event of the year for the local people.It was concluded by this group that the long term Ecological Management Class (EMC) for all three zones should aim to be 'A'. This is with reference to the unique spiritual importance of the river, it being an essential part of the history and culture of the required to ensure satisfactory ritual worship. An EMC of 'B' would be an acceptable goal for the zones in the short term.It was considered that, longitudinal connectivity 5 and lateral connectivity 6 of the river it was further pointed out that, lateral connectivity is crucial for the maintenance of ecological systems. Apart from this, the planform 7 and cross-sectional morphology govern the habitat suitability at a reach-scale. In general, the complexity of channel discourage stable ecological conditions. Floods are often seen as destructive, but are essential for the overall health of the as well as ecological functioning of the river will collapse. Sediment and nutrient maintain the longitudinal and lateral connectivity.hampered and there will be adverse impacts on nutrient supply and habitat condition, as well as the channel shape and depth in the long term.Trout, Otter, Dolphin, Gharial ecosystem remains intact. transport and to some extent cultural activities, in the long run they will enhance the It has been found that, there has been shift in livelihood activities during droughts, mainly in riverbed farming.For Kaudiyala, it was reported that water quality at present is in Class -A, as per Best quality is therefore not presently a critical issue at this site.At Kachla the present status is 'A' with respect to pH and DO; 'B/C' with respect to BOD and 'C/D' with respect to MPN (Most Probable Number of faecal coliforms). There is substantial pollution from sewage and non-point sources. It was concluded that, the recommended E-Flows are expected to improve the Water Quality, but that this should more effectively be achieved by upgrading sewage treatment, and by restricting the discharge of untreated sewage; as the group concluded that, dilution cannot be the solution to pollution.The state of the river at Kanpur from the water quality perspective is the key concern. The river in this stretch receives considerable pollution from two tributaries, the Kali as 'C/D' due to high BOD, low DO and high TC. The water quality in this zone should be improved to Class 'B'.Photo Credit: left -Amrit Pal Singh; right -Nitin Kaushal/WWF-India As noted earlier, the Maintenance Flows are for \"normal\" years, not very wet or very dry, when one would expect all the ecological functions and processes full, sediment transport etc) to be working properly. For this river, it has been estimated that, the Maintenance Flows would be equaled or exceeded during 70 years out not breed that year). So, for a long-term E-Flows, the water volume required would be at maintenance recommendations or higher for 70% of the time, and between drought and maintenance for 30% of the time.(a) to maintain the longitudinal connectivity, and (b) to maintain occasional lateral the understanding of the preferred habitats of selected species and cultural/spiritual requirements wherever important.Results: Zone 1 Gangotri -Rishikesh, Site -Kaudiyala;Maintenance Flows 8 are also plotted in as 72% of the natural Mean Annual Runoff 9 (MAR) whereas the Drought Flows were is depicted as monthly pattern in the graph. also needed for maximum productivity vis-à-vis instream and riparian biodiversity.Mahsheer and the endangered Otters need to be maintained 8 through longitudinal connectivity. On the other hand, the same biodiversity group spawning grounds for larger number of Mahsheer than in a drought year, leading to high recruitment rates needed to restore dwindling numbers. The same will also be On the other hand, from the livelihoods perspective, the Ganga river resources, in the upper stretch region, provide livelihoods, meet cultural needs (holy dip, immersion of ashes, etc.) and support recreational tourism (beach camping and water rafting).The proposed E-Flows sustain the cultural values and recreational tourism in the a ban on the activities of water rafting. Similarly, the inundation of Ghats hampers the activities of cultural tourism. The prevalence of drought (lean E-Flows) conditions too has its impact on livelihoods such as beach camping.  includes coverage and passage for the critically endangered species and for reviving the also facilitate foraging for Dolphins, Gharial and Turtles to become available and to enhance recruitment rates.Livelihood activities are largely similar to the middle zone, and the motivation for the All the Expert Groups assessed the information available at each of the sites, inThe assessment was based on a scale of 5 (= absolute certainty) to 1 (= very uncertain) but with some uncertainties). The major uncertainties centered on the lack of The surveyed cross-sections, which provide the data for the hydraulic model which reduced by further calibration of cross sections. of E-Flows for a river in India. Previous EF assessments for India rivers by IWMI, were primarily based on the use of hydrological information and were largely desktop. E-Flow assessment in this study was done by integrating multiple disciplines including ecology, geomorphology, water quality, social/cultural and livelihood aspects. This was aimed at providing a holistic assessment of environmental objectives and and partnership constituted to carry out the EFA was critical. The working groups (specialists) made use of existing and historical information and databases, and different knowledge sets and perspectives which helped shape up the holistic approach to EFA. The BBM proved to be a robust, easy to use and adaptable methodology for the working groups unfamiliar with E-Flows.Without detracting from the effective and useful outcomes of the EFA, it is important to acknowledge some short-comings which can hopefully be learned from and improved in future Indian initiatives in E-Flows, and in taking forward the sustainable management of the river Ganga: of the biodiversity, livelihood and spiritual/cultural groups to link their habitat different biotic communities, could have improved the recommendations of the biodiversity group. of sensitive species needs to be studied in detail. capacity to conduct further EFA for Ganga and other rivers in India.Despite these constraints, the project has adapted and pilot tested in the Upper Ganga"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"078c347bd3e8f078ebeadefa2242170b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/95d695e4-b560-4a6e-82de-e93a5bec7c8e/content","id":"-1855743052"},"keywords":["Gender","Interdisciplinarity","Small-scale fisheries","Social-ecological resilience"],"sieverID":"52a1f4db-9ddb-44b8-82ec-8fb9b9021ff7","content":"The demand for gender analysis is now increasingly orthodox in natural resource programming, including that for small-scale fisheries. Whilst the analysis of social-ecological resilience has made valuable contributions to integrating social dimensions into research and policy-making on natural resource management, it has so far demonstrated limited success in effectively integrating considerations of gender equity. This paper reviews the challenges in, and opportunities for, bringing a gender analysis together with social-ecological resilience analysis in the context of small-scale fisheries research in developing countries. We conclude that rather than searching for a single unifying framework for gender and resilience analysis, it will be more effective to pursue a plural solution in which closer engagement is fostered between analysis of gender and social-ecological resilience whilst preserving the strengths of each approach. This approach can make an important contribution to developing a better evidence base for small-scale fisheries management and policy.The purpose of this paper is to analyse the challenges involved in bringing gender analysis together with socialecological resilience analysis and, in doing so, to provide ways forward that will enable a meaningful account of gendered social relations in relation to social-ecological dynamics. The paper is based primarily upon a review of literature attending to both gender and small-scale fisheries in developing countries, but has also included other gender studies concerned with other ecological systems, natural resource management, adaptation and climate change. Our selection of references is informed by our critical judgement and our intention to illustrate significant directions in thinking. We also draw on our experience of working together to build capacity in gender research within WorldFish and the Aquatic Agricultural Systems Collaborative Research Program of the CGIAR from 2013 to 2015.Whilst there are a plethora of terms and approaches connected with social-ecological resilience, our conceptual focus is on approaches to research that are based on the same set of fundamental concerns and logics about the capacity of interlinked social and environmental systems to adapt to environmental changes at various levels. For clarity, we refer to these system-orientated perspectives hereafter as 'social-ecological resilience analysis'. 1 Our approach to gender analysis is strongly embedded within critical social theory (Jackson and Pearson 1998;Kabeer 2000;Jackson 2006). We acknowledge that the challenges and opportunities identified are not necessarily exclusive to gender analysis but are often central to doing 'good' qualitative social science.We begin by introducing the analysis of social-ecological resilience and examine the ways in which gender has been integrated into social-ecological resilience analysis 1 There are other forms of resilience analysis that are not systems based and these are not the focus of our enquiry. Nor are we focusing here on 'social resilience' which is usually employed to describe social dimensions at the level of the individual, household or community, without consideration of impacts on ecological or natural resource systems (for further commentary on social resilience see, for example, Marshall et al. 2007).to date. We move on to review literature on qualitative gender analysis in small-scale fisheries and discuss what it has had to say about social-ecological resilience. In the section, ''Re-invigorating the encounter between gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis'', we suggest that the way forward lies in a closer engagement between plural analyses of gender and social-ecological resilience. We argue that for gender analysis to effectively enrich social-ecological resilience research it needs to be theoretically and methodologically rigorous. We conclude that fostering a richer conversation between gender research and social-ecological resilience research has the potential to generate a stronger evidence base for policies that facilitate adaptive strategies that are gender equitable and pro-poor.Social-ecological resilience is understood as the capacity for inter-related ecological and social systems to absorb or adapt to shocks or stressors without changing state (Walker et al. 2004). The concept was initially developed from resilience thinking that originated from the field of ecology. The recognition that ecosystems are complex, uncertain and dynamic (Holling 1973) changed the objective of ecosystem management from stability to building ecological resilience in order to deal with uncertainty and to adapt to changes. Human activities (e.g. fishing and aquaculture) were considered to be significant elements that affect ecological resilience, and therefore understanding social contexts became increasingly important for maintaining ecological resilience. In the late 1990s, the importance of understanding the interdependent relationships between ecological systems and social systems was accepted (Berkes and Folke 1998) and this laid the groundwork for opening up a new research agenda around social-ecological resilience (see Folke 2006 for a detailed account).Social-ecological resilience thinking is a form of 'systems thinking' (Walker and Salt 2012: 11). It considers ecological systems and social systems as integrated analytical units, referred to as coupled social and ecological systems (SESs) (Berkes 1996, Berkes andFolke 1998), which are nested within powerful reciprocal feedbacks that operate across multiple scales (Gunderson and Holling 2002). It considers that human actions influence and are influenced by ecological systems, moving forward from looking narrowly at ecological production systems to greater recognition of the need to support local management institutions and local resource users to adapt to changes (Berkes et al. 2003). This paradigm shift helps find context-specific policy options for establishing flexible resource management approaches as alternatives to a universal management policy (Hughes et al. 2005). This idea is useful for fisheries and aquaculture policies in developing countries that need to consider the consequences of policy changes for the poor who depend heavily on natural resources.In the 2000s, social-ecological resilience thinking evolved from a focus on adaptability to include some focus on transformability (Walker et al. 2004). Transformability refers to 'the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic or social (including political) conditions make the existing system untenable' (Walker et al. 2004: 3). This broader conceptualization has increased the dynamic nature of social-ecological resilience thinking in terms of the degree of change and kinds of outcome considered, including radical actions for future social-ecological well-being (Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013, p. 9). In this respect, transformation can also potentially be a progressive deliberate change that challenges existing power relations, shifting to pro-poor and more gender equitable systems. Whilst social-ecological resilience thinking has increasingly been used in this broader sense, social-ecological resilience researchers point out that efforts to bring together social and ecological analysis are very much in their infancy (Folke 2006, p. 264) and that a number of clear challenges have emerged (Stone-Jovicich 2015).At the root of these challenges is that processes of social change or transformation are essentially different from those of ecological systems. In particular, this has manifested itself in difficulties for social-ecological resilience analysis in engaging with the inherent, complex, dynamic and sometimes conflictual power relationships that exist in society. This includes challenges in addressing the ways in which different groups of resource users are affected by shocks and adapt to change differently, and how individual agency and power relations mediate stasis or changes in the systems (e.g. Davidson 2010). Whilst there are increasingly sophisticated efforts to integrate social diversity and social power into social-ecological resilience research, ''resilience thinking's view of the 'social' is overridden by ecological understandings of system characteristics and dynamics'' (Stone-Jovicich 2015, p. 25). Recognizing this, some critical social researchers have sought to develop the potential of social-ecological resilience analysis as a malleable cross-disciplinary approach (see Brown 2014), to positively address its capacity to analyse social dynamics (see Table 1).Some social-ecological resilience research has begun to engage increasingly strongly with individual concerns around attitudes and psychologies, including people's values, interests and perceptions of risk and well-being. This has helped social-ecological resilience research and adaptation research (de la Torre-Castro 2006;Brown and Westaway 2011;Coulthard et al. 2011;Coulthard 2012) unpack why people's responses to change may not always appear rational in relation to the concerns of economics or ecology. In fisheries, for example, fishers rarely leave fisheries even when they recognize reduced fish catches and income; some cases, this is because fishing is central to their life satisfaction (Coulthard 2012). Further variables that have been identified as influencing people's adaptive strategies include social ties, trust, identity, perceptions, aspirations and satisfaction (Armitage et al. 2012). These subjective and relational variables are very useful in understanding people's decisions associated with potential trade-offs at intra-personal level, but do not explore negotiation processes and trade-offs at the interpersonal level (between individuals). De la Torre-Castro and Lindstrom (2010) investigate the complex interactions and conflicts that can arise when 'slow-moving' normative and cultural-cognition values are at odds with 'fast-moving' regulatory changes in Chwaka Bay, Zanzibar. Increasingly, attention to institutions has been orientated towards quantitatively modelling how far existing social relations constrain or enhance the potential for adaptive management (such as Bodin et al. 2006). And yet, such studies miss the way in which gendered power relations constrain the potential for social capital to deliver equitable change (Cleaver 2005) as well as the way in which gendered coping mechanisms are embedded in existing (unequal) systems (Overa ˚1993).Studies drawn from political economy and political ecology do focus on the role of power and show that a small number of elite actors-generally powerful men-tend to take advantage of processes of environmental or policy change to further their benefits from natural resources and strengthen their influence over the social and ecological system within which they are embedded (Nadasdy 2005;Neiland et al. 2005;Russell and Dobson 2011). Some studies posit that whilst those who have economic or political power exploit natural resources in their own interests, those who use natural resources in sustainable ways are often excluded from the new system (Adduci 2009;Sneddon and Fox 2012). Conversely, Onyango and Jentoft (2010) show how poverty can pose a different set of challenges for the governability of small-scale fisheries: their study of Lake Victoria shows that strong social values that uphold poor fishers' rights to feed their families prevent villagers from regulating one another's fishing. These studies directly address power relations played out in the processes of change and highlight unequal exchange among the people in the same system. Where the primary analysis focus is social-ecological resilience, these studies have not attended to gender relations. While eclectic in origin, these have all included attention to social relations, either implicitly or explicitly. However, none of the above approaches to social-ecological resilience analysis include specific attention to gender. Indeed, the absence of analytical attention to gender in social-ecological resilience, and the many reasons for it, has been extensively noted (see Cote and Nightingale 2012;Fro ¨cklin et al. 2013Fro ¨cklin et al. , 2014;;Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013;Stone-Jovicich 2015). Here we draw attention to the way in which gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis are rooted in fundamentally different epistemologies and methodologies. The central analytical impulse of gender analysis is one of critique, in which inequality is a central trope and where the case built is one that requires redress (Jackson and Pearson 1998;Jackson 2006;Cornwall et al. 2007). In contrast, the central analytical impulse of social-ecological resilience analysis is one of complex causal explanation, in which the modelling of coupled systems in terms of critical factors, dynamics and thresholds is a central trope and where the case built is one that predicts adaptation or transformation and calls for action to trigger, facilitate or avoid this (Table 2). These differences are problematic in trying to develop a unitary framework for gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis, raising difficulties about how to reconcile understandings of change and ways of finding out about these changes.Despite these challenges, the importance of a gender lens in small-scale fisheries has been well recognized (Bennett 2005;Choo et al. 2008;Williams 2008) and research into small-scale fisheries has sought to include gender in its analysis of social-ecological resilience. However, Carr and Thompson (2014) point out that when gender is integrated into social-ecological resilience frameworks, it tends to be considered as a variable. This results in a focus on understanding gender differences in access, roles, management and decision-making related to natural resources, in order to enumerate the 'gaps' between men and women. This is a step forward for social-ecological resilience analysts in identifying causal relationships between gender inequality and the extent of socialecological resilience at community or household levels. It also provides some value for the basic targeting of interventions (Locke and Okali 1999, p. 283) and facilitates a straight-forward design for impact assessments (Carr and Thompson 2014, p. 191). Nevertheless, the literature reviewed suggested that 'mainstreaming gender' in socialecological resilience analysis has been seen largely in terms of identifying what 'additional' data need to be collected to enhance existing analyses . 2  Integrating gender as an additional variable lacks the social theoretical content that is needed to open up space for critical analysis (Rocheleau 2008). Specifically, it does not address the question of how people occupying different gender positions negotiate around the natural and other kinds of resources that they share, or of how this plays out in the different ways that they are affected by, and able to respond to, shocks (Kaijser and Kronsell 2014). Accordingly, the next section now turns to review literature on gender analysis with references to small-scale fisheries and discuss how far gender analysis has informed social-ecological resilience to date.A review of the existing literature signals three areas of learning relevant to understanding gendered social relations embedded in fishery-based livelihoods: masculinities and gender relations in fishing communities; gender and The analytical concern Social inequality in gender relations that influences the processes of social change.The coping, adaptive and/or transformative capacities of actors, communities and larger systems.The aims of analysis Critical explanation: understanding the processes of change and how gendered agency and power relations play out in the processes.Complex causal explanation: identifying non-technological and non-environmental factors that facilitate or impede system change.Providing in-depth descriptive information, often informed by ethnography and political science. Critically reflective, context-specific and interpretive.Using models as a tool for understanding what works in helping social-ecological systems manage stresses and shocks effectively.social vulnerability in fishing communities; and feminist political ecology and closely related contributions in human geography. For each of these, we ask what we might learn from these gendered studies for social-ecological resilience analysis and what limitations these studies have in terms of opening up understanding about social-ecological resilience. The conclusion parallels the above regarding gender in resilience analysis: while the studies considerably deepen our knowledge about gender in relation to the natural environment, as a whole they stop short of engaging directly with ecology, remaining for the most part centred within the social domain.Although there is a rich literature on the role of masculinities 3 and gender relations in fishing communities, it has been largely dissociated from thinking about or analysis of social-ecological resilience. Masculine identity has featured prominently in the anthropological exploration of the culture of fishing communities. Small-scale fishing-as a high-risk and individualized occupation, with highly variable cash returns, and which often encompasses a high degree of mobility (Fabinyi 2007;Geheb et al. 2008;Mojola 2011)-has often been associated with the dominance of masculine identities that value men's risk-taking and a sharp distinction of gender roles, fuelling social problems around alcohol consumption, violence and risktaking sexual behaviour (Cardoso 2002;Allison and Seeley 2004;Ford and Chamratrithirong 2008;Tumwesigye et al. 2012). For example, Cole et al. (2015) explore how fishermen's masculinity in the Barotse flood plain in Western Zambia shapes gendered spending practices and imposes additional obligations and responsibilities on women. These studies offer some appreciation of how ecological shocks and stressors influence the ongoing construction of masculinities, but tend not to engage directly with ecology.Research on gender relations in small-scale fisheries has increasingly illuminated women's involvement in fishing (Kleiber et al. 2015), in their 'invisible' support for men's fishing (Bennett 2005), and at different stages in the fish value chain (Fro ¨cklin et al. 2013), and in mariculture (Fro ¨cklin et al. 2012). Studies of informal fish trading are a rich source of information that illuminate gendered agency and power dynamics and their variations. These studies show the dangers of universalized generalizations and reveal that gender relations are highly context dependant.Small-scale fisheries often involve reciprocal relationships in the processes of production, trading and marketing between boat owners and their male fishers, male retailers and female processors, and fishermen and female traders (Overa ˚1993). Although unequal, these relationships can be the basis on which poor men and women negotiate and mobilize resources in times of need to cope with difficulties and to maintain their livelihoods (Walker 2001;Gordon 2006;Merten and Haller 2007;Lwenya and Yongo 2014;Kawarazuka 2015). Fro ¨cklin et al. ( 2014) is unusual in linking a close analysis of gender roles and interests with a detailed ecological assessment of tropical invertebrates in Chwaka Bay, Zanzibar: the researchers use this analysis to draw out the gendered dynamics around (un)sustainable development of this fishery.The implication drawn from these studies is that capacities to adapt, either individually or collectively through co-management institutions, and adherence to fishing regulation, are not only significantly affected by fishermen's income and well-being, but also by gendered social relations, as well as vice versa (Nunan et al. 2014). Whilst questions of ecology are rarely addressed, these studies illuminate more clearly the gendered dimensions of resource-based livelihoods and reveal how they may, or may not, be congruent with ecological resilience. As such, these studies offer rich qualitative data that contribute to the aims of social-ecological resilience analysis by generating a better understanding of gendered negotiations around adaptation for different individuals.Studies concerned with gender and social vulnerability offer rich insights into fishing communities. These emerged particularly since the 2000s after the recognition that HIV infection rates in fishing communities in some low-and middle-class countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America were much higher than national average prevalence rates (Kissling et al. 2005). High infection rates were understood as resulting from gendered social norms and practices in informal fish trading between (migrant) fishermen and female traders (e.g. Allison and Seeley 2004; Be ´ne ´and Merten 2008). One consequence for many affected fishing villages was inevitably that their economic and social capacities to respond to change, including environmental change, was low. The pertinence of these studies extends beyond analysing situations of high HIVrisk to other highly vulnerable fishing communities and has opened up a much more sophisticated exploration of the importance of gender relations and social vulnerability in small-scale fisheries characterised by widespread poverty (see for example, Nunan 2010) Within this literature, Merten and Haller's study (2007) in the Zambian Kafue flats has a particular salience. Ila women, formerly agro-pastoralists, started trading fish because incomes from maize fell and by negotiating directly with the Lozi fishermen (on the shore or at the fishermen's houses, instead of at the fish markets) they were able to sustain their activities even during the season when fishing was officially prohibited. Furthermore, some poor women with limited capital accessed fish from the fishermen in exchange for sex, a practice called 'fish for sex'. The Ila women legitimized 'fish for sex' by constructing it as lubambo, an old customary regulation of extramarital sexual relations through which women used to fulfil their material needs in times of need. The authors closely explore how women constructed, exercised and renegotiated their decisions to engage in 'fish for sex'. Although the study does not directly address the influence of these on ecological systems, it elucidates the way in which changes in wider gender relations and fisheries livelihoods are mutually interlinked in context-specific ways that implicate not only ''reproductive roles, such as childcare and household responsibilities'' (Fro ¨cklin et al. 2013) but also sexual and conjugal strategies. In this way, gender research on HIV and AIDS has contributed to explaining gendered vulnerability in some marginalized fishing societies. It provides a complex picture in which the gendered exercise of agency interplays with wider or external threats such as environmental economic changes with deeply ambiguous implications for both ecological sustainability and human well-being.In contrast to other forms of gender analysis, feminist political ecology (FPE) has directly attempted to engage with the indivisibility of social and ecological systems and is credited with making a valuable contribution to the broader political economy through its sophisticated engagement with power and agency. Whilst we found no self-identified FPE of small-scale fisheries, there has been a rich strand of analysis focusing on other common-pool natural resources, and particularly on forests. For example, in her case study of forest conservation in Nepal, Nightingale (2006) showed how the forest resource is central to producing and reproducing social inequality and that women's gendered agency around forest exploitation serves to sustain existing social inequality as well as resist new resource management practices. A recent resurgence in FPE (Elmhirst 2011a, p. 130) has argued for a shift in analytical focus from women, or other specific social groups, to interdependent and dynamic power relations within family and community (Nightingale 2011;Truelove 2011;Elmhirst 2011b). For example, Resurreccion and Elmhirst (2008) explore ''how gender subjectivities, ideologies and identities are produced, employed and contested within natural resource governance'' (3) whilst Elmhirst (2011b) explains how locally recognized masculinities and conjugal relations influence forest management in Indonesia.Aside from studies labelled as FPE, there are many studies that sit broadly within human geography that relate closely to the concerns and approaches of FPE (Elmhirst 2011a). Although not self-identified as FPE, Resurreccion's study in the Tonle Sap Great Lake in Cambodia ( 2008) is closely informed by gender theory and explores power relations over a shift from male-dominated traditional fishery management to a newly formulated management institution in which women are involved. She found that women legitimize their position in the management institution and benefit from the management programmes through influential male relatives. In this way, the new co-management system is traditionalized and reproduces male power and authority. Her case study demonstrates the complex ways in which gendered power relations shape processes of environmental and institutional change and asks direct questions associated with environmental concerns.To sum up, the studies reviewed above may still frustrate or be distanced from social-ecological resilience researchers in that they are not orientated towards identifying social-ecological solutions or developing more effective models. In this sense, both their complexity and ambiguity can be unsettling. Moreover, despite their close engagement with natural resource use and governance, none of these studies effectively counters the question that social-ecological resilience scholars have asked, namely '''where is the ecology' in social analysis?'' (Stone-Jovicich 2015, p. 25). Indeed, Peterson carefully evidences how FPE, and political ecology more broadly has largely been feminist political economy and has failed to say anything about ecology, or about the feedbacks to and interactions of social 'systems' with ecological ones (2000, p. 234). Thus, whilst gender analysis in small-scale fisheries (and more broadly in relation to other natural resources) has made progress with understanding gendered social dynamics and individuals' gendered adaptive strategies in relation to natural resources, it has failed to engage directly with the resilience of environmental and ecological systems.The above underscores that thus far, it has proven challenging to develop a meaningful engagement of the social relations and gender in relation to social-ecological resilience (Cote and Nightingale 2012;Harrison and Watson 2012;Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013). Whilst many valuable insights have been generated, there is as yet no unifying or mutually acceptable framework or approach to act as a 'bridge' to connect these two important fields of research. Moreover, the epistemological and methodological differences suggest that such a unifying may be unlikely. If this is the case, going forward, what are the possibilities for a closer engagement?We have argued that epistemological and methodological incompatibilities between gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis mean that gender concepts are often stripped of theoretical content when they are integrated into social-ecological resilience analyses. 4 Whilst the 'integration' of gender as a variable into ongoing social-ecological systems research on resilience in smallscale fisheries, is both desirable and necessary, it cannot, on its own, achieve what is needed. Indeed, as Bennett (2005, p. 451) notes, it is ''an understanding of the complexity'' (emphasis ours) of gender relations and their ''nuances'' that are needed to better inform policy-making for fisheries management. Conversely, the above showed that when the strengths of gender were central, ecological issues tended to fall aside. The challenge is thus to enable the respective strengths of both gender analysis and resilience analysis to be sustained, whilst working to extend and deepen their mutual engagement with one another.So, rather than seeking a single unifying framework for gender and social-ecological resilience analysis that works for small-scale fisheries, we suggest instead fostering the basis for a closer interdisciplinary engagement between social-ecological resilience analysis and gender analysis in small-scale fisheries research. A plural research strategy to develop this engagement could combine: setting the research agenda in a purposefully interdisciplinary way; continuing the ongoing effort to increase and improve the collection of sex disaggregated data in ongoing small-scale fisheries systems research; and, adding further emphasis on developing high-quality gender analysis on questions related to social-ecological dynamics in small-scale fisheries.There is substantial and ongoing progress that is being made with disaggregation. This is particularly the case where the collection of binary data on men and women has been further differentiation by intersecting variables such as age, class, caste and household headship (e.g. Huynh and Resurreccion 2014), thus addressing the long-standing critique that men and women are not homogenous groups (e.g. Kandiyoti 1998). Accordingly, we devote the rest of our attention in this paper to the other elements of this strategy, namely the proposal for interdisciplinary agenda setting, and that of fostering high-quality gender analysis in small-scale fisheries. Below we begin by proposing that interdisciplinary engagement begin with the framing of research questions of mutual interest. We then proceed to highlight three theoretical and two methodological principles of gender analysis that have considerable potential to add value to interdisciplinary research but which are often 'lost' in attempts to integrate gender into social-ecological resilience analysis or social-ecological frameworks (Diamond et al. 2003;Cote and Nightingale 2012;Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013).To address the challenges of gender-based research that has struggled to engage with ecological issues, we propose purposeful engagement between the disciplines that begins at the problem analysis and question-setting phase of research. Formulating overarching questions that are firmly rooted both in critical gender theory and the ongoing concerns around social-ecological resilience lays the foundation for the type of research practice that can effectively engage with complex fisheries issues. This agenda-setting process could begin with joint agreement of sets of questions that are of mutual interest to both gender researchers, social-ecological resilience researchers and other stakeholders (see also Locke and Okali 1999). This joint framing of questions can provide vital direction for analysis and interpretation: securing the relevance of gender research to those primarily focused on understanding social-ecological change, and conversely, ensuring that gender researchers explicitly engage with important ecological dynamics. 5 The identification needs to be grounded in a good appreciation of existing knowledge about gender and environment in specific contexts, thus providing a valuable briefing for a multi-disciplinary team, adding depth to the delineation of context-specific questions, and providing essential context for interpreting data. Importantly agreeing research questions is not the end point of such an approach-the discussion of findings, debates over their interpretation in relation to context-specific concerns around social-ecological resilience, and their meaning in relation to the wider fields of knowledge about gender and natural resources all need to be seen as core activities for successful interdisciplinary engagement.Firstly, quality gender analysis that considers individuals' capacities to adapt to change can move beyond the analysis of gender 'gaps' to consider how interdependent gender relations work. Interdependency is intrinsic to gendered power relations and therefore it can be used by the marginalized for negotiating their position in their favour (Connell 2009). Women often leverage gendered relationships: appealing to the sympathies and loyalties of immediate and wider natal and marital kin, friends, community groups and leaders or other patrons. Exploring the interdependency of relations between unequal individuals, households and groups makes visible the ways in which less powerful people exert gendered agency in their negotiations. For example, some poor fishermen sustain fishing activities through negotiations with more powerful fishermen for instance over species to be targeted or over fishing areas (Overa ˚1993), and likewise, female traders may sustain access to fish through renegotiating their relationships with particular fishermen (Merten andHaller 2007, Kawarazuka 2015). Critical gender analysis focuses on the trade-offs and tensions in interdependent relationships, that involve both cooperation (and joint interests) and conflict (and individual interests), among men and women in different social positions (Kabeer 2000). This more sophisticated analysis of the ways in which human agency is profoundly imbued with power relations (Davidson 2013, pp. 22-23) is valuable for those trying to influence or understand behaviour in small-scale fishing communities. It is also useful for understanding how institutional changes for managing social-ecological systems may impinge on unequal exchanges, potentially making some groups of people more vulnerable (Hornborg 2009).Secondly, critical gender analysis that contextualises changing fishery resource behaviours within a wider web of dynamic gendered social relations can offer a fuller exploration of change and its implications. Changes in gendered power relations in a specific fishing community or industry may impinge on changes in fisheries management and vice versa, changes in fishing stocks or their management can impinge on changing gender relations. These wider gender power relations and the specific gender power relations around fishing are closely intertwined: both are generated and sustained through everyday practices, with changing practices resulting in changing power relations (Connell 2009).In the context of small-scale fisheries, everyday routine practices such as fishermen going to fish, interacting with female traders and giving cash to their wives, contribute to sustaining the existing gendered power relations. Consequently, men may resist changing practices to sustain their power while some adaptation strategies result in changing the existing power relationships, influencing the interdependent relations through which poor men and women ensure security and maintain their well-being. Therefore, fishermen's decisions with respect to changes in their livelihoods, and thus their means and processes of adaptation, are not made simply according to whether they have alternative economic livelihoods or whether they place a high value on fishing as a man's job, but also with respect to how this might affect their prospects for marriage, their position as husbands or fathers, their support of their younger brothers, their standing in the fishing cooperative or the security of their sales to specific female traders. This broader calculus inevitably strays way beyond the natural resource (Bennett 2005) or ecological system of interest to resilience researchers, but by doing so it offers a ''clearer understanding of the linkages among gender equality, natural resource management and sustainable development'' (Brewster 2004, p. i).Thirdly, gender analysis that moves beyond seeing norms as 'rules' determining or constraining behaviour, can examine how context-specific meanings and ideas are deployed in ongoing negotiations over fisheries, often in subtle or ambiguous ways. In any context, there are wide variations in actual gender practices which in many situations are 'hidden' under a veneer of consensus over hierarchical gender ideologies (Kabeer 2000;Connell 2009). A rigorous account of gender needs to combine actual observation of behaviours (empirical analysis) with what people say about gender (narrative analysis) to gain critical purchase on what gender norms really mean for gender relations. For instance, Kawarazuka (2015) shows for coastal Kilifi in Kenya that young women often prioritize cooking for a reliable husband and his friends over fish processing to earn income because doing so demonstrates that they are 'good wives' enabling them to gain bargaining power within a marriage that is central to their long-term security. This 'bargaining with patriarchy' (Kandiyoti 1998) is highly strategic and illustrates the importance of understanding how and why different men and women are invested in existing practices and beliefs as well as the reasons why they may seek to change, retain or renegotiate these in the face of ecological shocks, stressors or changing management regimes.To conclude, applying critical gender analysis will not directly achieve the aims of social-ecological resilience analysis, but it will powerfully deepen the appreciation of what different possible social-ecological change might mean and for whom. It can also add depth to understand the changing negotiations around changing common-pool resource use and management, and interpret what this means for gendered power relations, and resulting social-ecological resilience, vulnerability and 'room for manoeuvre' of different men and women arising from these dynamics. This can contribute to shifting the emphasis of social-ecological resilience research (Anderies et al. 2006) towards a field of debate that ''opens up issues around values,… equity and justice'' in order to ''formulate questions about which resilience outcomes are desirable, and whether and how they are privileged over others'' (Cote and Nightingale 2012, p. 480). This will provide a strong common ground for starting new conversations about how interventions designed to enhance social-ecological resilience may be linked to gendered social relationships and changes in gendered power relations. Delivering a theoretically rigorous account of gender is methodologically challenging, so we now turn to three suggestions that we believe are key for delivering an empirically rigorous account of gender analysis for smallscale fisheries.Improving the methodological rigour of gender and SES analysis for small-scale fisheries Firstly, rigour in all qualitative methodologies is intrinsically reliant on the field researcher's engagement with the underlying aims of the enquiry and critical thinking about researchers' relationships with respondents are central (Rose 1997;Jackson 2006). The former is central to doing 'good' qualitative research and requires deep engagement between senior researchers and a small skilled team of researchers involved from design through to interpretation. 6 This latter enables a proper reflection on how a researchers' positionality affects their relationships with respondents and mediates their answers to questions (e.g. Callaway 1992). Findings from qualitative research are shaped by the positionality accorded to researchers by local people and the specific narratives that respondents offer are tailored towards those they feel will make sense to the researcher (Rose 1997). Research teams need to record their ongoing reflections on these dynamics and take them into account in the analysis of the data.Secondly, avoiding an over-reliance on participatory methods and including methods that are better at probing gendered power relations is central to effective qualitative research. Participatory approaches have been the dominant method for qualitative research in relation to social-ecological systems, in part because they fit well with intervention strategies seeking to foster co-management and adaptation (for example, Armitage et al. 2011). However, participatory methods neglect the way in which gendered power shapes the production of knowledge in participatory processes. Johnson et al. (2004) note that participatory research in natural resource studies tends to lag behind 'best practice ' (2004, p. 189) and ''may be particularly unrepresentative of the priorities and concerns of marginalized groups' ' (2004, p. 198). Where NR researchers have acknowledged these problems, for example, Pohl et al. (2010), there is a tendency to try to resolve them technically by focusing on how to organize workshops and build relationships with participants. Even where 'better facilitation' of participation penetrates the reticence or silence of marginalized people in collective fora, what they say in these contexts is necessarily mediated by judgements about what is politic or desirable to be expressed in public (Mosse 1994). The meaning and significance of these narratives need careful interpretation in relation to other kinds of data generated using alternative methods (Jackson 2006). Diamond et al. (2003) note that for effective gender research, participatory methods are simply not enough. Methods that are better at revealing what is 'hidden' are valuable antidotes to participatory and focus group discussion methods. Ethnographic observation, life history research and open-ended in-depth interviews all allow the space for researchers to build up a much more nuanced account of the workings of gender relations around specific events or processes and in relation to complex social-ecological phenomenon.To sum up, joint agenda setting and gender analysis that maintains its critical edge and methodological rigor can make significant contributions to critical analysis around shared challenges of social-ecological resilience in targeted communities. These kinds of contributions can powerfully animate the strengthened collection of gender disaggregated data in social-ecological resilience analysis, and as a result will add depth to understandings of how gender relations in specific contexts relate to cases of social-ecological crisis, adaptation or transformation. In doing so, this strengthened engagement of critical gender analysis and social ecological resilience can add value to understanding the interaction of society with ecological systems, and can contribute to ongoing debate about resilience of what and for whom.6 Key elements of 'good' practice for such teamwork include: fully enrolling fieldworkers in the critical aims and design of the enquiry so that they can attend to and probe the relevant issues in the field and engage in critical discussion of the meaning of resulting data; additional notes on the context, participants and 'feel' of each interview, conversation or observation that go beyond verbal interactions and which are taken into account during interpretation; recorded reflections (often in the form of research diary) on the research process as it unfolds and direct involvement of fieldworkers in verifying the analysis and interpretation of data in research outputs.Our review of the challenges and opportunities of bringing gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis together in small-scale fisheries concluded that there are fundamental constraints to developing a satisfactory unifying framework for gender and resilience analysis. Indeed, ''The concerns and questions raised by both resilience scholars and social scientists are, at base, reflections of very old and enduring tensions and debates within and across the natural and social sciences'' (Stone-Jovicich 2015: 25). Despite significant progress and important insights on both sides, two key constraints emerge in existing research that attempts to bridge this divide. Firstly, attempts to integrate gender into socialecological resilience analysis are weakly engaged with gender theory or methodology; and secondly, that gender analysis of fisheries has yet to move beyond the social domain to really engage directly with questions of ecology, which can better inform resource management.Consequently, we have argued that the goal of bringing gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis together need not be a search for a unifying framework but instead could be seen as a quest to deepen interdisciplinary engagement over social-ecological resilience. In this sense, we very much follow Jovicich's invocation to build 'disciplinary depth', although we depart from her goal of building a 'transdisciplinary synthesis' (Stone-Jovicich 2015: 24), in favour of closer interdisciplinary engagement. As such, we have argued that it is important that gender research addressing social-ecological dynamics needs to explicitly and deliberately deploy critical social theory. This refocusing means that it is the generation of deeper insights about gender and social-ecological dynamics, and not whether these can be subsumed by 'a' social-ecological resilience analysis or by 'a' gender analysis, which matters. The desired outcome becomes a much strengthened critical debate over different processes of socialecological change and their interaction with changing gendered power relations. In this way, the undertaking is about carving out a more plural space for mutually constructive debate.Such an engagement has the potential to add value to gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis, respectively. Gender analysis would be enriched by asking questions about how unequal gender relations are invested in, are challenged by, or are contributing to changing existing social-ecological systems. Social-ecological resilience analysis would be enriched by asking questions about how experiences, priorities and adaptation capacity in the face of ecological shocks and stressors are shaped by, and in turn shape, gender inequalities. Where gender analysis would gain from analytical tools that focus on complexity, surprise and adaptation, social-ecological resilience analysis would gain from an analytic emphasis on tensions, trade-offs, conflicts and ambiguities.Most importantly, though, bringing critical gender analysis and social-ecological resilience analysis into conversation has the potential to generate powerful understandings of integrated social and ecological systems. These are not only vital for making progress in enhancing the rigour of social-ecological research but are also valuable in generating a better evidence base for policy-makers in small-scale fisheries and other ecological systems who are faced with increasingly urgent decisions about adapting to climate change."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c73f083fdc809836dd4edce612c993c6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f69384c1-a300-4444-a4c3-b0ee3a86ef88/retrieve","id":"936846629"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"cc6d92fc-517c-42b3-bd4b-abd3d98b3c92","content":"• The control of peste des petits ruminants (PPR)-a highly contagious and potentially lethal viral disease among sheep and goats-is essential to safeguard the livelihoods of millions in Africa who depend on these animals.• FAO and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) jointly developed a coordinated PPR Global Control and Eradication Strategy (GCES), endorsed by more than 200 countries worldwide, aiming to achieve a PPR-free world by 2030.• The ECo-PPR project contributes to global PPR eradication efforts by generating evidence on disease epidemiology, social networks and gendered disease impact to support surveillance and control actions within its six targeted countries in Africa.• The project toolbox contains interdisciplinary, trilingual tools for digital administration.• The tools address research gaps in socio economic impact and epidemiology to improve PPR control and eradication strategies.• The project has been instrumental in the creation of strong partnerships with national partners, governments, and scientists to execute research and disease control activities in six targeted countries.There are an estimated 2.3 billion small ruminants (SRs) globally, with 40% in Africa (FAOSTAT 2021). For millions of smallholder herders and farmers across the continent, keeping livestock is the cornerstone of their livelihoods, contributing to household food and nutritional security and providing readily available cash income (De Haan et al. 2015). Women hold more control over SRs, compared to other livestock species such as cattle, relying on them economically but also to fulfill various socioeconomics functions, such as dowries for weddings, charity, and inheritances (Wodajo et al. 2020).Animal disease outbreaks create a significant threat to the livestock sector, negatively impacting livestock keepers. Consequently, control of major disease threats, such as peste des petits ruminants (PPR), would protect and enhance the ability of livestock keepers to benefit from their livestock. PPR is a highly contagious and viral disease, characterized by high mortality and morbidity rates, that predominantly affects sheep and goats (OIE 2021). It is endemic in most areas in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, where it was first reported and described in 1942 (Zhao et al. 2021). The control of PPR in these endemic settings presents challenges that need to be systematically addressed to ease the burden of disease on herders and farmers who are dependent on SRs for food and income. The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have developed a coordinated PPR Global Control and Eradication Strategy (GCES), endorsed by more than 200 countries worldwide, aiming to achieve a PPR-free world by 2030 (OIE and FAO 2015)  The ECo-PPR project contributes to the global PPR eradication efforts, especially in the endemic settings, by generating evidence on disease epidemiology, social networks, and gendered disease impact to support surveillance and control actions within its targeted countries. It emphasizes high-risk areas that are difficult to reach with vaccination campaigns which could potentially become pockets of further infection, jeopardizing control efforts elsewhere (ILRI 2019b).Specifically, it will provide a deeper understanding of the socioeconomic impact of PPR and the challenges to control it using an interdisciplinary approach that bridges socioeconomics, epidemiology and biosciences. The immediate beneficiaries of the ECo-PPR project are livestock keepers, public and private veterinary professionals, animal health practitioners such as the field delivery agents and the respective countries' governments.The project is organized into four components: 1. Epidemiology and socioeconomic impact to fill existing knowledge gaps 2. Modelling PPR control to assess the effectiveness of different control scenarios 3. Vaccine delivery and diagnostics to improve access of vaccines to the livestock keepers 4. Capacity development and surveillance to provide an adequate enabling environment for control efforts (ILRI 2019a).The ECo-PPR project is executed with innovative approaches and methods to capture these components and harmonize data collection across all countries and among partners by developing a data collection framework (Figure 1). Some boxes in the framework correspond directly to research tools, such as the key informant interviews, community meetings, household surveys and market surveys; while other boxes, such as gender and socioeconomic studies, are integrated throughout multiple tools. All the baseline studies tools are interdisciplinary, capturing both the epidemiological and socioeconomic dimensions to support the integrated studies. For example, the household questionnaire which captures SRs husbandry, animal movement to understand disease spread and disease management practices was structured as an intra-household survey i.e. it is administered to both a man and a woman within each household. This structure takes advantage of the different knowledge men and women have due to different gender roles in SRs production and gives gender disaggregated data to better understand women's contributions in disease management and control.All the tools were used in the six project countries and a selection of tools were modified for use in Uganda as part of the 'Boosting Uganda's Investment in Livestock Development' (BUILD) (Roesel 2020) project. All baseline tools are available in three languages i.e. English, French, and Swahili. Harmonized data collection tools enables comparative and regional analyses (Wieland et al. 2020). Lastly, in response to COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions, the project developed online training materials in French and English to support national partners in implementing field activities which are publicly available on the ECo-PPR YouTube channel (ILRI 2020).The ECo-PPR project is still ongoing but there have already been some significant milestones including data collection for the baseline studies, regional cross-border risk mapping meetings, a macro-economic assessment of PPR impact in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso and participatory disease modelling activities in Senegal. As part of the baseline studies, the intrahousehold survey was administered to men and women from 7,330 households in five project countries. However, research activities were delayed in Ethiopia due to security concerns (Figure 2). The market survey activities were launched in West Africa with more than 200 actors (e.g sellers, buyers, or traders) surveyed in each country in that region.To promote regional coordination of PPR control activities in West Africa, the project supported cross-border risk mapping analyses with representatives from neighbouring countries. In December 2020, a virtual meeting was held with representatives from Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya to identify areas of PPR risk, animal movement and control activities in East Africa. A regional risk mapping workshop was organized in Dakar, Senegal in June 2021 to optimize surveillance and control of PPR. The meeting brought together veterinary services of Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso.A macroeconomic impact assessment of PPR was also implemented in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia to show how the disease may affect the livestock sector and overall economic activities of countries in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), sectoral GDP, employment and household income (Kotchofa et al. 2021). In addition, two participatory disease modelling research activities are ongoing in Senegal to generate evidence in support of the socioeconomic impact of the disease and plans for vaccination as the primary strategy for PPR control in the Sahel. One is led by ILRI, implemented using Spatial Group Model Building (SGMB) approach (Kotchofa et al. 2020), and the other is led by the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) using a companion modelling approach.Innovation brief / ECo-PPR Project -3 The baseline tools are programmed for digital administration in Open Data Kit (ODK) and available in English, French and Swahili. By administering the tools in six project countries and encouraging their use in partner projects, the project aims to provide harmonized results that can assist with policy decisions at the regional and global level.As data collection and analyses are ongoing, many of the lessons and benefits of the ECo-PPR project are not yet finalised. The challenge of implementing fieldwork during a global pandemic highlighted the necessity of strong partnerships between national governments and research institutions and the value of flexibility in training and research implementation.The ECo-PPR project has already improved awareness about PPR control and eradication to the international community by winning an award at the 2021 World Food Forum Transformative Research Challenge (WFF TRC) for its risk-based approach to prioritize vaccination in endemic settings where PPR vaccines shortage remains a critical issue (Kotchofa 2021). Even more lessons and benefits of the project are expected in the future once all the ongoing studies are completed. "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2c74cc7c47be810f9f8e3df4dc50f2f8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/39de57f3-bd3a-404b-857a-ccf32583bf79/retrieve","id":"139202117"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"852e5faf-e97b-4a6e-86ce-d344461b1522","content":"Planting from vegetative material Planting from seed: 1. use good-quality seed Planting from seed: 2. use the right sowing rate Planting from seed: 3. use good field management What else can we do to ensure good establishment? Should legume seed be inoculated?Where can forages be grown on farms?Which forage options are best for different farming systems? More about each forage option ….Before you start . . .Before you start . . . Returning from grazing in communal grassland in Sepaku, Indonesia. [JH] Forages -providing solutions for smallholder farmers! Smallholder farmers traditionally have fed their animals on freely-available forage resources which have no value to smallholders except as livestock feed. These include crop residues and natural vegetation such as grasses, herbs and tree leaves. As livestock numbers and cropping areas have increased these once abundant feed resources have become increasingly limited. Consequently, farmers have to spend more time feeding their animals, either by grazing them in distant areas or by cutting feed far from their homes. Many farmers are facing the dilemma of whether to reduce the number of animals they keep or to find new feed resources. Supplementing traditional feed resources with planted forages is a simple solution to this problem.For most farmers planting forages is a new concept. It is not like evaluating a new variety of rice. Most farmers in Southeast Asia have never before considered planting feed for their animals. When offered new forages, they will commonly ask: 'Will these forages grow well on my farm?' and 'Will my animals like these forages?' To answer these questions farmers usually start by planting forages in small plots near their houses. Only when they are convinced of the benefits of forages as livestock feed, will they look for ways of expanding their forage area and integrating forages with other crop and farm activities. Some will grow forages purely for livestock feed, such as in cut-and-carry plots. Others will grow forages in ways that provide additional benefits such as growing forages in contour hedgerows which not only provide livestock feed but also reduce soil erosion.This process of working with farmers to integrate forage technologies into their farming systems is described in detail in another booklet in this series 'Developing agricultural solutions with smallholder farmersparticipatory approaches for getting it right the first time'. This booklet focuses on issues facing smallholder farmers in low-input upland systems. We have written it specifically for development workers who are providing these farmers with the information and the planting material they need to develop forage solutions on their farms. It does not attempt to cover all aspects of forage agronomy and seed production but aims to provide development workers with a tool box of information, methods and ideas to help them get started and respond to new situations as they emerge.The main problems that forages can help farmers solve are:There are many forages that can be planted to provide additional feed throughout the year. Often these are planted in cut-and-carry plots near animal pens but there are many other ways of planting forages on farms which will help to increase feed availability.Often the main problem with feeding animals in the dry season is not a lack of feed but the poor quality of the available feed. The utilisation of these low-quality feeds can be improved by giving animals a protein supplement such as leaves of tree legumes.Planted forages can provide easily-available feed at times when labour is in short supply. Often these are cut-andcarry plots planted close to animal pens.Planting forages enables farmers to keep their animals in pens for longer periods and therefore collect manure easily. This manure can be used as fertiliser to improve crop yields. The use of forage legumes in cropping systems, for example as improved fallows, supplies nitrogen for soil improvement in addition to supplying high-quality feed for animals. Grasses can also improve soil fertility by increasing soil organic matter.Forages can provide substantial benefits to farmers. [NR] Cut-and-carry forages near the house. [WS] Forages can be planted in many ways to stop erosion, such as contour hedgerows and ground covers.Some forage legumes are well adapted to be grown as cover crops in annual and tree crops, controlling weeds and improving soil fertility.Animals that graze far from villages are more vulnerable to injury or theft. If forages are grown close to the house animals can be more easily protected.Uncontrolled grazing of livestock is a major problem for farmers in upland areas of Southeast Asia. Wandering animals frequently cause damage to crops and trees. Planting forages gives farmers options for better control of their livestock because of easier access to feed. Living fences can also be used to delineate field boundaries and protect crops from wandering animals. Tree legumes can be incorporated into living fences to provide the benefits of high-protein feed and fuel wood.Planted forages can save labour. [JH] Farmers will continue to use natural vegetation, crop residues and crop by-products as animal feed. The current role of planted forages is to supplement the existing feed resources. As farmers experience the benefits of planted forages, some may choose to use forages to intensify their livestock production, such as moving into smallholder dairy production or cattle fattening.What are forages?What are forages?Brachiaria humidicola 'Yanero'. [WS] Paspalum atratum 'Terenos'. [WS] Forages are grasses and legumes that can be used for feeding animals and for better management of the environment. There are many species of grasses and legumes and each of these species can have one or more varieties. Another booklet in this series 'Developing forage technologies with smallholder farmers -how to select the best varieties to offer farmers in Southeast Asia' provides more details on how to select the varieties that are best adapted to the soil, climate and the needs of the farmer.Grasses and legumes come in many different forms:Short, spreading grasses with horizontal stems (stolons and rhizomes) which grow roots and can form new plants (e.g. Brachiaria humidicola).Tussock grasses which form distinct clumps (e.g. Paspalum atratum).Arachis pintoi 'Itacambira'. [JH] Centrosema macrocarpum 'Ucayali'.  The growth form and life span of forages affects how they can be grown and used on farms. For example, short stoloniferous grasses and legumes are particularly well suited to grazing and erosion control. Tall, upright grasses are easy to cut and can be grown in hedgerows. Long-lived tree legumes are ideal for living fences. The ways of growing different types of forages on farms are described in the section 'Where can forages be grown on farms'.Why do we need both grasses and legumes?Grasses produce more biomass than legumes and are the main feed for ruminant livestock (see Table below). Yields of grasses range from 400 -2,000 kg of fresh, green feed for every 100 m 2 per year depending mainly on soil fertility and rainfall distribution.Animals need a lot of protein to grow well, work hard or produce milk. They can get some protein from grasses, but in most cases this is not enough for good growth. Legumes can provide this extra protein, as they have much higher levels of protein in their leaves than grasses (see Table below). Legume leaves also provide essential minerals and vitamins for animal growth.These higher levels of protein are the result of 'nitrogen fixation' and can improve both animal production and soil fertility. Legumes return nitrogen to the soil through fallen leaf, old nodules and through manure and urine of grazing animals.Forage Take NoteIn some circumstances it may be possible to support good livestock production using only grass, but only if the grass is well fertilised, cut or grazed frequently and irrigated. This is rarely possible on smallholder farms in Southeast Asia.Legumes are an ideal supplement to low-quality grasses or crop residues, particularly in the dry season.Mixed grass-legume pastures are common in temperate climates (e.g. rye grass -clover mixtures), where the legume provides additional protein for animals and nitrogen for the pasture through manure and urine. In Southeast Asia, farmers seldom mix grasses and legumes in the same plot or row. Tropical grasses and legumes have very different growth habits and are mostly difficult to manage together. One exception is Arachis pintoi which grows well in mixtures with grasses. There are many other options for integrating forage legumes on smallholder farms in tropical areas (see Section 6).Grass-legume mixtures are seldom used on smallholder farms in Southeast Asia.There are many other options for integrating forage legumes on farms.Take NoteHow can forages help improve the nutrition of farm animals?How can forages help improve the nutrition of farm animals? Forages are the primary feed of ruminants but they can also be fed to monogastric animals such as pigs and poultry. Monogastric animals can only eat small amounts of forage and need other high-energy feeds to grow well. For example, dried legume leaf meal made from Stylosanthes guianensis 'Stylo 184' is used in feed rations for chickens (3 -5%) in southern China. Another legume commonly used to produce dried leaf meal is Leucaena leucocephala. Fresh legume can be fed to chickens, ducks, pigs and other monogastric animals in small quantities. Fresh grass and legume leaf can be fed to plant-eating fish such as grass carp.Introduced forages such as Panicum maximum 'Si Muang' and Paspalum atratum 'Terenos' are important feed sources for fish in northern Vietnam.Ruminants such as cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats can survive eating only low-quality feeds such as naturally occurring grasses, crop residues and tree leaves.Why can ruminants survive eating only low-quality feed?Ruminants have a large stomach (\"the rumen\") which contains a liquid mixture of bacteria, protozoa and fungi that help break down the fibrous parts of the plants they eat.In simple terms, think of the rumen as being a large drum for digesting fibrous plants. The drum has a hole at the front end for letting in the chewed feed, and an exit to pass the partially digested material to the rest of the digestive system where more nutrients are absorbed.If the feed eaten has a high digestibility (e.g. young, leafy grass) it can be broken down quickly, making space in the rumen which allows the animal to eat more feed. However, if the feed eaten has a low digestibility (fibrous feeds such as rice straw) it will take a long time to break down, the rumen will fill up and the animal will not be able to eat any more until the feed in the rumen is broken down. Therefore, the rate of feed intake by ruminants is limited by the time it takes for the feed in the rumen to be digested.The rate of feed intake by ruminants is limited by the time it takes for the feed to break down in the rumen.Take NoteThe 'palatability' of a forage is how much animals like to eat it. Some plants are obviously unpalatable and rejected by all animals. This may be because they have a bitter taste, a strong smell, too much stem, sharp leaves or are old and tough. Some animals find particular forages palatable while other animals do not. The tree legume Gliricidia sepium, for example, is always eaten by goats and sheep but is often rejected by cattle, who are not used to it. Animals are cautious when given a new feed but can get used to its taste with time (1-2months). Farmers commonly mix feeds and this helps animals adapt to new feeds. Animals also learn to eat new feeds from other animals that are eating these feeds.The 'digestibility' of a feed is the percentage of the feed which is broken down and absorbed by the animal. This is affected by the:• plant parts -leaves are more digestible than stems;• age of the forage -young forages are moredigestible than old forages;• species -some grasses and legumes are more digestible than others. Forage legumes are generally more digestible than grasses.Protein is essential for:• Efficient break-down of feed in the rumen.If the diet is poor (protein level less than 7%) the micro-organisms in the rumen cannot break down the feed efficiently and the animal loses weight.• Growing and productive animals. If we only want to maintain an animal's condition, a small amount of protein is enough. If we want the animal to grow quickly, work hard or produce milk then much more protein is needed in the diet.What do ruminants need to grow well?Ruminants need large quantities of good-quality feed. Without this, they will not grow quickly or be able to work hard. Cows will not produce enough milk for their calves and will not produce as many calves. If ruminants are fed low-quality forage (or other low-quality feed), which breaks down slowly in the rumen, they cannot eat enough feed to grow well, work hard or produce enough milk for young animals (see following Figure on page 27). How can farmers use forages to make their animals grow better?Some simple feeding practices can improve animal production:1. Ensure that animals have constant access to feed.Provide good quality feed.3. Ensure that animals can select what they eat.4. Provide protein supplements.Provide better dry season feed.Give the best feed to the most productive animals.Ruminants cannot eat continuously but need times to \"ruminate\" (regurgitate some of the feed, chew it some more and swallow it again to assist breakdown of the feed). Just because an animal has stopped eating, it does not mean that it has had enough to eat. Up to 50% of feeding time can be taken up with ruminating.To grow well animals need access to good-quality feed day and night. This rarely happens on smallholder farms in Southeast Asia. Either the animal is not allowed to graze all day or the quality of the forage is poor. Animals that are tethered on short ropes and are not moved frequently, do not to get enough feed. If the existing forage resource is of poor quality or too short or sparse to allow the animal to get a good amount of forage with each bite, a longer time is needed for grazing (see Table below).If you want your animals to grow better ensure that they have continuous access to feed by:• allowing them to graze for as long as possible;• cutting extra feed for animals to eat at night;• ensuring that animals which are kept in pens day and night (e.g. goats or sick cattle), have good quality feed in their trough all the time.Grazing time needed per day 6-9 hours 10-12 hoursPoorTo ensure that animals eat good-quality forage:Offer young forages instead of old forages Young forages are leafy and the stems are still soft.Leaves are more digestible and nutritious than stems.Older forages have a higher yield but much of this is unpalatable, low-quality stem.These provide extra protein, minerals and vitamins.It is a common practice for farmers to mix leaves of many plants when feeding cut-and-carry forage. This provides a healthy balance of nutrients and introduces animals to nutritious feed which they may otherwise reject.Some farmers chop up low-quality feeds (for example mature 'Napier' grass or maize stems) to make them palatable. Although chopping stems will enable animals to eat it, chopping does not improve its nutritive value. The result will be low animal production unless high-protein and high-energy feed supplements are provided. Ruminants are surprisingly selective in what they eat (see  An example from dairy cows grazing tropical pasturesMost grasses do not have enough protein to support good animal production. Protein supplements, such as peanut hay and rice bran, may be available on farm. They can also be bought as a mixed concentrate or as single products such as fish meal. For smallholder farmers these protein sources are often not available or too expensive. An alternative source of protein on smallholder farms is forage legumes which can be fed fresh or in dried form, as hay or leaf meal.It is often recommended to feed ruminants a diet that contains 10-30% legume leaf. While 30% is ideal, even small quantities of legume leaf in the diet can give large improvements in animal production. In the example (see the following Sheep like tree legume leaves (here Gliricidia sepium).[WS]Even small amounts of good-quality legume in the diet give large benefits! Take NoteAn example of Gliricidia sepium leaf supplementation on the growth of young bulls given a basal diet of 'King' grass. Legume supplementation benefits animal health. It also increases feed intake and production of milk in lactating mothers. This improves the chances of survival and growth of their offspring. In the example (see following The problem with feeding animals in the dry season is not only a lack of feed but also the poor quality of the available feed.The utilisation of low-quality feeds in the dry season can be improved by:Some forages are able to keep green leaves longer into the dry season than other forages. Examples are Brachiaria decumbens, Andropogon gayanus and Stylosanthes hamata.An example of the effects of supplementing ewes with Gliricidia leaves on lamb survival and growth. Growing tree legumes as a protein supplement Some tree and shrub legumes, such as Leucaena leucocephala, have root systems that can reach moisture deep in the soil. This allows them to grow and retain their leaves long into the dry season. These are an excellent supplement to crop residues and crop by-products such as sugarcane stems which are a useful energy source but lack protein.Legumes can be harvested, dried and chopped during the wet season to produce dried leaf meal and this can be either sold or used on farm to provide additional protein during the dry season. Legumes commonly used for leaf meal production are Stylosanthes guianensis, Desmanthus virgatus and Leucaena leucocephala.There are no miracle forages that are productive throughout a long dry season. Take NoteOnly when forage is of high quality can it supply enough nutrients for high animal production. Cows with calves, bulls for fattening or working animals require more better quality feed than non-productive animals.The example (see Table below) shows that milk production is very sensitive to forage quality. Feeding low-quality forage has reduced feed intake from 9.5 -7.5 kg per day and milk production from 5 litres to 1 litre per day.Milk production is much higher with higher quality feedLegume + young grass 4What other benefits can forages provide on farms?Forages can improve the management of natural resources on farms by:1. reducing soil erosion, 2. improving soil fertility, and 3. controlling weeds.Farmers also use forages to overcome particular problems on their farms, such as:• Reducing the labour required to look after animals by planting forages near their houses is one of the most frequent reasons farmers give for adopting forage technologies. Planting forages near the house reduces the time required to cut and collect feed for sick, pregnant or working animals or for animals that are penned when crops are being planted or harvested.• Protecting crops from wandering livestock by planting forage trees in fence lines around their fields.• Providing firewood for cooking by planting tree legumes as an alternative source of fuel to timber from forests.Leucaena leucocephala provides good firewood.[PH]Contour hedgerows are very effective in reducing soil erosion (East Kalimantan, Indonesia).[WS]Some farmers are able to sell forages for feed or planting material.[WS]• Providing cash income by planting forages to sell planting material or animal feed (e.g. fresh forage or dried legume leaf meal)1. How can forages be used to reduce soil erosion?Forages grown in hedgerows, as ground covers and as cover crops can be very effective in reducing water run-off and soil erosion. Forage grasses can be planted in gullies to control erosion. .The following figure shows how forages, providing 80% ground cover, reduced erosion to 5% of that on bare plots. Even 30% legume ground cover reduced soil loss substantially. Water runoff was greatly reduced, increasing the availability of soil moisture for crops.An example where forage legumes were grown in small plots giving different amounts of ground cover. 2. How can forages be used to improve soil fertility?Many farmers plant forages near their houses so they can keep their animals closer to home. This has many benefits but one of the most important is that manure is concentrated and collected more easily. Farmers can use this manure to improve the yield of vegetables, food crops, fruit trees and forages. Often, manure is the only fertiliser available for sustaining agricultural production in remote upland areas.Another way to improve soil fertility is by planting forage legumes to provide additional nitrogen to the farming system. Forage legumes can substantially improve soil fertility, but only if a substantial amount of the leaf is returned to the soil as litter or mulch. A more common way of using forage legumes to improve soil fertility is to feed the legume leaf to animals and use the manure as fertiliser.The following figure shows the benefit of an improved legume fallow on soil fertility as compared with a natural fallow. The legumes were used for feed for 8 months and the following 4-month regrowth was incorporated into the soil before planting a maize crop. Grain yield of maize, following the one-year Stylosanthes guianensis fallow, was 4.8 t/ha compared with only 1.7 t/ha following the natural fallow. The nitrogen contribution of the legume fallow was equivalent to 120 kg/ha of nitrogen.Forage grasses can also significantly improve soil fertility, particularly in very poor soils. Their strong, fibrous root systems improve soil structure, efficiently extract nutrients and increase organic matter content through breakdown of roots and leaves. For centuries, ley farming systems (pasture fallow systems) have used these benefits of grasses to sustain crop yields but have been lost in modern agriculture.An example from an experiment comparing the effects of different legume fallow crops on subsequent maize yield. 3. How can forages be used to control weeds?Forage legumes grown as fallows and cover crops can control weeds in cropping areas and under tree crops.An example is a cover crop of Arachis pintoi which controlled weeds in a coffee plantation (see Figure below). Two months after the last round of weeding, the cover crop effectively suppressed weed growth while the natural vegetation (weeds) had increased to almost 3 t/ha in areas without cover crop.Arachis pintoi 'Itacambira' effectively controls weeds (Guba, Philippines).[WS] 3000 2000 1000 0An example of Arachis pintoi grown as a cover crop in a coffee plantation.No cover crop Weeds (DM kg/ha) How should forages be planted?How should forages be planted? Rooted tillers of Setaria sphacelata 'Lampung'. [WS] Seed of Centrosema pubescens 'Barinas'. [JH] Establishing forages is simple, but often farmers have never planted forages before and so they may initially need some advice. As farmers are experts in growing crops, vegetables and trees we do not have to explain to them how to grow plants! All they will want to know are the particular requirements of forages.Forages can be planted from seed or from vegetative materials such as stem cuttings, stolons and rooted tillers (see Tables on pages 47 and 48).Most legumes can be reliably established from seed. Establishing grasses from seed is less reliable because grass seed is:• difficult to store for long periods without losing viability,• small and slow to establish,• sometimes of poor quality because seed production of grasses can be difficult in the humid tropics,• easily washed away by heavy rain, and• often stolen by ants after sowing.Well-developed forage seed production and distribution systems exist in some countries such as Thailand. These help overcome many of the difficulties and have made establishing grasses from seed a good option for smallholders in those areas.     Planting grasses from rooted tillers is easy and reliable.[JH]Smallholder farmers usually prefer planting from vegetative material as:• it is easy and reliable (particularly for most grasses),• it gives rapid establishment,• weeding between rows is easy,• land does not have to be fully cultivated,• planting material is locally available, and• it can even be planted late in the wet season while seed has to be sown early in the wet season.Vegetative planting materials:• should be planted as soon as possible after collection,• must be kept moist and cool until planted, and• establish best if planted when the soil is wet.It is important to collect vegetative planting material from many plants to maximise genetic variation. This reduces the risk of susceptibility to disease and insect damage.Farmers often prefer to establish forages using vegetative planting materials rather than seed. Take NotePlanting from seed: 1. use good-quality seedSowing poor-quality seed is a waste of time and money! How do we know if the seed is of good quality? Is there anything we can do to improve the quality of seed? This section helps you answer these questions.To establish forages from seed, farmers need seed that is:1. 'clean' and 2. able to germinate.Grasses tend to flower over a long time. At harvest time what looks like seed actually consists of a mixture of buds, flowers, empty seed structures and true seed (seed structures that contain a caryopsis). The true seeds will include some that are immature, but only those containing a mature caryopsis ('mature seed') have any chance to produce a seedling. All the rest is rubbish. Grass seed can be winnowed to remove this rubbish, leaving only the mature, 'clean' seed.You can easily feel the hard caryopsis in mature seed by pressing the seed with your fingers. Immature seed structures are empty and can be removed by winnowing.Legumes are simpler because most seeds are 'naked' and what looks like seed, actually is seed. Also, there are usually fewer immature seeds and these are smaller, visibly shrivelled and easily cleaned by sieving.No forage seed will give 100% germination. You can expect 20-40% germination from clean grass seed and 40-80% germination from clean legume seed. Lower germination percentages than these could be the result of:1. Dormancy in grasses.2. Hard-seededness in legumes.Recently harvested seed of some grasses will not germinate immediately. This is called \"dormancy\"and will break down naturally by storing the seed for 3-6 months.There is no simple way to test grass seed for dormancy and it cannot be easily treated. In most cases dormancy is not a problem because seed harvested one year is not sown until the following year. Grasses that can have a strong dormancy are Brachiaria brizantha, B. decumbens and B. humidicola. One legume that can have a strong dormancy is Arachis pintoi.Panicum maximum 'Si Muang'Winnowing grass seed to leave only mature, clean seed.[WS]Seed of some legume species will not germinate quickly because it has a hard seed coat which prevents water entering the seed. If a high proportion of legume seed has a hard seed coat, initial establishment will be poor. The seed has to be treated to break the hard coat and allow water to enter (see page 59).Seed treatment is not necessary if the germination percentage is more than 40%. Sowing a mixture of 'hard' and 'soft' seed can be an advantage since not all seed will germinate immediately. 'Hard' seed becomes 'soft' in soil and will germinate given enough time.Not all legume species are hard-seeded. Legumes with no or little hard-seededness, such as Arachis pintoi, do not need to be treated before sowing. Other legumes (see Table on page 53) have varying degrees of hardseededness and may need to be treated before sowing.Seed is alive but it will die quickly if it is not dried properly and stored in dry, cool conditions. The most important factor is to keep the moisture content of the seed below 10%. For every percentage increase in seed moisture content above 10%, the storage life of seed is halved (see following The seed may be dormant and needs to be stored Store the seed for 3 -6 months then repeat the emergence test to check the quality of the seed Consider 1. Increasing the sowing rate, or 2. finding new seed.The seed is poor quality The seed is good quality You can use the recommended sowing rateTo check if your seed will germinate in the field you will need to do an emergence test. An emergence test is carried out in soil with a random sample of the seed you intend to plant in the field. The result of the emergence test is therefore very similar to the actual germination in the field and will help you decide what sowing rate you should use.To conduct an emergence test, follow these steps: If the emergence test shows that hard-seededness was the reason for the low germination percentage, then you will have to treat all of the seed before sowing. Treating the seed coat of hard-seeded legumes to allow water to enter the seed is called 'softening'. There are two ways to soften seed. One is to physically damage the seed coat by abrasion, called 'scarifying'. The other is to cause the 'lens' of the seed (a naturally occurring point of weakness in legume seeds) to open by suddenly changing the temperature around the seed.There is no fixed method for treating seed because each species and each batch of seed is different. Test different treatments for breaking the hard coat on small seed lots (maybe 50g) and check the germination using emergence tests. Only when you are confident that your method gives good results should you treat all of the seed.There are many methods of softening legume seed but the simplest, safest and most reliable are:1. Rubbing the seed with sandpaper to scratch the seed coat (scarifying).Useful for small samples only (such as for emergence tests).Only useful for small samples of large seeds such as Leucaena leucocephala.An easy method is to immerse seed in boiling water for very short periods of time (e.g. 2-5 seconds for seed of Leucaena), followed immediately by dipping in cold water to cool the seed.A commonly recommended alternative is to immerse seed in water of approximately 80 0 C for 5-10 minutes, then in cold water to cool it.Treating seed with hot water always causes some damage to the seed and risks killing a large portion of the seed. ALWAYS test hot water treatments on a small sample of the seed before treating all of your seed.Simple machines (for example rotating drums with abrasive surfaces such as sand paper) can be used to mechanically scarify large quantities of seed. No seed 1 Seed size varies considerably within a variety; the number of seeds/gram quoted is an approximate guide only.1 Seed size varies considerably within a variety; the number of seeds/gram quoted is an approximate guide only.Arachis pintoi 'Amarillo', 'Itacambira' Farmers often grow forages in single rows along boundaries or between crops. If forages are grown in plots, 50cm is a good row spacing for most species. If you want quicker ground coverage choose a closer row spacing. Always sow along the contour (not up and down the hill!) to minimise soil erosion during establishment.Sowing in rows makes it easier to sow the seed evenly, to identify the young forage seedlings when weeding, and to control soil erosion.An easy way to plant forages is to prepare a fine, firm seedbed, make shallow rows in the surface with a small stick, sow the seed in the rows, lightly cover the seed with soil and walk over the rows to firmly press the soil on top of the seed.Forage seedlings grow slowly during the first few weeks. Weeds often grow faster than the forage seedlings. Weeding is easier if the forages are sown in rows.Early weeding gives forages a better start. [WS] Try this idea! Should legume seed be inoculated?The legumes recommended in this booklet series have been selected for their ability to nodulate effectively in a wide range of soils in Southeast Asia with naturally occurring rhizobia. Some legumes do not nodulate effectively unless particular strains of Rhizobia are present in the soil. This is indicated by yellowing of the leaves. The easiest solution is to look for an alternative legume species that can nodulate effectively.The easiest solution is to select other legumes which do nodulate effectively in your soil.It is possible to overcome nodulation problems by applying the correct Rhizobia, either as a commercial inoculant to the seed before planting or by applying soil collected from around the roots of a well-nodulated plant of the same species. Often neither approach is practical for smallholders in the humid tropics. The correct inoculants for forage legumes are not commercially available in the region and importation, storage and distribution of inoculants is difficult since they need refrigeration. Getting soil from well-nodulated plants and moving it to a new area is possible on a small scale. For example, where tree legumes (e.g. Leucaena leucocephala 'K636') are raised in plastic bags adding a small amount of soil, collected from underneath well-growing trees, can overcome nodulation problems.The legumes recommended in this booklet series have been selected for their ability to nodulate effectively in a wide range of soils in Southeast Asia with naturally occurring rhizobia. Some legumes do not nodulate effectively unless particular strains of Rhizobia are present in the soil. This is indicated by yellowing of the leaves. The easiest solution is to look for an alternative legume species that can nodulate effectively.The easiest solution is to select other legumes which do nodulate effectively in your soil.It is possible to overcome nodulation problems by applying the correct Rhizobia, either as a commercial inoculant to the seed before planting or by applying soil collected from around the roots of a well-nodulated plant of the same species. Often neither approach is practical for smallholders in the humid tropics. The correct inoculants for forage legumes are not commercially available in the region and importation, storage and distribution of inoculants is difficult since they need refrigeration. Getting soil from well-nodulated plants and moving it to a new area is possible on a small scale. For example, where tree legumes (e.g. Leucaena leucocephala 'K636') are raised in plastic bags adding a small amount of soil, collected from underneath well-growing trees, can overcome nodulation problems.Where can forages be grown on farms? 6Where can forages be grown on farms?There are many ways of growing forages on farms. They can be integrated into cropping areas or grown in special purpose forage areas. The most suitable ways of integrating forage grasses and legumes will depend on the needs of each farmer. Every farmer and every farm is different. The main options for growing forages on farms are:Cut-and-carry plots Which forage options are best for different farming systems?In Southeast Asia, farmers are adopting forages in all upland farming systems, ranging from shifting cultivation to intensive cropping systems (see pictures). When farmers first start to evaluate forages, they grow them in small plots near their houses. Only when they are convinced of the benefits of these varieties do they look for ways of integrating them into their farms.In all farming systems, most farmers first plant forages in cut-and-carry plots or rows, providing easy access to feed and supplementing existing feed resources. With time, they start to evaluate other forage options such as hedgerows in sloping lands, living fences and cover crops. Another booklet in this series 'Developing agricultural solutions with smallholder farmers-participatory approaches for getting it right the first time' describes participatory approaches to developing forage technologies on farms.Offer your animals a 'basket of choices'. [PH] More about each forage option . . . This section gives more details about the different ways of growing forages on farms, the benefits of each option and the types of forages that are best suited to each option.In all of these situations, farmers:Like to grow several forage varieties rather than a single variety because they like diversity in their farming system and they like to feed forage mixtures to their animals.Will choose varieties that fit with the way they want to grow and use them. For example, they may choose several tussock grass varieties to grow in rows around their fields to provide cut feed.Will also choose varieties to provide feed at different times of the year. For example some varieties grow best during the rainy season while other varieties are needed to provide green feed during the dry season.A Table showing which varieties are best suited to each forage option is provided in the booklet 'Developing forage technologies with smallholder farmers-how to select the best varieties to offer farmers in Southeast Asia'.Use of Gliricidia sepium as a living fence (Sepaku, Indonesia). Living fences are lines of trees that mark the boundaries around fields and houses, and along paths.Damage to crops from wandering can animals.Dry season feed shortages (tree legumes are a source of high-protein leaf for dry season supplementation).Tree legumes, particularly those that can be planted from stems and are tolerant of cutting.Pennisetum species can form a dense living fence to keep chickens out of vegetable gardens.For example, Gliricidia sepium 'Retalhuleu'.Tree legumes established from seed grow slowly and need to be protected from wandering animals for at least one year while the living fences are being established. Farmers prefer to use species that can be easily established from stem cuttings, as these do not need as much care.Tree legumes in living fences give the added benefits of firewood and shade. Tree legumes will not provide feed in the short term but are long-lived.Contour hedgerows of Pennisetum purpureum 'Napier' for controlling soil erosion and for feeding to goats (Malitbog, Philippines). [WS] Hedgerows are forages grown in rows between crops,often along the contour on sloping land. They are also grown along fence lines or between fields.Soil erosion. General feed shortages. Dry season feed shortages (tree legumes are a source of high-protein leaf for dry season supplementation). Declining soil fertility of crop land (tree legume leaves can be used as a mulch to improve fertility of surrounding crops).The most suitable forages for hedgerows are grasses and tree legumes that do not spread beyond the hedgerow, form a semi-permeable barrier to slow run-off and erosion, are long-lived, and do not compete strongly with adjacent crops. For example, Paspalum atratum 'Terenos' and Desmodium cinerea 'Las Delicias'.Forages planted in hedgerows must be cut regularly during the cropping season to prevent them competing with the crop. They also need regular maintenance to ensure they are effective barriers against erosion. The extra demand on labour is a reason often given by farmers for not adopting hedgerow technologies. Effective erosion control requires a semi-permeable barrier and ground cover. Tree legumes on their own do not effectively control erosion but can be made more effective by planting double rows, regular cutting to develop multi stems, planting closely within rows or by placing cut branches along the tree row. Contour strips of natural vegetation are effective alternatives for controlling erosion but provide little feed. Ground covers for erosion control are legumes and grasses grown on sloping land.Soil erosion (both prevention of erosion and rehabilitation of degraded land).Ground covers can provide some additional feed for animals and improve soil fertility. Short, stoloniferous grasses and legumes.For example, Brachiaria humidicola 'Yanero' and Arachis pintoi 'Itacambira'.Although ground cover species tolerate heavy grazing, they need to be protected from wandering animals during establishment. How should forages be managed? 7How should forages be managed?Managing forages is easy. If farmers have never planted forages before they may need advice about the specific requirements of different varieties. The following management principles will help farmers to improve forage quality and yield, forage persistence, and animal production.The decision on how often to cut forages is not based simply on yield and feed quality. It also depends on the needs of the farmer at that time, which may be more important than any other considerations.If we only consider what is best for forage and animal production, the decision on when to cut forages is a compromise between forage yield and quality (see following figure on page 84). For the first few days after cutting, forages regrow slowly as they have few leaves to intercept light for photosynthesis. This is followed by a few weeks of rapid leaf growth and production of good quality feed. If left uncut any longer, the quality of the forage drops as: the plants produce more and more stem, particularly when they start flowering, digestibility of stem is much lower than leaf, digestibility of old grass is much lower than young grass, and protein content decreases as the plant ages, particularly in grasses. How high should we cut forages?Most forages can tolerate low cutting but they will produce higher yields and live longer if they are cut a little higher (see Table below). There are no fixed rules and farmers need to develop their own cutting management as they gain experience with a new species or variety. For example, 'Napier' grass should occasionally be cut close to the ground to stimulate growth of new tillers from the base. How much manure or fertiliser should we apply?With grazing, a lot of the nutrients eaten by animals are returned to the soil through urine and manure. This does not happen in cut-and-carry systems where the nutrients are carried to the animal shed. Unless nutrients are returned to the forage area, both forage yield and forage quality will decline rapidly.In the example (see Figure below), the yield of unfertilised 'Napier' grass declined from high initial yields to very low yield within one year. Apply manure to your cut-and-carry plotsAn example of 'Napier' cut every 8 weeks without applying fertiliser.If farmers want to apply fertiliser to improve the yield of their forages, they will get the best response from applying nitrogen (e.g. urea) to grasses and phosphorus (e.g. TSP) to legumes.For most smallholder farmers, applying fertiliser to forages in cut-and-carry systems is impractical or uneconomical. Often their only option is to return manure to the forage area. Farm manure is a very good fertiliser since it is locally available, cheap and releases nutrients slowly, giving a lasting effect on plant growth. It is easy for farmers to return manure to the cut-and-carry plots if they are close to the animal pens. Another alternative is to plant the forages downhill from the animal pens, where they can use the nutrients flowing from the pens.Inevitably some farmers will become more specialised. With increasing sophistication and the expectation of rising production, the use of farm manure may not be sufficient to prevent soil fertility deficiencies from emerging (e.g. potassium). These deficiencies may need to be corrected with inorganic fertiliser. Where can I get more information?"}

main/part_2/0248336193.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8008e237d6739fd5d35c25a73c4f3656","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9a970e61-626c-4a7e-83a7-12720eec0b97/content","id":"788137175"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a7e8b28c-058f-4596-98c5-6d21ed49bfea","content":"Поступила в редакцию 16 ноября 2011 г. Принята к публикации 27 декабря 2011 г.Челночная селекция является перспективным направлением по созданию адаптивных к неблагоприятным факторам сортов яровой пшеницы путем вовлечения в гибридизацию новых источников хозяйственно ценных признаков из мирового генофонда. Ежегодно в Сибирском питомнике челночной селекции (СПЧС) изучается от 360 до 1 тыс. линий и гибридных популяций яровой мягкой пшеницы, созданных по программе селекции между научными учреждениями Западной Сибири, Казахстана и Международного центра по улучшению пшеницы и кукурузы CIMMYT. Выделен исходный материал, устойчивый к листовым патогенам, для селекции в условиях Западной Сибири. Показана селекционная ценность популяций, созданных по программе челночной селекции. Представлены результаты оценки коллекции сортов, селекционного материала и изогенных линий яровой мягкой пшеницы по генам Sr на устойчивость к сибирской популяции рас стеблевой ржавчины в условиях опытного поля Омского ГАУ и к вирулентной расе Ug 99. Выделены гибридные популяции яровой мягкой пшеницы, устойчивые к широкому спектру рас стеблевой и бурой ржавчины, в том числе и к вирулентной расе Ug 99, которые можно будет использовать в различных регионах в случае глобального распространения стеблевой ржавчины.Ключевые слова: яровая пшеница, исходный материал, челночная селекция, бурая и стеблевая ржавчина, раса Ug 99, изогенные линии по генам Sr.Сопряженное существование хозяина и паразита, их изменчивость дают богатейший материал для естественного отбора. Результатом сопряженной эволюции может быть образование новых вирулентных рас (Вавилов, 1918). В Западной Сибири недобор урожая от бурой ржавчины (Puccinia� r�c�n�i�� r�c�n�i�� r�c�n�i�� Rob. . е�� �esm. �� �esm. �esm. �esm. . f. . sp. . �ri�ici �ri�ici) в годы эпифитотий достигает 30 % (Чулкина и др., 1998). В 1990-е и последующие годы в Западной Сибири создана серия сортов яровой мягкой пшеницы с горизонтальной устойчивостью -Эритроспермум 59, Нива 2, Омская 29 и др. (Зыкин и др., 2000). Ю.А. Христовым (1981) в сложном гибриде из Австралии (к-54049) был идентифицирован ген LrTr. На основе аналогов Новосибирской 67 с геном LrTr созданы сорта с вертикальной устойчивостью: Терция, Соната, Дуэт, Сибаковская юбилейная и др. (Коваль и др., 2001). За период с 1995 г. сорта с геном LrTr, имеющие иммунитет к бурой УДК 631.5275 (571.1) ржавчине, получили широкое распространение в Западной Сибири и на Южном Урале, что привело к ускорению эволюции паразита и смене расового состава бурой ржавчины (Мешкова и др., 2008).С учетом того что восприимчивые сорта в среднем снижают урожайность от бурой ржавчины не менее чем на 0,5 т/га, потери от данного патогена только в Омской области составляют около 400 тыс. т зерна, а в целом по Западной Сибири -в пределах 1,5-2 млн т (Шаманин и др., 2010).Пристальное внимание селекционеров в последние годы к стеблевой ржавчине пшеницы вызвано озабоченностью в связи с высокой агрессивностью данного патогена. Характерная черта этого вида ржавчины в отличие от бурой заключается в том, что она может практически полностью уничтожать посевы пшеницы. Не случайно во времена холодной войны данный патоген рассматривался в качестве биологического оружия.  (Шаманин и др., 2010). В связи с интенсивными расообразовательными процессами в популяциях возбудителей наиболее вредоносных болезней, происходящими в последние годы в условиях Западной Сибири, развернуты работы по обогащению и расширению генетической базы для селекции и контроль за эффективностью известных генов устойчивости к болезням (Morgunov Morgunov �� a�� a�� a��., 2010;Шаманин, 2010;Шаманин и др., 2010).Еще Н.И. Вавилов обосновал необходимость расширения исходного материала для селекции за счет использования всего разнообразия возделываемых растений планеты и их диких сородичей (Вавилов, 1924) by scien�ific ins�i�u�ions of Wes� �iberia, Kazakhs�an and �he In�erna�ional Maize and Whea� Improvemen� Cen�re CIMMYT. ��able forms resis�an� �o fungal diseases in Wes� �iberia have been selec�ed. The breeding value of �he popula�ion crea�ed in �he shu��le breeding program is shown. The resul�s of evalua�ion of �he collec�ion of spring bread whea� varie�ies, breeding ma�erial and isogenic lines wi�h Sr genes for resis�ance �o �iberian popula�ions of s�em rus� races under �he condi�ions of �he Omsk ��a�e Agrarian Universi�y e��perimen�al field and �o �he virulen� race Ug 99 are presen�ed. We have raised �he mos� compe�i�ive hybrid popula�ions of spring bread whea� resis�an� �o a wide range of races of s�em and leaf rus�, including a virulen� race Ug99. They can be used in differen� regions in case of global dispersal of s�em rus�.Key words: spring whea�, s�ar�ing ma�erial, shu��le breeding, leaf and s�em rus�, race Ug 99, isogenic lines for Sr genes."}

main/part_2/0261064929.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a500dd2fed5afd61033a5790697e465f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/273a81ed-695d-48a1-818b-46abc667c3c5/retrieve","id":"-786511236"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"db90d2f3-f254-4b21-9d5c-bcaae440dee2","content":"This guide is a comparative evaluation of economic returns on differing types of potato storage under fluctuating market prices. While it is well documented that postharvest storage presumably improves market access and profits by consistently providing markets with potatoes regardless of harvest gluts and scarcities, the economic feasibility of varying storage solutions is not clear. Thus, this study was to develop a practical guide for stakeholders investing in potato storage: individual farmers, farmer producer organizations, private sector, county governments, to support decisions on which storage unit is best suited and speculate on returns under varying scenarios. A tool was developed based on the cost analysis tables to enable users to speculate on gains/losses by adjusting market prices and costs under differing scenarios. This tool is also to guide investors on when storage is economically and physically feasible. For example, wholesale prices are greatest March and April, the months of least supply resulting in peak prices for potato.Potato from the previous rainy season is harvested in December and January and largely sold by February, leading to low supply in March and April. January to March being the hottest months of the year are not highly suitable for production in the field nor storage, resulting in overall low national supply in March and April. Significant gains in storage can be realized if manage storage conditions to store January harvest to March/April. Or compare to feasibility and cost of off-season production to decide where gains are greateroff-season production December-March and no storage, or production during short rains (October-January) and storing February to April.The conclusions and recommendations summarize the economic evaluation of the six storage types.This study assessed the economic feasibility of differing types of storage units targeting different profiles of users:i.Small-scale individual household, normally holding 4-10 tonne capacity: This is normally low-tech storage and is unconditioned holding shed covering the product from rain and pests but allowing wind to blow through the potatoes to create moderate control of temperatures and relative humidity ii. Storage with moderate control of ambient conditions: This storage holds 40-100 tonnes targeting mediumscale individual farmers and farmer producer organizations. It may involve isolated darkened sheds that allow natural draught during the night and this drops the temperatures quite dramatically.During the day, the storage is closed for ambient air infiltration. When temperatures have dropped, cold air is allowed in the storage cooling the tubers. Charcoal coolers are also in this category. Wet charcoal passively brings down the temperatures to 8-13ᶛC. Relative humidity is controlled by the design of the store that allows wind to go through the potatoes. These mid-tech storage units allow moderate control of temperatures and relative humidity iii. High-tech storage units with mechanical cooling and ventilation: This requires electric power or solar panels + battery. This type of storage is mainly suited for large scale potato growers and potato seed processors and has a capacity of 500-1,000 tonnes. The technology requires well trained personnel to operate and manage the units.The economies of each storage solution/type factored all costs including cost of investment, direct, indirect and operational costs. Some technologies are associated with other auxiliary equipment necessary for proper functioning of the store, include conveyors, forklifts and sorting machines that should be considered in the costing process.In view of each storage type, elaborated on:i. Economic feasibility and profit margins at different market price scenarios (that fluctuate at specific time intervals). We also identified the factors and causes that lead to these variable prices, especially the market supply and demand forces, while acknowledging the assumptions and risks;ii. Economic feasibility of household and ambient storage. This will involve cost analysis of each type of household storage vis-à-vis marketable volumes.Different types of storage types were identified and this guided the study in assessing the economic feasibility of each type:i. Household potato cooling units holding 5 tonnes of tubers ii. Ambient potato cooling units with insulated walls and enabled air circulation holding up to 50 tonnes iii. Improved charcoal-cooled storage units iv. Isolated darkened potato coolers with natural air circulation v. Solar-powered potato coolers vi.vi. Advanced storage coolersAn ex-poste study was conducted following CIP and IFDC interventions in Uganda from 2015-2018. The study evaluated improved individual 8 tonne individual and 40-tonne group-managed ambient stores.It is estimated that 83-90% of all farmers in potato producing areas sell their potatoes directly to traders or local markets immediately after harvest. The main urban markets for potatoes in Kenya are Nairobi, Mombasa, Thika, Garissa, Nakuru and Kisumu. The supply to local and urban markets has clear seasonal peaks that result in low prices during 'peak' (on-season) and high prices during off-season. Price fluctuations in potatoes can be tremendously high within a span of 2-3 months, with prices increasing by up to three times the price at harvest. Some farmers store their potatoes to reap the benefits of the price fluctuations. For processors, they are interested in having a constant and consistent supply of quality potatoes in order to satisfy their markets.Moreover, they would want to have predictable pricing regimes since varying their prices based on price fluctuation would destabilize their markets due to unpredictability, and this is extremely risky in a competitive environment. They also cannot plan and budget adequately for their business if the prices of their key raw material keeps on changing over short periods of time. A predictable pricing regime for potatoes enables businesses to plan their production, storage, processing and marketing effectively.For farmers, the ultimate goal is to reap maximum benefits from their produce. However, majority sell their produce at farm gate, almost entirely to traders who are commonly known as brokers. Most concur that they do so to meet their immediate cash needs and also prepare for the next seasons' planting. Few indeed store for price speculation because there is no guarantee of higher prices in a supply-driven market. Nevertheless, storage is an opportunity for farmers to get optimal returns from potatoes during off-season.At the national level, potatoes are marketed through a vertical chain characterized by many handlers and high transaction costs. There are multiple value chain handlers (up to 5) of potatoes from the farm to the final consumers thereby affecting prices and quality. The business is dominated by middlemen, commonly known as brokers along the marketing channel. The volumes handled by individual farm units do not command economical volumes for competitive marketing. The price differentials between producer and consumer prices are sometimes very huge of up to 300%, and in distant towns like Mombasa up to 1,000%.The margins between the wholesale and retail prices in the urban areas are very huge (up to 40%) and are mainly caused by inefficient distribution systems.Since most of the farmers sell their produce at the farm gate, they do not really know the end-market of their produce. The majority are aware of the fact that the destination of their produce is mainly Nairobi, Mombasa and Garissa. However, they are not particularly keen to know these locations. For farmers selling directly to processors, hotels and food outlets, they deliver to the destination market and add the cost to the potato price.Stakeholders are hesitant to invest in storage due to what they perceive as high cost and risk of getting enough volumes to sustain that kind of business in addition to lack of clear guarantee that prices will rise in future. Moreover, they require specialized skills to properly manage the storage units based on technology;otherwise they risk losing the benefits due to potatoes getting wasted through diseases, rotting, greening and lose of weight. Much literature exists describing designs for storage units, optimal conditions for potato storage such as temperatures, relative humidity and aeration. However, there is little work done on how these structures and storage units relate to economic benefits given the various market and physical conditions affecting potato storage. Given the scarcity of resources especially for farmers, cooperatives and processors, clear economic returns need to be demonstrated to justify investment in storage. This study therefore focuses on economic feasibility of storage targeting producers and investors, such as cooperative societies, farmer groups, private investors or even county governments. This study is further a tool to enable investors to speculate on market prices and resulting gains to support decision making. Potato is the second most cultivated crop in Kenya, grown by over 800,000 farmers. The potential gain of potato farmers is estimated to be worth KES. 15 billion if the right farming and storage practices are adopted.Over the years however, potato producers' especially smallholders have endured bad experiences due to low prices of their tubers at harvest. Improper storage facilities, immediate need for cash coupled with the perishability and bulkiness of potatoes make them even more susceptible to the low prices. Most farmers have a belief that for proper storage facilities, they require very huge investments. However, it is evident that various affordable storage solutions may exist at relatively low cost. Moreover, choice of appropriate varieties can enhance storability of the tubers.1. Speculative purpose rather than price stability and constant supply in the market Bomet, where farmers have formed cooperative societies in a bid to make the trading system more structured. This is also a result of Bomet producers producing a lot of processing potato, which processors require more coordinated supply of large volumes.In potato storage and warehousing, transactional location is important since it determines where farmers indeed do actual exchanges of their produce for money. In setting up storage or warehousing facilities, the investor would want to decide whether to locate one large capacity storage unit or several small units to accommodate this observation.The underlying socio-economic factors that could justify potato storage assume that:i. Demand for potatoes in the market remain constant or takes an upward trend,ii. Potato market price is high enough to cover the cost of production + cost of storage + profit,iii. Monthly recurrent storage costs remain constant, iv. Adequate storable quantities of potatoes are available throughout the year, v. Farmers are economically rational & willing to wait for 1-3 months after harvesting to benefit from good potato prices, vi. Farmers are responsive to market prices and the better the price, the more farmers willing to store their produce.From these views, it is evident that there exists a knowledge gap that needs to be investigated -determination of actual potato storage costs at various technology levels, their efficiencies in terms of controlling and maintaining optimal storage levels especially on temperatures, relative humidity and ventilation, and determination of benefits from storage, by producers and investors.The starting point for effective potato storage is at production stage, entailing that proper agronomic practices from land preparation, soil fertility, quality seed, variety selection, seed rate application, disease/pest control, harvesting, handling and storage are adequate and effective. More particularly, manual harvesting of tubers causes so much unnecessary damage further hence re-enforcing the need for enhanced mechanization or harvesting methods. Harvested tubers should be adequately cured, dried, sorted and graded to ensure conscience in quality, particularly tubers are clean, undamaged and free from rot, pests and diseases. Overall, proper storage conditions maintain tuber quality, with some suggested enhancements in percent dry matter.Under ideal conditions, harvested potatoes require temperatures of 15-20ᶛC at a relative humidity of 85-90% to be cured. At storage, temperatures should be maintained at 6-8ᶛC in a dark, well ventilated environment, while relative humidity that affects the rate of water loss from tubers should be 80-90%. Adequate air flow or ventilation on the packaged tubers should be enough to prevent loss of weight and quality. Air vents should be properly managed and light exposure avoided as this could lead to greening and sprouting.Most locations in Kenya have daytime and night temperatures that are dependent on altitude of the location.In moderate altitudes of 1,500-2,000 meters above sea level where potatoes are grown, daytime temperatures range from 24-33 ᶛC while night temperatures 9-15ᶛC. In higher altitudes above 2,000 meters, daytime temperatures are 20-25 ᶛC while night 8-14ᶛC. Therefore, under ambient conditions, potato tubers in Kenya can only be stored for a period of 1-3.5 months.In Kenya, June-September are the coolest months and most suitable for storage, which coincides with the main harvest season in July-August for farmers. Storage January-April are the warmest months, limiting storage options, especially at lower elevations. Storage in temperature-managed units or ambient stores at high elevations (>2,300 masl) can manage storage conditions to ensure sufficiently cool to store January harvest during the hottest months to March and April to benefit from peak market prices (Table 1).varieties grown in Kenya, more specifically the \"Shangi\" variety, have very short dormancy periods (2-5 weeks) making investment in potato storage unattractive if marketing base on varieties with short dormancy.Other conditions that are necessary for proper storage include sanitation, correct choice of packaging material and record-keeping. Sanitation of the storage unit should be done before introducing any new material. This is to control any fungus or pests. Ideally, the tubers should be stored in wooden crates, pallets or jute bags, off the wall or floor. Enough space should be left to enable regular inspection during storage.Record keeping is essential in potato storage to manage monitoring the conditions of the tubers and acting on time. It also ensures consistent maintenance of storage conditions. Records should always indicate the sources of stock, date and quantities delivered quality of the tubers, prices at harvest and also at the time of sale + date.The potential of potato storage is acknowledged as a key factor in the future of potato business in Kenya by value chain actors all the way from producers, aggregators, traders, processors, financial service providers, researchers and other stakeholders. This is because potato is expected to become the most important crop in Kenya sooner than later. The demand for potato is rising both for consumption and processing due to the changing lifestyles. Inevitably, demand for specific varieties for certain usage will rise.While this potential is acknowledged, price elasticity of potato is relatively high. Most farmers harvest twice a year and therefore potential to make good returns if storage solutions and pricing regimes are adequate.The main urban markets for potatoes in Kenya are found in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Garissa. The main question is; how do potato prices respond to market supplies? Data on pricing on a daily basis is available while volumes that are supplied to the market cannot be accurately ascertained.Data on potato pricing is available on a daily basis through the National Farmers Information Services (NAFIS).While it is indicated that these are wholesale prices for 50 kg bag, this does not accurately correspond with the actual situation on the ground where packaged tubers are normally sold on 70-90 kg bag. For this report, prices will be based on 70 kg bag. In some instances, price oscillations vary considerably, not only between months but on weekly and daily basis. Table 1 indicates the average, minimum and maximum wholesale prices of potatoes in Kenya which are used as prevailing wholesale potato prices in urban markets in subsequent analysis of feasibility of potato storage types. There is a consistent upward trend of wholesale market potato prices April-May across years. This is the period followed closely by the hottest and driest months of the year (December-March) when production is at its lowest. The months of July/August as well as December/January exhibit lower wholesale market prices since these are the peak harvesting periods arising from March/April and August/September planting seasons.Table 2 illustrates the relationship between estimated monthly production of potatoes in Kenya and the average wholesale prices in urban markets for 2016 and 2017. It is assumed that low and peak production periods correspond to supply and demand trends and is consistent in all years. Peak harvesting periods occurs June to August following the long rains and January/February. The average prices of tubers at these times are relatively low as compared to low harvesting periods in April and May.Prices stabilize from August to December before rising in January, reaching the peak in March/April when production is at its lowest. The lowest price is recorded in July while the highest in March. The difference in price between these two periods is as much as KES. 955 per 70kg bag.These are wooden holding sheds without insulation at household level with 2-10 tonne capacity. Household storage units utilize ambient conditions (existing set of temperatures, humidity and air circulation) and are best situated in a shady place to further modify the ambient conditions such as reduction in temperature and increase in air circulation where a bit windy.The structures have ventilated walls/sides for ventilation. They are roofed with iron sheets. The floors are raised 1-2 ft. above the ground. Potatoes are then spread on the floor and covered with dry grass. In some instances, farmers cover the potatoes with dry saw dust.Other structural designs for household storage include mud and stone walls, concrete and timber, all with raised floors. Others have grass thatched roofs that regulate the temperatures.The selection of storage at household level is mainly dependent on: This storage is suited for smallholders who normally cultivate 0.2-0.5 ha. of potatoes. Majority of these farmers have ready buyers who collect their produce immediately after harvest and may store for short periods awaiting collection by traders or protecting the potatoes from rains, damage and theft. Indeed, none of these farmers store potatoes in anticipation of better prices. In practice, the traders or brokers have long relationship with the farmers and they know when harvesting is likely to take place. These make it difficult for the farmers to go for price speculation and therefore are dependent entirely on the traders/brokers to purchase their tubers.Improved wooden ware potato stores suitable at household level with a capacity of 4-6 tonnes has an estimated cost of KES. 100,000. They have raised wooden floors 1-2 ft above the ground with darkened sides to avoid light getting in and hence prevent greening as well as sprouting of the tubers. The design is based on the traditional cereals store made of wooden planks with an iron sheet roof. The dimensions of the store are 5 by 4 by 3.5m and built using strong poles, tightly covered walls with planed timber to minimize light. The floor is made of strong timber frames with spacing of 5cm between the struts. Attach a rat proof netting such as expanded metal on the floor (Figure 1). A false ceiling can be placed before the corrugated iron roof with a layer of straw for the warmer areas. A ventilation window facing the common direction of wind is placed at the top corner of the roof (Figure 2). This window is only opened at night to let out warmer air from store.The walls should be lined with papyrus mats to further minimize light in the store. In such storage conditions, farmers can store their tubers for 1-3 months from June to October when temperatures are low even under slightly controlled ventilation. Temperatures are quite warm January to April, thus reducing storability of potato following January harvest.The next step is to establish costs associated with storage including the establishment cost and life span of the elevated wooden farm store with a storage capacity of 5 tonnes of potato tubers (Table 3). Depreciation/tonne/storage cycle @ 2 storage cycles per year* 1,000* This is the reduction of value of the household store over time due to tear and wear as a result of preserving ware potato and has been calculated where the value of store is reduced uniformly over its useful life. It is assumed that the store will have zero value at the end of its useful life Annual depreciation = Original cost of the store/useful lifetime/2 cycles per year/5 tonnes.Table 4 shows net loss/benefit presuming that the farmer harvested in July and stored July to August-October when temperatures are low and favourable for this type of store with below assumptions:• The cost of a 70 kg bag at harvest of 1,850 KES is the price a trader gives the farmer at harvest at fam gate for comparison on net loss/benefit.• The selling price to compare storage gains to selling at harvest in July considers the owner of the store selling stored potato directly to wholesale markets at wholesale prices indicated in Table 1.• The highest cost incurred while selling potatoes to wholesale potato urban markets from a household store is transport to those markets. Other costs are storage costs as well as taxes (cess) and levies charged by county governments which are borne by traders who collect potato at the farm gate and transport to markets. These are taken into account while working out the total costs.  • Storage incurs losses in all months of storage at minimum wholesale market prices therefore there is no economic advantage to store if get minimum market prices.• At average wholesale market prices August to October farmers may or may not make good returns. Ambient ware potato storage units with insulated walls, fully covered (plastered) and enabled with free air circulation -a case of Kirimara Group in TimauThis involves an ambient ware potato storage unit that modifies conditions in the storage unit to facilitate maintenance of lower temperatures than outside, appropriate humidity and adequate air circulation. The storage is fully covered for safety and to keep away rodents and insects (Fig. 3).The walls are made of timber where hay or straw are stuffed in between and reinforced by chicken wire. The walls are then plastered to insulate and maintain low temperatures. The storage is fitted with a roof fan that is circulated by natural wind. This draws air up from the floor allowing air to circulate freely inside the store without using any electric power. The floor is made of timber and several layers are available to enable air to reach the potatoes evenly. These conditions provide darkness, aeration and low temperatures that enable the In this particular case, the cost of establishing the storage facility is currently valued at KES. 746,000. The facility has never been used but the group estimates that they would charge KES. 0.5 per kilo of potatoes per month to cater for running, maintenance, security and management costs.The region experiences two seasons (Table 5). Table 6 indicates the costs associated with storage of ware potatoes using ambient potato storage units with insulated walls in KES. Transport from farm to store per tonne 500Transport cost from farm to wholesale market per tonne 2,500Depreciation/tonne/storage cycle @ 2 storage cycles per year* 1,865Source: Kirimara Group * It is assumed that the group incurs the depreciation then shares the revenue after sales. Depreciation costs = Original cost of the store/useful lifetime/2 cycles per year/40 tonnes).The group has a binding contract with a processor who buys the tubers at farm gate price of KES. 23/kg. Further, the group also affirms that those who sell to wholesale markets do so for packages of 70 kg.Table 7 shows net loss/benefit presuming that the farmer harvested in July and stored July to August/September when temperatures are low and favourable for this type of store with below assumptions:• The group has a binding contract with a processor who buys the tubers at farm gate price of KES. 23/kg, or 1,610 per 70 kg bag. Further, the group also affirms that those who sell to wholesale markets do so for packages of 70 kg. • The selling price to compare storage additional income/benefit from storage considers the owner of the store selling stored potato directly to wholesale markets at wholesale prices indicated in Table 1.• The owner of the store can decide when to sell based on speculating if can get average maximum price depending on prevailing conditions and if quality of stored potato allows.Table 7: Implication of selling potato tubers immediately at harvest (farm gate) vis-à-vis after 1-3 months of storage at different wholesale market prices using ambient ware potato storage unit with insulated walls of 40-tonne capacity in KES.a Farm gate refers to the prevailing price at harvest, normally offered by traders/brokers b Wholesale prices refers to prevailing market prices in urban areas where these traders deliver and sell the ware potatoes, Table 1. c Price equivalent to store capacity for comparison to storage• Storage incurs losses in all months of storage at minimum wholesale market prices therefore there is no economic advantage to store if get minimum market prices.• At average wholesale market prices August to November farmers may or may not make good returns. It is assumed that the group managing the store has a business plan on how to manage the income.Scheduling the sale of potato onto the market to correspond with favorable prices is therefore very critical because farmers may still incur storage and related costs on their tubers and still fetch minimum wholesale market prices, thus making lesser income than what they could have made at farm gate selling.This is a charcoal cooled, well ventilated storage unit that enables the potatoes to be stored up to 15ᶛC less than the ambient (existing) temperatures (Fig. 4). Charcoal makes up the sides of the cooler and is held by wire mesh with drip linings running along the walls. There is a holding tank raised above the unit. Water is pumped into the tank and this allows sprinkling of water by gravity on the charcoal at intervals to bring down the temperatures. Wind is key to this type of storage and this is allowed to pass through the cooler by leaving some spaces between the charcoal walls. The humidity is well controlled by ensuring that stored potatoes are dry and sufficient spaces are maintained to allow wind to pass through the tubers.The roof is made of iron sheets. Drip is used to sprinkle water on the charcoal, three times in a day, when the temperatures are higher (above 22ᶛC) but less times when temperatures are low. During hot and dry season, water sprinkling is done throughout the day. The floors are raised and fitted with wooden beds that are re-enforced by metal bars to support heavy weights (Fig. 5). The store has three layers of storage beds that allow proper labeling, identification and piling of the tubers as well free flow of air. Most varieties can be stored using this type of unit for 2-3 months. The cooler requires regular maintenance such as re-filling the charcoal after 2-3 years, replacing the wire mesh due to rusting and regular maintenance of drip pipes. However, the rusting wire mesh can be replaced with plastic net to prolong the utility life. The capacity of this particular potato storage unit used by Elgeyo Highlands Farmers' Association is 50 tonnes.The storage charge is KES.100 per 70kg bag for a period of 3 months (or KES. 33 per bag/month). This caters for the cost of maintenance, management and security. Transport to the cooler is paid by the farmer at KES. 70 Per bag.In a case study for Elgeyo Highlands Farmer Association Group who utilize this type of storage, there are 2 main seasons in a year (Table 8). The seasons indicate that the farmers can indeed store their ware potatoes harvested in January using the improved charcoal cooled storage unit and sell in February, March and April when there is rising scarcity of potatoes in the urban wholesale markets and prices are higher.Table 9 illustrates the cost of establishment of improved charcoal cooled storage with a capacity of 50 tonnes and other costs associated with potato storage. Cost of store establishment 1,800,000* Useful life span of store 15Transport from farm to store per tonne 1,000Storage charge per tonne/month (incl. loading + off-loading) 471Transport cost to wholesale markets per tonne 3,500Depreciation/tonne/storage cycle @ 2 storage cycles per year* 1,200Source: Elgeyo Highlands Farmers' Association Group *It is assumed that the group incurs the depreciation then shares the revenue after sales. Depreciation costs = Original cost of the store/useful lifetime/2 cycles per year/50 tonnes).• Table 10 compares storage gains based on selling price of potatoes at harvest (January) and wholesale market prices after storage (February to May) in KES., noting wholesale prices are extracted from Table 1.• The cost of a 70 kg bag at harvest of 1,920 KES is the price a trader gives the farmer at harvest in January at fam gate to compare additional income/benefit from storage.• The selling price for comparison considers the owner of the store selling stored potato directly to wholesale markets at wholesale prices.• The owner of the store can decide when to sell based on speculating if can get average maximum price depending on prevailing conditions and if quality of stored potato allows.Table 10: Implication of selling potato tubers immediately at harvest (farm gate) in January vis-à-vis after 1-3 months of storage at different urban wholesale market prices using improved charcoal cooled ware potato storage unit of 50-tonne capacity in KES.• Storage incurs losses in all months of storage at minimum wholesale market prices therefore there is no economic advantage to store if get minimum market prices.• At average wholesale market prices to February to May farmers do not make good returns on storage as a result of high transport costs to market.• At the maximum wholesale market prices to February to May, good gains can be obtained.• • The overall economic gain from storage is reduced significantly due to the high cost of transport from the storage unit to the urban wholesale markets.This technology taps low night temperatures that preserve coolness during the day and natural circulation that allows air to flow over the tubers ensuring quality maintenance at low costs. The technology therefore only works in high altitude areas above 2,000 meters above sea level where night temperatures are as low as 8-10ᶛC.The sides of the storage are made of strong iron sheets supported by steel. In between the walls are cushioned material that enables low temperatures tapped during the night to be preserved during the day. The entrance is fitted with very thin mesh wire to prevent rodents and insects from accessing the unit (Fig. 6 and 7).The doors are opened at early hours of the evening (8.00 pm) and closed in the morning (5.30 am). At the end of the day when the cooler is about to be opened, internal temperatures range from 11-13ᶛC. This type of storage enables preservation of potatoes up to 3 months. The technology does not utilize electricity and the floor is not concreted hence low cost. The only instrument that uses energy (dry cells) is the thermometer that monitors day and night temperatures. Storage is done in crates to ensure uniform circulation of cool air. The unit is capable of holding 50 tonnes of potatoes. The cost of establishment (shipping + clearing + transportation + installation) of this unit is KES. 4,350,000 with a life span of 20 years.In the case study of Ainabkoi Farmers' Cooperative Society, they normally have two seasons in a year, farmers' plant in March/April and harvest in July/August in the 1 st season, while in the 2 nd season they plant in September/October and harvest in December/January. In this particular case, the farmers can utilize the low temperatures experienced in July and August to preserve their potatoes and sell at end of August, September and October.   Source: Ainabkoi Farmers' Cooperative Society *It is assumed that the group incurs the depreciation then shares the revenue after sales. Depreciation costs = Original cost of the store/useful lifetime/2 cycles per year/50 tonnes).• Table 12 compares storage gains based on selling price of potato at harvest (July) and wholesale market prices after storage (August to October) in KES., noting wholesale prices are extracted from Table 1.• The cost of a 70 kg bag at harvest of 1,850 KES is the price a trader gives the farmer at harvest at fam gate for comparison on net loss/benefit.• The selling price for comparison considers the owner of the store selling stored potato directly to wholesale markets at wholesale prices.• The owner of the store can decide when to sell based on speculating if can get average maximum price depending on prevailing conditions and if quality of stored potato allows.Table 12: Implication of selling potato tubers immediately @harvest (farm gate) in July vis-à-vis after 1-3 months of storage at different urban wholesale market prices using darkened potato cooler made of iron sheets of 50-tonne capacity (KES.)a Farm gate refers to the prevailing price at harvest, normally offered by traders/brokers b Wholesale prices refers to prevailing market prices in urban areas where these traders deliver and sell the ware potatoes, Table 1. c Price equivalent to store capacity for comparison to storage• Storage incurs losses in all months of storage at minimum wholesale market prices therefore there is no economic advantage to store if get minimum market prices.• Storage incurs losses in all months of storage at average wholesale market prices therefore there is no economic advantage to store if get average market prices.• At the maximum wholesale market prices August to October, good gains can be obtained. • The overall economic gain from storage is reduced significantly due to the high cost of the storage unit.There are two types of solar stores. The old type that involves use of evaporative cooling system to maintain improved conditions for storage. This system uses charcoal that is cooled by spreading water manually and the store is fitted with an induct fan that enable the store to stay coolThe modern solar store uses an air conditioner system. Solar-powered batteries are used for the control panel, internal fans, pumps and heaters. The store also has a water pump to control humidity. The solar power allows water to be spread automatically on an aluminum cover to bring the humidity above 85%. This prevents the tubers from losing too much water during storage. The walls of the container are made of reinforced iron sheets and are insulated to allow retention of cold air. Internal fans circulate the cold air in the store and across the tubers uniformly and this brings down the temperatures to 12ᶛ-15ᶛC. However, the temperature can be set according to the produce to be stored. In this particular case of Organi limited in Homa bay, the capacity of the new solar powered cooler is 4 tonnes and the storage length is up to 4 months. The main cost advantage of solar powered unit is that running cost is KES. 5,000 per month compared to a similar storage that uses main grid power that uses KES. 21,000 per month. This study focuses on the modern solar cooler store.The cost of establishment of a 4-tonne solar-powered potato cooler is KES. 2,442,880 with a life span of 20 years. Table 13 illustrates the costs associated with potato storage in a 4-tonne solar-powered cooling unit in KES. The storage charges are significantly higher than other potato storage units due to high water usage and management costs. The storage charges include depreciation costs.Farmers harvest their potatoes in July and the assumption is that they will store their produce to sell in August, September and October when prices are favorable. However, with temperature and humidity control, potato can be stored anytime of the year.Table 14 illustrates the cost and benefit implication of potato storage using a solar-powered unit compared to selling immediately after harvest (farm gate), noting wholesale prices are extracted from Table 1. a Farm gate refers to the prevailing price at harvest, normally offered by traders/brokers b Wholesale prices refers to prevailing market prices in urban areas where these traders deliver and sell the ware potatoes, Table 1 c Price equivalent to store capacity for comparison to storage• The cost of a 70 kg bag at harvest of 1,850 KES is the price a trader gives the farmer at harvest at fam gate to compare net loss/benefit.• The selling price for comparison considers the owner of the store selling stored potato directly to wholesale markets at wholesale prices.• The owner of the store can decide when to sell based on speculating if can get average maximum price depending on prevailing conditions and if quality of stored potato allows.• Storage using a 4-tonne solar powered unit is not economically feasible due to the high establishment/depreciation cost and low storage volume capacity.The cost of operating a solar-powered storage unit for potatoes is certainly higher than the low and mediumtechnology units due to higher overhead costs. Depreciation cost is also high as a result of high cost of the equipment. This translates to higher storage costs. The positive side of the solar-powered tuber cooler is that there is a higher certainty in the quality of the stored potatoes due to well-controlled conditions. Further, storage losses are low as a result of controlled humidity levels of 85%. This means that the farmers can store their potatoes comfortably and only release them when the prices are most favorable. The setback however is that the volume of stored potatoes at any one time is limited to 4 tonnes meaning that storage can only be feasible if increase storage capacity.This type of storage unit is best suited for regions that do not enjoy good ambient conditions, especially in warm areas where solar is plenty, and market prices tend to be higher. Moreover, the quality of tubers after storage could be more reliable due to its effectiveness. The most restrictive factor seems to be the cost of the unit, which is only economical if increase capacity. Investing in greater capacity units could mean relatively lower cost due to economies of scale.This involves use of advanced technologies with automated climate control that encompasses a compact cooler fitted with control fans, hatches, heaters and mechanical cooling systems based on the desired temperatures, relative humidity and carbon dioxide content. These technologies require a lot of electricity and gassing and can hold potatoes for longer periods of time: up to 8-9 months at 2-4ᶛC. However, there would be no need to hold the tubers for this long in Kenya since there are two growing seasons in a year. The technology is desirable for regions below 2,000 meters A.S.L since the potatoes would require both cooling and enough ventilation.The technology entails mechanical activity that reduces the temperatures since natural cooling cannot preserve the potato tubers. These units normally have high air circulation flow supported by axial fans with automatically adjustable inlet and outlet hatches. They also have insulation and refrigeration systems and special humidification units to ensure optimal carbon dioxide, temperature and humidity levels.These storage units are usually supplied by established companies which offer turnkey solutions from design to installation. In Kenya, Tolsma and Geerlofs storage units have been installed in parts of Nakuru and Laikipia counties. For Tolsma, the unit also encompasses a grading line. The capacity vary according to need but the installed units in Kenya for ware potato is 500 tonnes The units require concrete floors that can withstand heavy weights since the crates or pellets used for storage can carry up to 500 kg of tubers. This means that a forklift may be used in such establishments (Fig. 10 and 11). These technologies also requires high level of precision meaning that trained and skilled personnel are required to manage and operate the unit.Costing: This entails a strong concrete foundation, building, equipment and installation. The cost of establishing a 500-tonne storage unit is estimated to be KES. 16,000,000 (Sixteen million Kenya Shillings -source: Geerlofs).Other equipment not factored include large storage crates or pallets, forklifts, conveyor belts, grader, packaging machines and tippers.Under full capacity, the storage unit would require KES. 125,000 per month to operate (source: Agrico).By investing in this kind of technology, the farmers/investors should aim at attaining the highest wholesale market prices since the technology is too expensive. Furthermore, investing in this type of technology may require the support of the national or county governments since the number of farmers required to fill the store is very high. Although the technology is very restrictive because of the establishment costs of an advanced potato cooler of 500-tonne capacity of KES. 16,000,000, the high volumes result in favorable gains ranging from KES 12.5 to 16.5 million per harvest at maximum market prices during the period of highest demand in Kenya when store is at full capacity.  Social-economic feasibility of potato postharvest storage using differing storage units ii.If time harvest and storage to coincide with high market prices storage can be very profitable for most types of stores, with one to five seasons needed to gain back the investment to establish the store. iii.Storage in charcoal cooled storage or ambient stores with insulated walls and at high elevations (>2,200 masl) can manage storage conditions to ensure sufficiently cool to store January harvest during the hottest months to March and April to benefit from peak market prices.a. Storage January-April are the warmest months, limiting storage options, especially at lower elevations.b. March and April are a period of low production due to the hot dry months of Jan and February; planting begins in March continuing through to April, meaning reduced harvest in March and April.iv.Potatoes harvested after the long rains during July/August can be stored under modified ambient conditions when temperatures are low and fetch better prices in August, September and October at the urban wholesale markets.v. Household storage of 5 tonnes is clearly beneficial considering establishment costs and potential gains when storage at full capacity. This system is best suited when the farmer/household is connected to a farmer producer organization that supports aggregated marketing/coordinated access to markets.a. At maximum market rates, a 5-tonne store can earn greater than 100,000 KES after one season of storage against an establishment cost of 100,000 KES. At average rates storing July-October, a household store can earn 13,000 to 21,000 KES after a season of storage.b. In both instances gains are greater than if sold potato at harvest.In the case of the charcoal cooler which was less economically under the Elgeyo Highlands Farmer Association Group, transport to urban markets and storage losses constituted 50 -70% of costs associated with storage. In this case and in general, this may be the main reason why farmers would prefer selling immediately after harvest, along with the need for cash flow.vii.A tool was developed following the same flow as the gains/losses tables for each storage type. This allows the user to speculate on various variables, such as market prices and differing costs, to assess gains/losses under differing scenarios.viii.The household and modified ambient storage units have low holding capacity and this may not change the potato market dynamics. There is, therefore, need to explore scaling-up local technology units to hold and retain high potato volumes (100+ tonnes). This can have an influence on pricing at the urban markets by scheduling release of potatoes at specific periods of the year/month.The solar powered storage is not economically viable at the low capacity of 4 tonnes. It could be worthwhile to assess economic viability at greater storage volumes as the comparative advantage of being able to store in warm climates without need for electricity and near urban markets which normally have to source potatoes from far distances.x.There is a need to prepare a comparative analysis of different management models for various profiles of farmer producer organizations for group-managed storage.xi.The high-technology potato storage units require high capital expenditure and advanced technical skills for efficient operations and management. Additionally, the cost analysis does not factor in equipment needed to manage the store, such as storage crates, forklifts, graders. Individual farmers, farmer groups and even cooperatives may not be able to invest in them. There is need to explore economic feasibility of putting up commercial potato storage warehouses perhaps under a public-private partnership arrangement.xii. Price predictability at urban wholesale markets at any one time may not be accurately done due to limited data. However, the average wholesale prices in these markets indicate a more consistent trend than maximum and minimum prices, indicating reliability in predicting the potato prices at urban areas for each month. Maximum wholesale prices vary considerably between months and this may mislead the farmers in releasing their tubers to the markets.  xiii.There is need to study in details, other factors other than supply, that influence wholesale potato prices in urban markets (market preferences, variety, dormancy, quality, shape, size, water content etc.) in order for farmers to adopt a hybrid system of production and storage that will attract optimal potato prices in urban markets.xiv.There could be needed to consider irrigation as an alternative to potato storage and cost/benefit analysis done to ascertain its feasibility. Even in high altitude areas, water harvesting for irrigation purposes can be done to grow potatoes during low supplies to the urban markets."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4467030f7cb1d886ef06782bf872760b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2f57573a-74ce-4d35-96fa-347fc75f458f/retrieve","id":"-1627372870"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"282116f9-820d-4923-90a9-4823bc9e5283","content":"La recherche sur les races bovines laitières au Sénégal montre que combiner de meilleurs potentiels génétiques bovins à de bonnes pratiques de gestion des animaux, peuvent résulter en une augmentation significative des bénéfices pour les ménages. Pour les éleveurs bovins laitiers non-transhumants dans deux sites d'étude, la métisse issue d'un croisement entre les zébus indigènes et les Bos taurus avec une meilleure gestion, est la plus rentable parmi toutes les options envisagées. En effet, ce type de métisse est bien adaptée aux conditions environnementales (gènes indigènes) et productives (gènes Bos taurus). L'amélioration de la gestion a également permis l'expression de ce potentiel génétique. Ces résultats, issus de l'une des rares études de ce type dans les pays en développement (Marshall et al. 2015), permettra aux différents acteurs de ce secteur de prendre des décisions fondées sur des données scientifiques sur quelle race ou croisement de vaches laitières à promouvoir ou à élever.Cette publication est sous copyright de l'institut international de recherche sur l'élevage (ILRI). Elle est sous licence publique Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.Juin 2016Au Sénégal, la production laitière, assurée principalement par des bovins élevés dans des systèmes à faible apport d'intrants, ne satisfait pas la demande et par conséquence des quantités importantes de lait et produits laitiers sont importées (FAOSTAT). L'amélioration de la productivité des vaches laitières devrait avoir des effets positifs sur les moyens de subsistance des éleveurs et des autres personnes impliquées dans les chaînes de valeur du lait. Augmenter le faible niveau de consommation de lait par habitant peut également contribuer à l'amélioration de la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle. La faible productivité des vaches laitières au Sénégal est généralement attribuée au faible potentiel génétique laitier des bovins zébu de races locales. Elle est aussi liée aux conditions environnementales difficiles et à une mauvaise gestion des animaux.Dans le but d'accroître la productivité des vaches laitières, le gouvernement a encouragé l'utilisation des races bovines exotiques à travers un programme national d'insémination artificielle (IA), dans lequel les éleveurs accèdent gratuitement aux races exotiques. En outre, l'IA avec des semences provenant des taureaux de races exotiques est disponible auprès des professionnels des services privés. Cela a conduit à une augmentation du nombre de métis (croisements des races locales et exotiques), et du nombre de bovins de races exotiques pures. Malgré cela, il y a relativement peu d'informations sur les performances des différentes races de bovins laitiers au Sénégal pour permettre aux éleveurs de faire un choix éclairé sur la race à utiliser. C'est dans ce contexte que le ministère finlandais des affaires étrangères dans le cadre du programme FoodAfrica, et le programme de recherche du CGIAR Elevage et Poissons ont financé un projet dans le but d'identifier et de promouvoir les races de bovins les plus appropriées dans certains systèmes de production au Sénégal. Ce rapport de recherche présente les premiers résultats du projet.L'étude a été réalisée dans deux sites au Sénégal, situés dans les régions de Thiès et Diourbel, comme présenté sur la Figure 1. Les sites sont en zone semi-aride avec une courte saison des pluies allant de juillet à octobre, et une pluviométrie annuelle moyenne de 300 à 500 mm. Le principal système d'élevage dans ces régions est agro-pastoral. Les bovins sont généralement élevés pour la viande et le lait. Des données sur la performance des bovins ainsi que des données économiques au niveau des ménages sur la gestion de ces animaux ont été obtenues par le suivi de 220 éleveurs laitiers avec un effectif de plus de 3200 bovins sur une période d'environ deux ans. Ces ménages étaient situés à la fois en zones rurales et péri-urbaines. Le suivi a été effectué par 14 séries de visites à la ferme durant la période d'enquête, qui était de mai 2013 à avril 2015.On a attribué à chaque animal un type de race, comme indiqué au Tableau 1 et à la Figure 2 ; sur la base d'informations génomiques (628 animaux femelles) ou des renseignements fournis par l'éleveur. Ces types de race représentaient les principales races de bovin et leurs métisses dans les élevages suivis (en sachant que plusieurs ménages élèvent différents types de races). Les paramètres associés aux animaux, tels que les paramètres de reproduction, les taux de mortalité et les prix de vente etc., ont été calculés pour chaque type de race en tenant compte du niveau de gestion des élevages ainsi que les différentes classes d'âge des animaux. Ces classes d'âge sont : veaux, animaux âgés de moins de 12 mois ; jeunes, animaux âgés de 12 à moins de 36 mois et adultes, animaux âgés de plus de 36 mois.Les paramètres économiques comprenant tous les coûts et les bénéfices ont été calculés : (a) pour chaque type de race et par niveau de gestion des animaux lorsque le paramètre à calculer est au niveau des animaux (tels que le prix de vente de l'animal ou le coût des aliments), ou (b) pour chaque ménage possédant en majorité un type de race dans leur troupeau lorsque le paramètre à calculer est au niveau des ménages (tels que le prix de vente du lait ou le coût du logement des animaux).    "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5b95afaa8253f4c39bf62ddc2dbbc4b3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/829db0bc-52af-4bbc-8419-da2237592615/retrieve","id":"-1828805355"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"60fb062d-cc91-4b74-aec2-9ac3bccef826","content":"In Uganda, pig numbers have increased from 100,000 in the 1970s to 4 million today and continue to rise, and pork consumption is now close to that of beef (FAO data). There were 20 recorded outbreaks of African swine fever in Uganda in 2010 alone. And this is certainly an underestimate due to difficulty in diagnosing the disease and under-reporting of livestock diseases.Although the absolute total number of pigs kept in Africa remains relatively small (less than 50 million), pig keeping is very profitable for many of Africa's rural poor, providing a flexible means of generating an income in the right environments.The Africa-wide economic impacts of African swine fever are hard to quantify due to a dearth of disease recording, especially as this disease rapidly turns lethal in naïve pig herds and active surveillance for the disease is rare. In addition, the prevalence of the disease has thwarted investment in the smallholder pig sector, and those economic impacts are hard to capture.The disease is still emerging in Africa. In the last 20 years, it has spread to parts of West Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius and most recently (in 2011) to Chad (from Cameroon).It took 35 years (and millions of slaughtered pigs) to eradicate African swine fever from the Iberian Peninsula after the disease spread to Portugal from Angola in 1960 through feeding discarded airline meals (swill) to pigs.The disease spread rapidly to the Russian Federation following its initial introduction to Georgia from Southeast Africa in 2007 (probably via a ship-assisted pork product). Estimated economic losses in the Russian Federation in 2009 alone were US$1 billion, with 48,000 pig deaths (OIE data). The spread of the disease to the Ukraine directly threatens pig production in the European Union.500 million animals are at risk in China, mostly from backyard production by small-scale producers, due to the increasing economic links between Africa and China, which encourages spread of the disease.There are no commercially available drugs or vaccines for this disease, so slaughter is the only way to stop outbreaks from spreading.ILRI is working with Australia's CSIRO (Commonwealth, Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) and AusAID as well as, in Spain, CISA (Centro de Investigación en Sanidad Animal / Animal Health Research Center)-Inia (Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria), in partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to enhance biosecurity implementation and rapid detection of outbreaks in the field in Africa as interim control measures.Experimental live attenuated vaccines already exist, providing proof of concept for the feasibility of developing a vaccine against this disease, but these experimental vaccines need to be improved (for better safety and to scale up production) before field deployment is authorized.Recombinant vaccines may be feasible, but work on these is at an early stage of identifying antigens and best-bet delivery systems.ILRI has just been awarded major funding from BMZ for vaccine development in collaboration with FLI (Riems) Germany.African wild and domestic pigs exhibit tolerance/ resistance to the African swine fever virus. Research in this area, with the ultimate goal of generating disease-resistant and productive domestic pigs, is just beginning. ILRI is well placed to lead this approach due to its location in an endemic area in Africa and its access to wildlife populations.No drugs are currently in the pipeline and there exists no commercial sector investment in this.More cost-effective prophylactic control through a combination of vaccination, use of genetically disease-resistant pigs and improved management has the potential both to mitigate the impacts of this disease on small-scale farmers in Africa and to reduce the threat to global pork production, and hence global food security. Another benefit will be minimizing the requirement for the mass slaughter of infected pigs.Contact: Richard Bishop ILRI, Kenya mailto:r.bishop@cgiar.orgThe International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to improve food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for better and more sustainable use of livestock. ILRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium, a global research partnership of 15 centres working with many partners for a food-secure future. ILRI has two main campuses in East Africa and other hubs in East, West and Southern Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia. ilri.org.CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by15 research centres that are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. cgiar.org."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cc5505047dcae1567bf8e21a7e5cd0fc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/12f3ced4-bbf5-4a01-814a-e9dbc75a4f38/retrieve","id":"-587242595"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1529b5f4-8159-47a5-9cd1-3842aa18f311","content":"Brachiaria humidicola (syn. Urochloa humidicola) has been acknowledged to control soil nitrification through release of nitrification inhibitors (NI), a phenomenon conceptualized as biological nitrification inhibition (BNI). Liming and N fertilization as features of agricultural intensification may suppress BNI performance, due to a decrease in NI exudation, increased NH 3 availability and promotion of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) over archaea (AOA). A 2-year three-factorial pot trial was conducted to investigate the influence of soil pH and soil microbial background (ratio of archaea to bacteria) on BNI performance of B. humidicola. The study verified the capacity of B. humidicola to reduce net nitrification rates by 50 to 85% compared to the non-planted control, irrespective of soil pH and microbial background. The reduction of net nitrification, however, was largely dependent on microbial N immobilization and efficient plant N uptake. A reduction of gross nitrification could not be confirmed for the AOA dominated soil, but possibly contributed to reduced net nitrification rates in the AOB-dominated soil. However, this putative reduction of gross nitrification was attributed to plant-facilitated intermicrobial competition between bacterial heterotrophs and nitrifiers rather than BNI. It was concluded that BNI may play a dominant role in extensive B. humidicola pasture systems, while N immobilization and efficient plant N uptake may display the dominant factors controlling net nitrification rates under intensively managed B. humidicola.The tropical forage grass Brachiaria humidicola (syn. Urochloa humidicola) has been acknowledged to control soil nitrification, an attribute contributing to the mitigation of nitrification-related N losses, including NO 3 − leaching and N 2 O emissions (Byrnes et al. 2017;Subbarao et al. 2009;Sylvester-Bradley el al. 1988). This functional trait has been proposed to be based on an allelopathic reduction of gross nitrification rates, through release of nitrification inhibitors (NI) into the rhizosphere, a phenomenon termed Biological Nitrification Inhibition (BNI) (Subbarao et al. 2006). For B. humidicola, BNI has been attributed to different fusicoccanes described as brachialactones (Egenolf et al. 2020a;Subbarao et al. 2009), as well as phenolic compounds including, but not limited to methyl-coumarate, methylferulate (Gopalakrishnan et al. 2007), and vanillin (Egenolf 2021), as well as different free fatty acids (Subbarao et al. 2008). The first group of NI -brachialactones -are actively exuded from the root under conditions favoring a low rhizosphere pH, i.e. low background soil pH levels and rhizosphere acidification related to plant nutrition (e.g. cation/NH 4 + uptake) (Egenolf et al. 2020b;Subbarao et al. 2007). Accordingly, it has been argued that BNI of B. humidicola evolves primarily under acidic soil conditions, reflected in a reduced activity of nitrifiers (Norton 2008) accentuated by increased amounts of nitrification inhibitors released into the rhizosphere.The majority of Brachiaria spp. production areas in tropical Latin America can be characterized as extensively managed grasslands on highly weathered and acidic soils (Miles et al. 2004;Rao et al. 1995). Although viewed critically by parts of the scientific community (Kaimowitz and Angelsen 2008;Kreidenweis et al. 2018), the intensification of these pasture systems is generally considered as alternative to the progressive deforestation of natural habitats and therefore promoted by many governments, e.g. Brazil and Colombia (Cohn et al. 2014;Rudel et al. 2015;Strassburg et al. 2014). Following the introduction of new forage genotypes, lime and fertilizer applications are key strategies to increase productivity and to avoid pasture degradation (Rudel et al. 2015). It remains unclear, however, to what extent such significant alterations in soil chemical properties, as a response of intensifying grassland management, may impact the expression of BNI. Recent field and greenhouse assessments of BNI on a Vertisol with near neutral pH confirmed a plantmediated and genotype-dependent reduction of net nitrification rates (Byrnes et al. 2017;Nuñez et al. 2018). Yet, additional studies on the same site, emphasizing the underlying soil N dynamics, raised the question whether the observed effects were due to a reduction of gross nitrification (i.e. a real BNI effect) or rather an increase of microbial N (both NH 4+ and NO 3 − ) immobilization rates (Vazquez et al. 2020). Besides influencing plant NI exudation patterns, soil pH and N availability determine the soil microbial community composition (Zhalnina et al. 2015). With regard to nitrifiers, both factors affect the competitiveness (niche differentiation) of ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB). While AOA are able to take up NH 4 + (Li et al. 2018) and therefore perform better under low pH and NH 3 limited conditions, AOB reveal higher maximum NH 3 turnover rates and, hence, higher competitiveness in neutral to alkaline and N abundant soils (Di et al. 2009;Prosser and Nicol 2012;Thion et al. 2016;Zhang et al. 2012). It could be speculated that conversion of extensively managed tropical grasslands on low pH soils into productive pastures through liming and increased N fertilization leads to a shift from AOA towards AOB populations (Zhang et al. 2017;Zhao et al. 2018). Consequently, an increase of soil pH may not only affect BNI performance of B. humidicola in terms of reduced NI exudation rates, but may also induce changes in ammonia oxidizer populations, possibly affecting its sensitivity. This assumption is based on a recently published laboratory study observing that (with the only exception of methyl 3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propionate) AOA show a higher sensitivity to selected NI than AOB (Kaur-Bhambra et al. 2021). In addition, under field conditions, a plant exerted control of ammonia oxidizer abundance was mainly confirmed for AOA (Byrnes et al. 2017;Nakamura et al. 2020;Nuñez et al. 2018;Srikanthasamy et al. 2018;Subbarao et al. 2009), while only to a lesser extent for AOB (Subbarao et al. 2009).To verify these assumptions, we hypothesized that (1) B. humidicola is capable of reducing soil net nitrification rates under conditions favorable to nitrification facilitated through pH increments and regular N amendments, (2) the reduction of net nitrification rates is the result of a BNI-induced reduction of gross nitrification, and (3) B. humidicola controls nitrification under both archaea and bacteria dominated soil environments. Pertaining to the verification of these hypotheses, alternative mechanisms shaping soil N cycling have been conceptualized and a broader concept of plant exerted control of soil nitrification is proposed.A three-factorial, controlled pot experiment was conducted at CIAT headquarters, Cali (Colombia), from March 2016 till March 2018. Pots were fabricated from PVC drainpipes (16.8 cm diameter, 1.20 m length) and the experiment was set up in a randomized complete block design (three replications) in an open greenhouse equipped with a shading net. Experimental factors were (1) Soil: soil microbial background as reflected by the ratio between archaea and bacteria, (2) Liming: soil pH increment, and (3) Genotype: B. humidicola accessions.The first experimental factor (soil) consisted of two soils (A horizon, 0-20 cm) originating from natural savanna sites along a soil texture transect from Villavicencio to Puerto Gaitan (Colombian Llanos region), which were chosen due to their soil texture and organic matter-related contrasting microbial backgrounds (Table S2, Fig. S1). In the following, the soils will be referred to the site of origin, with \"Taluma\" representing an archaea dominated, sandy soil (4°22′11.03704 N 72°13′31.49378 W), and \"Porvenir\" a slightly bacteria-dominated, clayey soil (4°13′23.52 N 72°32′40.05 W). Both soils were classified as Ferralsols (IUSS working group WRB, 2006), and physical soil properties are detailed in Table S1. The initial archaeal and bacterial 16S rRNA and amoA gene copy numbers of these two soils before experimental start are displayed in Table S2.The second experimental factor (liming) consisted of a non-limed and limed variant of each soil. Liming rates aimed at reducing aluminum (Al) saturation rates to ~ 5% and increase pH to near neutral range (pH = 6-7). Liming rates were calculated in dependence of Al saturation and cation exchange capacity (CEC), according to Cochrane et al. (1980): Liming rate (t CaCO 3 ha −1 ) = 1,8 * (Al saturation [cmol kg −1 ] -(target Al saturation [%] * effective CEC [cmol kg −1 ]/100)), applying a target Al saturation of 5%. The calculations resulted in liming rates of 1.6 t ha −1 (equivalent to 5.4 g kg −1 soil) for the Taluma, and 3.8 t ha −1 (equivalent to 12.8 g kg −1 soil) for the Porvenir soil. Soil pH (H 2 O extracts) were verified at the end of the experiment, leveling out at 6.3 versus 6.8 (Taluma soil) and 5.8 versus 6.3 (Porvenir soil) for non-limed and limed treatments, respectively. Unexpectedly, the pH levels of non-limed soils were above initial soil pH levels (4.6), which was attributed to occasional carbonate input via irrigation water.The third experimental factor (genotype) consisted of three B. humidicola accessions with contrasting BNI ratings (Karwat et al. 2019;Nuñez et al. 2018), which were received from the CIAT germplasm bank: CIAT 16888 (high BNI), CIAT 679 (medium BNI), CIAT 26146 (low BNI). A non-planted bare soil was used as control.Before filling the pots, soils were homogenized including base fertilization with all plant essential nutrients [mg kg −1 soil]: N [11.5], P [6.4], K [25.6],Ca [25.6]To ensure percolation, pots were equipped with a 10-cm drainage layer of sand at the bottom and care was taken to avoid compaction when filling in the soil (100-cm soil horizon). Through the course of the experiment, plants were regularly fertilized with N (80 kg N ha −1 every 6 months as (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 solution) to stimulate soil nitrification potential. Plants were trimmed every 3 months to promote vigorous growth, and irrigation was performed manually according to plant demand. In dependence of the three experimental factors, BNI performance was evaluated at the end of the experiment (2 years after establishment): To simulate grazing, plants were cut back and N was applied at the rate of 150 kg N ha −1 in the form of (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 solution (200 ml per pot), allowing topsoil penetration. N cycling was monitored over a period of 14 days after fertilization, before destructively harvesting the experiment to obtain soil and biomass samples.For in situ monitoring of soil NO 3 − concentrations after the application of NH 4 + , soil solution was regularly sampled via micro-suction-tubes (Rhizons Soil Moisture Sampler, Ø 2.3 × 50 mm, hydrophilic polymer, porosity 0.1 µm, Ecotech, Bonn, Germany) installed horizontally at 7.5-cm depth (Karwat et al. 2018). NO 3 − concentration in the soil solution was quantified colorimetrically at 410 nm as yellow nitro-salicylate obtained by salicylic acid nitration in sulfuric acid solution (ISO 7890-3, 1988).Topsoil NH 4 + and NO 3 − contents were quantified 7 and 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization. Seven days after NH 4 + fertilization, soil samples were taken with a soil auger (Ø = 1.5 cm, 3 punctures per pot, 5-cm depth), whereas 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization the soil sample consisted of an aliquot of sieved and homogenized topsoil at 0-10 cm (destructive harvesting of the experiment). Extraction was performed immediately with 1 M KCl. NH 4 + was quantified colorimetrically as green ammonium salicylate complex at 667 nm (Kempers and Zweers 1986)  and NO 3 − as yellow nitro-salicylate at 410 nm (ISO 7890-3, 1988).Microbial C and N pools (C mic /N mic ) were quantified by chloroform fumigation (ISO 14240-2, 1997), using the sieved and homogenized soil samples taken 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization. In brief, unfumigated and chloroform fumigated (24 h) soil sample aliquots (10 g) were extracted with 40 ml of a 0.5 M K 2 SO 4 solution on a horizontal shaker (30 min, 200 rpm). After centrifugation at 4400 × g for 30 min, the supernatant was diluted 1:4 and analyzed for C and N (Multi N/C 2100C, Analytik Jena AG, Jena, Germany). Microbial C pools were obtained by calculating the difference in C content between fumigated and unfumigated aliquots and dividing by k EN = 0.45, representing the proportion of extractable microbial C (Jörgensen 1996). Microbial N pools were obtained by calculating the difference in N content between fumigated and unfumigated aliquots and dividing by k EN = 0.54, representing the proportion of extractable microbial N (Brookes et al. 1985).Soil nitrification and N immobilization potential were estimated based on the soil incubation method described by Karwat et al. (2017). Sieved (2-mm mesh size) and homogenized soil samples taken 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization were air-dried, and 5-g aliquots were incubated in eightfold replications with 1.5 ml of 27 mM (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 (225 mg N kg −1 soil) at 25 °C. To maintain soil moisture but allow aeration, incubation vessels (small glass flasks) were sealed with parafilm, which was punctured three times with a needle. Mineral N was extracted with 50 ml of 1 M KCl solution from 2 replicates each at days 0, 4, 12, and 20 after incubation start. Extracts were filtered immediately and analyzed colorimetrically for NH 4 + and NO 3 − as described above. Nitrification potentials represent the steepest slope of the NO 3 − curve. In this study, the steepest slope was recorded between Days 4 and 12. The N immobilization potential was calculated based on mineral N (NH 4 + and NO 3 − ) disappearance from the start till end (Day 20) of incubation. Although it is acknowledged that NH 3 volatilization constitutes a potential N leak during the incubation, volatilization-related losses were judged negligible due to soil pH below seven, incorporation of fertilizer N (application as solution) and poor surface ventilation (parafilm-sealed incubation vessels).Archaeal and bacterial 16S rRNA (total archaea and bacteria), as well as archaeal and bacterial amoA (archaeal and bacterial ammonia oxidizers) gene copy numbers were quantified for selected treatment combinations, using both soil samples taken prior to fertilization (soil auger, Ø = 1.5 cm, 3 punctures per pot, 5-cm depth), as well as the sieved and homogenized soil samples taken 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization. Soil samples were frozen and lyophilized prior to transport to University of Hohenheim (Stuttgart, Germany). DNA was extracted with the DNA™ Spin Kit for Soil (MP, Biomedicals Solon, OH, USA), following the manufacturer's instructions along with two additional washings with guanidine thiocyanate solution (5 M) for humic acid removal. Quantification of archaeal and bacterial 16S rRNA and amoA genes via quantitative PCR (qPCR) (StepOnePlus™ Real Time PCR System (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Foster City, CA, USA)) was performed according to Nuñez et al. (2018). For quality check, melting curves of amplicons were generated and reaction efficiency determined (archaeal 16S rRNA gene 80-85%, bacterial 16S rRNA gene 94-107%, archaeal amoA gene 79-89%, bacterial amoA gene 84-91%) using StepOne™ software version 2.2.2 (Thermo Fisher Scientific).Plant N uptake was estimated based on N content of aboveground plant biomass re-grown within 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization. The entire re-grown biomass was harvested, dried, and ball milled. Leaf tissue samples were evaluated for N content by dry combustion (Vario El Cube, Elementar Analysesysteme, Germany).Statistical analysis was performed and plots were created with R version 3.5.3 (R Core Team, 2018), using the packages \"lme4\", \"lsmeans\", \"multcompView\" and \"ggplot2\". The \"lme4\" package was used to fit linear models with soil solution NO 3 − , topsoil NH 4 + and NO 3 − , plant N, N mic , nitrification rates, total archaeal and total bacterial as well as AOA and AOB abundance as response variables and the three factors \"soil\", \"liming\" and \"genotype\" as main effects and \"block\" as random effect. Studentized residuals were inspected graphically for normality and homogeneity. Package \"lsmeans2\" was used to perform ANOVA and \"multcompView\" to perform Tukey HSD tests on the differences of means between treatment levels. Package \"ggplot2\" was used to create the figures. A correlation analysis (Pearson) between the variables shoot biomass, root biomass, plant N uptake, soil NH 4 + , soil NO 3 − and N mic pools was conducted using the \"lm\" function.As both soils revealed similar NO 3 − concentration in the soil solution (no significant soil effect), the displayed values consist of the modeled averages over both soils (Fig. 1). Both liming and genotype influenced NO 3 − levels (p < 0.001). Liming boosted NO 3 − evolution within the soil solution, and planted pots revealed lower NO 3 − levels than the non-planted control. Genotypic differences between B. humidicola accessions were only observed under limed conditions, with genotype CIAT 26146 revealing lowest NO 3 − evolution (p < 0.05). Topsoil (0-10 cm) N min analysis at 7 and 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization (Table S3) reflects the patterns observed for soil solution NO 3 − levels, confirming the suitability of the non-destructive monitoring approach via micro suction-cups. Additional N mic analysis and estimates of plant N uptake (based on N in re-grown aboveground biomass) completed the estimation of system N fluxes. Trends were consistent between non-limed and limed treatments but more pronounced for the limed treatment. Figure 2 displays N pool sizes 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization for the limed treatment. Total fertilizer N recovery (plant and soil) ranged from 33 to 50% in Taluma and 65 to 80% in Porvenir soil. Presence of plants reduced topsoil NO 3 − contents by 65 to 85% compared to the non-planted control. This reduction of soil NO 3 − was reflected by plant N uptake and increased soil N mic pools. Aboveground plant biomass (regrown) accounted for 12 to 20% of applied N and although not significant genotype CIAT 26146 tended to have highest acquisition rates. N mic pools showed a higher variability, reflecting 10 to 25% of applied N in the planted pots, but lower amounts (0 to 10%) in the non-planted control (p < 0.05). N mic pools were largest under genotype CIAT 26146 and always higher than under genotype CIAT 16888 (p < 0.05). Soil NH 4 + levels did not show any difference (p > 0.05).To segregate direct plant competition effects (plant uptake) from plant-mediated alterations of the microbial N cycle (nitrification, immobilization), both soil nitrification and N immobilization potentials were assessed without the influence of plant roots (ex situ). This was achieved through a soil incubation approach with simultaneous monitoring of NH 4+ and NO 3 − levels (Table 1). Soil incubation (ex situ) confirmed the results obtained from the in situ evaluation. While soils did not differ in nitrification potential, both liming (p < 0.001) and genotype (p = 0.02) had an influence upon nitrification. Nitrification potentials were increased by factor 2 to 10 (depending on soil and genotype) in the limed compared to the non-limed treatments. Genotype-dependent differences in nitrification potential (ex situ) were only detectable for the limed treatment of the clayey, bacteria dominated Porvenir soil, but not for the sandy, archaea dominated Taluma soil, indicating that in the limed Taluma soil differences in net nitrification observed in situ were probably related to differences in plant N uptake (Fig. 2). In the Porvenir soil, genotype CIAT 26146 showed lowest net nitrification rates (p < 0.05).Regarding N immobilization, the incubation study reflected only partially the soil N mic pools quantified in situ. N immobilization was not verifiable for the sandy Taluma soil. For the Porvenir soil, however, N immobilization was detectable, with a considerable magnitude in the limed variant (up to 20% of applied N), although similar in situ N mic pools were determined for both non-limed and limed treatments. Generally, soils from planted pots had a higher N immobilization rate than the non-planted control (p < 0.05). A summary of in situ estimates of net nitrification rates and N mic pools, as well as ex situ estimates of net nitrification rates and N immobilization potential is provided in Table 1.Soils were chosen to compare the influence of contrasting microbial backgrounds on nitrification dynamics. To capture functional niche occupation of both soils, abundance of archaeal (AOA) and bacterial (AOB) nitrifier groups were quantified 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization and related to the soil N min pools 7 days after NH 4 + fertilization. In the case of Taluma, soil NH 4 + levels were negatively correlated with AOA (R 2 = − 0.74, p < 0.001, Fig. 3), whereas soil NO 3 − levels showed a strong positive correlation with AOA (R 2 = 0.91, p < 0.001, Fig. 3). In the Porvenir soil, however, NO 3 − correlated only slightly with AOA (R 2 = 0.44, p = 0.051), but strongly with AOB (R 2 = 0.81, p < 0.001). These tendencies were confirmed with AOA to AOB ratios of 5:1 versus 1:5 for the Taluma and Porvenir soil, respectively.Root biomass showed a strong positive correlation with N mic , especially in the Porvenir soil (R 2 = 0.84, p < 0.01) (Fig. 4a), and a strong negative correlation (R 2 = − 0.68, p < 0.001) with soil NO 3 − (Fig. 4b). Root biomass did not correlate with soil NH 4 + and shoot biomass and plant N uptake did not correlate with any factor (p > 0.05, data not shown).In situ (pot trial) and ex situ (incubation study) estimation of nitrification and N immobilization potential. Soil pH was 6.3 versus 6.8 in non-limed versus limed treatments for Taluma and 5.8 versus 6.   of reducing net nitrification rates even under conditions favorable to nitrification. On the other hand, it was deduced that the observed effects reflect dynamics expected for ammonia oxidizer control through effective resource competition rather than allelopathic inhibition (BNI). In this sense, especially the large differences in net nitrification between planted and non-planted soils on the one hand, and low intergenotypic variation inverting commonly suggested BNI ratings (Karwat et al. 2019;Moreta et al. 2014;Nuñez et al. 2018) on the other, suggested that reduced soil NO 3 − levels could predominantly be attributed to a net increase of heterotrophic N immobilization (confirmed both in situ and ex situ) and plant competition for N (confirmed by in situ data). This assumption aligns with the ongoing controversy on the ecological reasons for reduced net nitrification in certain climax ecosystems, i.e. grasslands and coniferous forests (Davidson et al. 1992;Nardi et al. 2020;Vazquez et al. 2020). Precisely, it reflects our second hypothesis whether reduced net nitrification rates can be attributed to a BNI-induced reduction of gross nitrification rates. Several researchers favor a plant exerted control of gross nitrification through allelopathic inhibition of ammonia oxidizers, i.e. BNI, as explanation for low soil NO 3 − levels (Lodhi and Killingbeck 1980;Subbarao et al. 2009;Ward et al. 1997). Others emphasize heterotrophic competition for N and efficient plant NO 3 − uptake as the dominant factors (Davidson et al. 1992;Stark and Hart 1997;Vazquez et al. 2020). The latter position is corroborated by the higher competitiveness of microbial heterotrophs for mineralized or deposited NH 4 + -N (Hodge et al. 2000;Kuzyakov and Xu 2013;Verhagen et al. 1992) and dominant (or even preferential) NO 3 − feeding as described for many plants adapted to nitrifying ecosystems, i.e. dryland and calcareous soils (Li et al. 2013;Marschner 1995;Zhang et al. 2018) and certain grasslands (Jackson et al. 1989;Schimel et al. 1989).How effectively soil heterotrophs immobilize and hence prevent mineralized or applied NH 4 + from nitrification, depends on the size and activity of the heterotrophic community, which in turn is controlled by plant derived C inputs, e.g. root exudation and turnover (Karwat et al. 2017;Leptin et al. 2021;Vazquez et al. 2020). This fundamental relationship was confirmed by the strongly positive correlations between root system size (approximated through topsoil root biomass) and soil microbial N pools, highlighting the importance of an active soil microbial community in preventing NH 4 + -N from being nitrified (Fig. 5 -mechanism 1 \"Plant facilitated heterotrophic N immobilization\"). Interestingly, the incubation study proved high net immobilization, despite overall low soil microbial biomass (C mic quantified in situ, data not shown). This observation was corroborated by Kaye and Hart (1997) reporting long-term net N immobilization ranging between 6 and 15% of applied N in a temperate grassland soil. In our experiment, net immobilization under B. humidicola amounted up to 20% of applied N (both in situ and ex situ), despite high N amendments (150 kg ha −1 in situ, 225 mg kg −1 soil in the incubation study). Notably, immobilization (ex situ) increased with liming (Porvenir soil), a result in line with Garbuio et al. (2011) reporting increased activity and growth of heterotrophs after liming of Ferralsols. B. humidicola fulfills all characteristics of a calcifuge plant adapted to low-nitrifying environments (Li et al. 2013). It is adapted to humid and low pH soil conditions with low redox potential (Miles et al. 2004), and feeds on NH 4 + as sole N source (Castilla and Jackson 1991). The concluded NH 4 + preference has, however, been recently questioned. Using hydroponic studies, Egenolf et al. (2020b) verified that under mixed N nutrition B. humidicola captured 90% of its N uptake from the NO 3 − pool. This obvious preference of NO 3 − over NH 4 + finds support in the high affinity of the NO 3 − transporter systems described for Brachiaria spp. (Nakamura et al. 2005;Silveira et al. 2014). In the case of B. humidicola for instance, the extraordinarily low K m value (Michaelis constant) for NO 3 − uptake (4.4 µmol l −1 ) has been reported to lie far below the K m value for NH 4 + uptake (36.7 µmol l −1 ), indicating efficient depletion of the soil NO 3 − pool and -at least under N limited conditions -preference for NO 3 − (Nakamura et al. 2005). It could be further hypothesized that this physiological affinity for NO 3 − is accentuated in a soil-based system, in which higher mobility of NO 3 − compared to NH 4 + and mass flow movement towards the root discriminates against NH 4 + . This assumption finds support by Karwat et al. (2019) verifying that under field conditions B. humidicola readily feeds on nitrification derived NO 3 − with uptake rates responding linearly to soil NO 3 − concentrations. Consequently -for the special case of this study simulating an intensified grassland system -it was assumed that B. humidicola was almost exclusively feeding on NO 3 − , due to the following reasons: (1) the above-described physiological affinity towards NO 3 − , (2) a high NO 3 − availability in the soil solution within days after fertilization, and (3) disabled NH 4 + uptake due to energy shortage in the root as a result of plant pruning (Castilla and Jackson, 1991). Accordingly, it was concluded that beyond altering soil microbial N fluxes, B. humidicola directly affected net nitrification rates by strongly depleting the soil NO 3 − pool. Preferential and efficient NO 3 − feeding is thus proposed as additional factor pivotal to low net nitrification (Fig. 5 -mechanism 4 \"Preferential & efficient NO 3 − uptake\"). As for heterotrophic immobilization, root system size is fundamental for an effective reduction of soil NO 3 − levels and hence net nitrification rates. This was confirmed by the negative correlation between root biomass and topsoil NO 3 − levels, a finding in line with Nuñez et al. (2018).Unlimed soils revealed constantly low soil NO 3 − levels both 7 and 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization, indicating uniformly low net nitrification rates within these soils. The intergenotypic differences between soil NH 4 + levels, especially 7 days after NH 4 + fertilization were therefore probably not related to differences in net nitrification, but to differences in heterotrophic NH 4 + immobilization. In contrast, in the limed variants, decreasing soil NH 4 + levels were mirrored by increasing soil NO 3 − levels, indicating inter-genotypic differences in net nitrification. Based on the presented dataset, it could not be concluded with confidence, whether these differences in net nitrification were based on differences in gross nitrification. However, the tendency for higher topsoil NH 4 + pools -despite high N immobilization (N mic pools, in situ) and higher (Taluma) or constant (Porvenir) plant N uptake rates -were taken as indication for reduced gross nitrification rates under genotype CIAT 26146, as compared to genotypes CIAT 16888 and CIAT 679. This reasoning is based on the argument that alternative explanations, e.g. increased gross mineralization or DNRA rates, seemed improbable under the given circumstances. Interestingly, these differences in nitrification were probably not related to BNI, as the observed genotype performance disagreed with previous BNI ratings (Karwat et al. 2019;Moreta et al. 2014;Nuñez et al. 2018). In this sense, the poor BNI performance of genotypes CIAT 679 and CIAT 16888 (in situ), both generally considered as high BNI cultivars, suggested that the BNI effect was impaired under regular N fertilization. Accordingly, our second hypothesis could not be confirmed. This finding is in line with Castoldi et al. (2013) and was presumably attributed to (1) low NI exudation as a result of reduced plant terpene and especially phenolics synthesis due to constant rejuvenation through pruning (Burney and Jacobs 2012) and N inputs (Bryant et al. 1987;Hussain 2016;Lavola and Julkunen-Tiitto 1994) and (2) a reduced effectiveness of plant allelopathics and especially nitrification inhibitors in N abundant (high nitrifying) soil environments (Blum et al. 1993;White 1991).Interestingly, our data indicated inverse genotypic effects on the abundance of bacterial heterotrophs on the one hand, and abundances of both archaeal heterotrophs and ammonia oxidizers (AOA, AOB) on the other. In both soils, the abundance of heterotrophic bacteria increased with roots system size (CIAT 16888 < CIAT 679 < CIAT 26146), whereas those of archaea, AOA and AOB decreased (Fig. S1 and S2). Hence, it could be speculated that the plant-dependent reduction of nitrifier populations was due to increased inter-microbial competition between bacterial heterotrophs (stimulated by the plant) and nitrifiers. A possible explanation for the latter theory would be long-term competition for substrate N, proposed to be the predominant control of ammonia oxidizer abundance (Xiao et al. 2020). In our experiment, especially the concomitant reduction of amoA and archaeal 16S rRNA gene abundances favors the conceptualized theory of intermicrobial competition (Fig. 5 -mechanism 2 \"Plant facilitated inter-microbial competition\") rather than BNI (Fig. 5 -mechanism 3 \"Inhibition of nitrifiers (BNI)\") as determinant of nitrifier abundance. These findings are in line with Subbarao et al. (2009), confirming a reduction of both amoA and archaeal 16S rRNA gene abundances under Brachiaria spp.The third hypothesis in this study addressed the question whether B. humidicola is able to control nitrification under both archaea and bacteria dominated soil microbial backgrounds. The contrasting soil microbial community compositions (Fig. S1, Table S2) between both soils were mainly attributed to differences in soil texture and soil organic matter content (Girvan et al. 2003;Rasche et al. 2006;Sessitsch et al. 2001). Although both factors have been acknowledged to influence soil N dynamics (NH 4 + sorption to clay minerals, N mineralization dynamics), the soil microbial community composition was considered as the primary determinant of N immobilization and nitrification. The presented correlations between the abundance of nitrifier groups (AOA, AOB) and soil N pools as well as the changes of nitrifier community size within 14 days after NH 4 + fertilization (Fig. S1) suggested that nitrification was predominantly controlled by AOA in the archaea dominated Taluma soil, whereas by AOB in the bacteria dominated Porvenir soil. This was unexpected, as pH correction by liming and regular N inputs generally favor AOB over AOA (Di et al. 2009;Prosser and Nicol 2012;Thion et al. 2016) and have been reported to provoke community shifts towards AOB (Zhao et al. 2018). Furthermore, genotypic effects on soil microbial populations were consistent, irrespective of the soil microbial environment. Genotype CIAT 26146 always favored the proliferation of bacteria, along with a suppressive effect on archaea and both nitrifying groups. Hence, under the described conditions, hypothesis 3 could be accepted. Due to the ambiguity regarding the underlying mechanism of ammonia oxidizer control (BNI versus plant facilitated inter-microbial competition, Fig. 5), we remain cautious to infer any conclusion towards BNI in general.This study confirmed the capacity of B. humidicola to reduce soil net nitrification rates, irrespective of soil pH, microbial background and genotype. The reduction of net nitrification, however, was largely dependent on microbial N immobilization and efficient plant N (probably NO 3 − ) uptake, reflected by an equal N partitioning of NH 4 + -N towards the microbial N pool, the plant N pool and the soil NO 3 − pool. If the reduction of net nitrification was at least partially attributable to a reduction of gross nitrification cannot be answered with certainty. Furthermore, it remains unclear, whether a putative reduction of gross nitrification under genotype 26146 can be attributed to a plant exerted control of nitrifiers through BNI or rather to the facilitation of bacterial heterotrophs and subsequent suppression of ammonia oxidizers via competition.Therefore, we generally conclude, that reduced net nitrification rates under B. humidicola were the result of several, interacting mechanisms: (1) heterotrophic N immobilization, (2) plant facilitated inter-microbial competition, (3) BNI, and (4) preferential and efficient NO 3 − uptake by plants. Consequently, we proposed a broader concept on the plant exerted control of soil nitrification (Fig. 5). Which of the proposed mechanisms predominates depends strongly on the management intensity. Accordingly, under intensification of B. humidicola pasture systems (soil liming, N fertilization), heterotrophic N immobilization and efficient plant N uptake rather than BNI represent the dominant factors controlling net nitrification rates, irrespective of the soil microbial background. This hypothesis should be considered upon future studies, advising a thorough investigation and dissection of the different N pathways affecting soil net nitrification rates via 15 N stable isotope approaches. Lopez, Edwin Palma and Brayan Morales (CIAT, Palmira) for their support and dedication during setup and management of the experiment. The authors are grateful to Aracely Vidal, Patricia Higuita and Gonzalo Borrero (Servicios analíticos-CIAT), Despina Savvidou, Carolin Röhl and Dr. Mary Musyoki (Hans-Ruthenberg Institute, University of Hohenheim) and Dr. Sven Marhan and Dr. Christian Poll (Soil Biology, University of Hohenheim) for their support and advice during laboratory analysis. Furthermore, we thank Paola Pardo Saray and Daniel Vergara (CIAT, Villavicencio) for assistance during the soil collection from the savanna sites. The first author (K. Egenolf) is grateful to Dr. Idupulapati Rao, Jonathan Nuñez, Jaumer Ricaurte, Alba Lucia Chavez, Johanna Mazabel, Juan Cardoso, Juan de la Cruz, Mauricio Sotelo and Stefan Burkart for the valuable discussions on the topic. "}

main/part_2/0320390987.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"93bb8f1c7b2aab7d8d48fa730a6a6a6e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b7e5ec77-5d59-4b93-a08b-51ded65ad44a/retrieve","id":"-1306084472"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e60641fd-aea2-490d-b034-4e427e9146fc","content":"_srSTH'c'\\ rARA EVfiLUACICtl DE CEPAS DE RHIZO[lIllN EN SUELOS NO PERTURBADOS =fJ ti '!f', ,_(~ ! L , ______ Tubo de, plástico de una pulgada de dián:etro, ~ \\ _\" con tapa de al umi n i o para i rl'i gaci 6n.r.amada de arena parafinada y esteril izada*pa ra evitar contami nací ón,. ' ,-~------_'ubo de plástico blanco (4 pulgadJs de diámetro) con suelo no perturbado.1 Chapa de aluminio, cortada para cercar el cii lindro y 'cubrir el plato de plástico.¡~lato de plástico ''--l~~~~,_~~-,k_= margen afilada ,Se puede usar e:;te s'ísterP.a en e:<perimentos donde se quiere co~'parar tr-ª.e ta;;:ientos con diferentes cepas de Rhizobium con un testigo sin inocula ci6n y sin nitrógeno y otro testigo con nitrógeno. La ventaja da usar Sl1C10 no perturbado es que la perturbación del suelo puede causal' un au-'-n,nto en la tasa de mineralización resultando la liberación de nitrógeno, , .. lir.~r¡;l, que puede inhibir la ¡¡adulación. Otros cambios causados por la ~crtllrb~ciónpueden afectar la respuesta a la inoculación tambiln.• Se introducen los cilindros por golpeo en el suelo del sitio seleccionado, 'protegí endo el eil i ndro con un pedazo de madera. y removí éndo 10 con una pala. Se puede irrigar el suelo antes, en el caso de ser demasiado duro, pero cuidando de que el agua s,e di stri buya i gUD lll',ente en el a.rea qU2 sera' muestrada. Los cilindros se introdt:cen en el suelo hasta aproximad! n:ente 2 cm. de su margen superi.or, dejando así espació suficiente para la arena parafinada. Se pueden dejar los cilindro~ enterrados en el sitio y sucarlos 1 Jeoo antes del experimehto,para que se conserven bajo condi- ..parécido (por ejemplo: la parte central cortada de la chapa de aluminio) . para evitar contaminación por Rhizobium hasta que se plante el experi -,mento. Se deben mantener los cilindros en• capacidad de ~ampo, con agua libre de contaminación y niveles mayores de nutrientes o Rhizobium que se encuentran normalmente en -el agua de la lluvia y en el sitio a ser tes-o tado., \"-:;¡;,: -.-', ' -.\" •.:/;,:-::':\"{;'.\": \".~;ra montar el experimento se plantanl~s\\e~il1as' in~~~;'ad~S y re~ubie~tas con. la misma metodología que se usaría en el campo¡pero teniendo cui dado de que se proporcione más o menos el mismonúmero de,células de Rhizobium por semilla en todos los tratamientos. Se deo~n' aplicar, un mí nimo de 300 células por semilla Y' se puede aumentar: esta cantidad hasta 5000 células por semilla.Se aplica los niveles de nutrientes recomendados, usando una solución de ~eactivos químicos en agua. El nitrógeno se. apljc~ desp~és de la germi-' .', • nacióñ a través del tubo de irrigación. Se \"aplica un volumen de agua i-' gual a los tratamientos que no reciben nitrógeno. Se divide la aplica -.' ción de nitrógeno, por ejemplo en el caso de tener dos testigos con' la !. plicación de 75 y 150 kg N ha-1 durante un experimento de más o ménos 3 meses de duración, se podría aplicar el equivalente,de .15y 30 kg N ha-1 "}

main/part_2/0349143819.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ce46111ef62c838e3de273faaab6023b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9a4a6944-523b-4bbc-beee-6474fbb60587/retrieve","id":"-1419956648"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a4d4ea90-1aea-40a5-b8bd-9a85893e848a","content":"Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) is a crop that originated in China. Soybean is one of the most important sources of edible vegetable protein and oil, and it has become a model legume species in genomic research. Worldwide gene banks, such as the National Crop Genebank of China (NCGC) and the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Soybean Germplasm Collection, contain more than 170,000 soybean accessions that encompass genetic diversity in both the cultivated soybean (G. max) and its progenitor, G. soja. However, sharing of large germplasm-omics data sets remains a bottleneck.At present, the field of plant genomics is transitioning from theory to application. Two barriers prevent the widespread sharing of crop Genebank data: (1) as a leading factor in both breeding and genetic studies, germplasm-omics data, especially phenotypic data, is still difficult to reuse, and (2) the balance between efficiency and cost is challenging for germplasm databases, especially those maintained by individual researchers.The popular online resource Phytozome [1] makes a few soybean reference genomes available for plant researchers, and Soybase [2] provides soybean genetic information based on chip (SoySNP50K) data. In recent years, several studies [3-5] have reported the re-sequencing of soybean genomes from both wild and cultivated accessions. On this basis, a database called MBKbase has plans to release a set of data (https://www.mbkbase.org/soybean) based on a recent pan-genome report [4]. LegumeIP, an integrative database for comparative genomics and transcriptomics of model legumes, has recently been updated to its third version [6]. However, the previous two barriers still remain unsolved in these works. Here, we present the data sharing mode embedded in SoyFGB v2.0 (https://sfgb.rmbreeding.cn/, developed by the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China) with the 2214-accession soybean core collection (2K-SG) as an example of our efforts.As shown in Fig. 1a, SoyFGB v2.0 includes the 2214 soybean core collection (2K-SG) with accessions from four major soybean production and distribution areas (Asia, America, Europe, andAfrica). The 2K-SG dataset comprises three major classes of soybean species: cultivated species (1993 accessions of G. max), annual wild species (218 G. soja accessions), and perennial wild species (2 G. tomentella accessions and 1 G. tabacina accession). The G. soja accessions and G. max landraces were collected from their native geographic ranges in East Asia. Improved G. max cultivars were sampled globally, mainly from primary soybean-producing countries such as the USA, Japan, Republic of Korea, and China. A total of 1690 out of the 1993 cultivated soybean accessions (84.8%) were selected from the Chinese primary and applied core collections based on 14 agronomic traits and the sequences of 60 single-copy genetic loci, representing the broad genetic diversity of the 23,587 cultivated soybean accessions conserved in the NCGC [7]. Whole-genome resequencing was performed using a standard procedure. DNA sequencing libraries were generated using the TruseqNano Ò DNA HT sample preparation kit (Illumina Inc., San Diego, USA) following the manufacturer's recommendations. PCR products were purified using the AMPure XP bead system, and the libraries were analyzed for size distribution on an Agilent2100 Bioanalyzer. Subsequently, the Illumina Hiseq X platform was used to generate 150-base paired-end (PE) sequence reads. Removal of low-quality paired reads resulted in 16.41 Tb of high-quality PE reads, of which 96.05% and 90.98% had Phred quality scores Q20 and Q30, respectively. To call sequence variants, we first mapped the reads to the soybean reference genome (Williams 82 assembly v2.0; https://www.phytozome.net/soybean) using BWA software (v0.7.17-r1188; https://bio-bwa.sourceforge. net). Duplicates were then marked with Picard tools (v2.18.15; https://broadinstitute.github.io/picard). Subsequently, we performed gVCF calling according to the best practices using the Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK, version v4.1.2.0, https://gatk. broadinstitute.org/hc/en-us) with the HaplotypeCaller-based method. Consequently, a total of 65,374,688 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs, 60,153,828 are bi-allelic) and 10,952,749 InDels (8,349,613 small insertions and deletions <15 bp and fewer than 50% missing) were identified in 2K-SG. Based on a random subset of 8,785,134 highly-credible biallelic SNPs, two different levels of grouping were carried out and are presented in SoyFGB v2.0. Level one (Group 1), the SNP-only level, includes 1507 cultivated, 313 wild, and 394 admixture accessions. Level two (Group 2), based on the output of a two-step grouping, includes a speciesbased subgrouping and an SNP-based subgrouping within each group. In Group 2, the G. max group was divided into five sub-groups; the southern China region (C_SR), central China region (C_CR), northern China region plus Japan, the Korean peninsula, and the Russian far east region (C_NR), America (C_Am), and admixtures (C_AD). The G. soja group was divided into four subgroups; the southern China region (W_SR), central China region (W_CR), northern China region plus Japan, the Korean peninsula, and the Russian far east region (W_NR), and the admixture (W_AD) subgroups.It is well known that InDel and SNP marker loci tend to cluster throughout the genome [8]. Thus, in the present haplotype analysis release, SNPs are still the main factors, and the InDels shown by ''-\" were also taken into consideration during the analysis. Additionally, heterozygotes were regarded as an additional type. In the ''Soy_Haplotype\" module, a straightforward statistical analysis based on analysis of variance (ANOVA) protected t-test is provided. In the ''Hap_GWAS\" module, a linear model for GWAS [9] was adopted. Phenotypic data were obtained from data accumulated at the NCGC. Quantitative data were then transformed into discrete values based on the distributions of trait values.SoyFGB v2.0 includes three major tabs; ''Search\", ''Browse\", and ''Analysis\". The ''Search\" tab contains four modules including ''Germplasm\", ''Phenotype\", ''Gene (SNP & InDel)\", and ''Knowledge\". Users can select favourable germplasm by discrete phenotypic data in ''Phenotype\" or by target gene variations embedded in the ''Gene (SNP & InDel)\" tab. More information about 2K-SG and soybean research is provided by the ''Germplasm\" and ''Knowledge\" modules. With the ''Browse\" tab, the SNP or InDel variations are accessible in a genome browser view embedded in the ''SNP\" and ''InDel\" modules, respectively. In the ''Analysis\" tab, three modules named ''Hap-GWAS\", ''Soy_Haplotype\", and ''Intro_Hap\" are provided. With these tools, users may perform a deep mining for haplotypes in genotyped soybean accessions. Typical uses of SoyFGB v2.0 are demonstrated in the following user cases:(1) Exploring soybean germplasm based on discrete-phenotype or accession information. A typical pre-breeding/forward genetics scheme starts with phenotyping. In SoyFGB v2.0, a set of discrete-phenotype data covering 42 traits, including nine quality and 33 quantitative traits are embedded in the Search tab based on the ''Phenotype\" module. The user can screen the 2K-SG germplasm collection with discrete-phenotype data. A three-step route can be followed to explore elite donors for a breeding scheme: (a) target trait scaling, demonstrated herein by screening the top 30% in protein content as an example, which includes 13 samples; (b) from these samples, favourable early-maturing (top 50 %) samples were further screened, and favourable samples may be added to create a list of candidate germplasm (3 samples); (c) the user can then export a list of candidate donors for different breeding schemes based on the two grouping levels. An easy way to access the ''Seed Request\" module is available via a single click on a key called ''Request Germplasm\".(2) Haplotype mining with embedded/user-owned 2K-SG phenotypic data. In the ''Soy_Haplotype\" module, the user can mine the haplotype variations from the 2K-SG collection in a defined target region using gene name, physical range, or even a set of SNPs. With the SoyFGB-embedded or user-owned phenotypic data, the phenotypic effects of different haplotypes for target traits are available to the user. The donor lists of different haplotypes are also provided for users with supporting evidence from statistical analyses based on the ANOVA protected t-test.As an example, the candidate genes for isoflavone content in soybean were identified by a combination of bulked segregant analysis (BSA) with a natural population and weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) using the transcriptomes of different seed developmental stages. SoyFGB v2.0 provided the haplotype analysis function for the candidate genes. Firstly, the locus number of one candidate gene ID and the phenotypic data for isoflavone content from 2K-SG from user data were submitted to the ''Soy_Haplotype\" module embedded in the Analysis tab of SoyFGB v2.0. All the haplotypes of this gene were then presented.Subsequently, with the aid of a straightforward statistical analysis between different haplotypes, germplasm accessions harboring the different haplotypes were found to be significantly distinct from one another in isoflavone content. This implies the possible contribution of the candidate gene in regulating the isoflavone content of soybean grain. Finally, the haplotype variations and the germplasm list for the candidate gene were also downloaded for further laboratory work (Fig. 1b). Alternatively, an enhanced correlation between the phenotypes and haplotypes could be explored with the ''Hap-GWAS\" module, which uses the methodology described recently [9]. In order to save the possible waiting time for this analysis, an email reminder system was adopted. Once the results of the analysis are ready, a reminder email containing a direct access link to the output is sent to a mailbox defined by the user. Together with the instant screening using the ''Soy_Haplotype\" module, correlations between the phenotypes and haplotypes may be mined at different levels. A number of data sets have been generated using relatively low-density genotyping methods, such as the SNP chip. A tool for haplotype analysis in target regions using this type of data in populations with or without known parents is also provided in the ''Intro_Hap\" module. Since a request for this tab was recently made by users during an indoor testing period, we are still looking for more user responses since this release of SoyFGB v2.0.(3) Searching for variation within candidate genes for favorable germplasm. A route for shortlisting candidate genes using SoyFGB v2.0 is shown in Fig. 1c and involves the following: (a) identifying a target region using mapping methods such as GWAS or sorting accessions with favorable target traits; (b) using the ''SNP\" or ''InDel\" modules in the Browse tab to explore the variations within a target gene/region; (c) inputting the target region or gene locus ID into the ''Gene(SNP/InDel)\" module of the Search tab; and (d) with the downloaded genotype information (SNP or InDel), users can perform further work with primer design and laboratory confirmation. In the example shown in Fig. 1c, a marker for maturity time in soybean was developed based on the above description. We have compared the efficiencies of identifying key mutations with or without SoyFGB v2.0. As shown in Fig. 1d, for a known target gene (E2) with the ID Glyma.10G221500, the key mutation at position 45,310,798 can be found in less than 17 s with SoyFGB v2.0. However, it could take more than 60 times as long (17 min) using other known tools.In summary, a workflow is provided in the Flowchart page of the Introduction module in the ''About\" tab through the following URL: https://sfgb.rmbreeding.cn/about/introduction for users to follow. More details are also accessible through this link.In the ''omics\" era, a suitable mode for phenotypic data sharing of Genebank germplasm is urgently needed [10]. In contrast to genomic and other omics data, phenotypic data are rarely reused. Much of the phenotypic data in gene banks is not openly accessible, even though it complies with the FAIR criteria [11].Our objective in designing SoyFGB v2.0 was to set up a general phenotypic data sharing mode for germplasm accessions of a crop (soybean) that is under strict control for data sharing, and which is designed to be adaptive and responsive to the overwhelming quantity of genomic and phenotypic data. The FGB general data sharing mode in SoyFGB v2.0 has the following characteristics:(1) Mining elite donor lines with favourable haplotypes is of high value to breeders. The correlations between phenotypes and SNPs, such as from GWAS results, can only be accessible through search functions on other websites [12,13]. Instead of providing a direct download link to raw phenotypic data, SoyFGB v2.0 not only employs a discrete-phenotype data-led germplasm sharing mode, but also performs online analyses through the ''Hap-GWAS\", ''Soy_Haplotype\", and ''Intro_Hap\" modules. This has provided a platform that is more conducive to data contributors sharing their own unpublished data with public users.(2) To keep up with the development of multiple-client ends, a development framework different from the previous FGB website [14] was employed in SoyFGB v2.0. The website is driven by Nginx, including the front end developed using the Vue-Element-Axios tool, and the back end was developed with the java-based tool. The RESTful API facilitates easy data access through different client platforms. Additionally, in order to balance efficiency and cost, a distributed database structure was designed for SoyFGB v2.0 (Fig. 1e). Phenotypic and genotypic data are stored on servers with different capacities. Phenotypic data are managed by an instantresponse server with a relatively small storage capacity using the MySQL database, and the genotypic data are stored on a server with a slower response but a larger storage capacity. All these features are aimed at meeting developing trends including decentralization and multiple ways of accessing the ever-increasing amount of biological data in the near future.(3) Searching plant omics databases for functional information has grown in popularity [15]. Accordingly, the ''Search\" function in SoyFGB v2.0 is important for helping users search for useful information inside and/or outside of SoyFGB. Through the three major embedded tabs, users can access 2K-SG data in an effective and efficient manner.(4) Many correlations between phenotypes and haplotypes can be directly mined in soybean using SoyFGB v2.0. Moreover, the efficiency of haplotype mining in soybean should be largely improved (by 60 folds).In summary, SoyFGB v2.0 is an example of a portal that was established for sharing and mining big germplasm-omics datasets at the phenotypic and genotypic levels from more than 2200 soybean accessions. The NCGC has now provided a phenotype-led germplasm-omics data sharing platform in SoyFGB, which may inspire new ideas for data sharing and mining in other crops. "}

main/part_2/0367322813.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ad57dca8d1000bd73bb37c8ecba94988","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/85839895-9de1-41ee-83cb-4b1ea7b1bfb9/retrieve","id":"1316397630"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0b83b776-fdff-4a3d-88d2-5d4a86916eb4","content":"Key informant interviews were conducted with representatives of multiple organizations including: OFDA, CIAT, Mercy Corps, CRS, CARE, FAO, UNHCR, World Bank Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and Cash and Learning Partnership (CaLP). Additional information for case studies included in the report were based on published documents (ICRC) and communication with staff knowledgeable on the examples (e.g. Save the Children, ZOA International).Cash Learning Partnership CIAT International Center for Tropical AgricultureAll cash-related definitions are from the CaLP Glossary. 1Cash Transfer: The provision of assistance in the form of money -either physical currency or e-cash -to recipients (individuals, households or communities). Cash transfers are by definition unrestricted in terms of use and distinct from restricted modalities including vouchers and in-kind assistance.Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA): Refers to all programs where cash transfers or vouchers for goods or services are directly provided to recipients. In the context of humanitarian assistance, the term is used to refer to the provision of cash transfers or vouchers given to individuals, household or community recipients; not to governments or other state actors. This excludes remittances and microfinance in humanitarian interventions (although microfinance and money transfer institutions may be used for the actual delivery of cash). The terms 'cash' or 'cash assistance' should be used when referring specifically to cash transfers only (i.e. 'cash' or 'cash assistance' should not be used to mean 'cash and voucher assistance').Complementary Programming: This term refers to programming where different modalities and/or activities are combined to achieve objectives. Complementary interventions may be implemented by one agency or by more than one agency working collaboratively. This approach can enable identification of effective combinations of activities to address needs and achieve program objectives. Ideally this will be facilitated by a coordinated, multi-sectoral approach to needs assessment and programming.Modality: Modality refers to the form of assistance -e.g. cash transfer, vouchers, in-kind, service delivery, or a combination (modalities). This can include both direct transfers to household level, and assistance provided at a more general or community level e.g. health services, WASH infrastructureMultipurpose Cash Transfer (MPC): Cash transfers are unrestricted, which means they can be spent as recipients choose. This flexibility means that a single cash transfer can potentially be used to address a range of needs, and potentially achieve multiple program objectives. From a recipient perspective then cash might be described as multipurpose simply in that it can serve multiple purposes, within the limits of the amount of cash transferred. Note also that strictly there cannot be a 'multipurpose voucher' as there are inherent restrictions on the use of any type of voucher. There are differing understandings of what constitutes multipurpose cash in the humanitarian sector. Is cash multipurpose by design, use, or funding allocation? 'Multipurpose cash transfer' is also frequently used interchangeably with the concept of 'basic needs', which describes the types of needs that multipurpose cash is usually designed to address. This glossary recommends that 'multipurpose cash' be understood primarily as assistance explicitly designed to address multiple needs on a cross-sectoral basis through a cash transfer. The extent to which a cash transfer enables basic needs to be met is of course dependent on the sufficiency of the transfer value provided and should be considered when terms are applied to specific interventions.The link between situational analysis (broadly speaking, needs assessment and other contextual information) and program design. It involves the selection of program response options, modalities and target groups; and should be informed by considerations of appropriateness and feasibility and should simultaneously address needs while analyzing and minimizing potential harmful side-effects. [Maxwell, D. 2013] \"Cash transfers are not a sector in their own right: cash is simply an instrument that can be used -when appropriate -to meet particular objectives in particular contexts and sectors of response. Cash transfers are not a panacea; nor are many of the fears that still attend their use in humanitarian response justified in practice. Ultimately, listing theoretical advantages and disadvantages of cash transfers in comparison to inkind relief is not a helpful framework for discussion. The appropriateness of cash transfers depends on needs, markets and other key factors, all of which vary from context to context.\" (Harvey & Bailey, 2011) \"Seed aid suffers from being a humanitarian orphan. Seed aid is often given simply because food aid is given: Alternatively, seed provision may be lumped together with the diverse pool of non-food items, and emphasis put on efficient procurement and transport procedures. Far from being a logistical exercise (i.e.buying and distributing seed), effective seed aid operations demand considerable expertise of (inter alia) regional agro-ecology, livelihood strategies, and markets. While good seed aid can help, poor assistance can make farmers even more vulnerable.\" (Sperling, et al., 2007) \"Direct seed distribution is unsuitable for many situations in which it is currently being used…evidence from the field suggests that seed availability is rarely a prime constraint. [rather, lack of access dominates.] More market-based approaches, including use of vouchers or cash….may have wider application.\" (Sperling, Cooper, & Remington, 2008) \"Cash is the main means with which people pay for goods and services all around the world. This fact does not change because there is an emergency. Being in possession of cash or vouchers -physically or electronically -can be the difference between life and death for people affected by armed conflict.\" (ICRC, 2018)\"The free distribution of seeds and tools is the standard approach to agricultural recovery. The predominance of this approach is partly attributable to the: (1) perception that farmer seed quality is poor, (2) insistence on seed certification, (3) promotion of researcher varieties, (4) misdiagnosis of unavailability, (5) difficulty accessing farmer seed, and (6) support for the commercial seed sector.\" (Remington, Maroko, Walsh, Omanga, & Charles, 2002) \"The increasing use of unconditional cash assistance poses an existential challenge to the humanitarian industry's business model because it doesn't just blur the lines between the major agencies' mandates-it transcends and obliterates them. It shifts decision making and priority setting radically, away from a mandate-centered debate between large agencies and toward individual determinations by aid's end users based on their own needs. This effectively inverts the funding logic on which the current business model rests. Rather than forcing end users to segment their needs within what the industry is predisposed to provide, cash assistance asks the industry to conform its delivery systems to needs as defined by end users.\" (Konyndyk, May 2018)This study examines the barriers and opportunities for cash transfers to be used to address seed security in humanitarian situations. Cash, while not a new approach, has gained momentum in recent years, especially with the emergence of the Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) and humanitarian organizations' commitments through the Grand Bargain. 2 Historically, direct seed distribution (DSD) has dominated agricultural responses in emergencies. While effective in many situations, other modalities of addressing farmers' needs have also proven to be effective, including seed and voucher fairs and, increasingly, cash transfer responses. The latter response typically provides farmers greater choices to make decisions about their seed needs and preferences. However, as with direct distribution and vouchers, cash can be a viable option but may not always be appropriate in every situation.The quality of seed is of paramount importance in choosing a response and has been an ongoing (and often contentious and political) discussion for decades. The results of this study advocate for a multi-stakeholder perspective on the quality of seed, while offering farmers the most flexible and most appropriate response possible for their given situation. In some cases, this will be cash transfers, but certainly not in all cases. A range of options offers the best chance for a successful, responsive, and appropriate program.The evidence base on outcomes from using cash for seed in humanitarian contexts is limited, however, reviewing a series of examples shows the breadth and range of options that are being explored. The cases from an array of organizations and countries including Iraq, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Madagascar, and Guatemala, show that understanding the context is key to the response analysis and the choice of modality. Organizational approaches and previous experience also played a role in the choice of modality. The evidence to date shows that cash, in addition to complementary programming such as technical or business training, offers promise for seed security interventions. In addition, initiatives to support both the demand and supply side of the market have proven to be effective.1. Market and needs assessments must include a seed component or SSSA to ensure a response designed to address the right problem, not the assumption. For markets, both informal and formal seed markets need to be included.spending cash on what implementers anticipate they will. 3. Program participants' preferences on modalities are not consistently included in response analysis. 4. Mixed modalities (cash and vouchers, or cash and DSD) can broaden crop choices. 5. Quality screenings for seed are taking place; the quality of seed is important to organizations and project participants. 6. Cash for seed security interventions are limited, but growing in prevalence. 7. Providing cash plus complementary support is a promising practice for fostering seed security. 8. The nexus between relief and development is critical-designing projects with a longer-term development view: cash can prepare the way for farmers to continue true market engagement post-relief, spur business development in subsequent seasons, and offer opportunities for financial inclusion. 9. Supporting supply side to bring quality seed markets 'closer' to project participants should be considered along with demand-side interventions (cash, voucher and other).10. Investment in preparedness provides a better foundation to implement impactful cash for seed security response.The risks, mitigating actions, opportunities and enablers for cash and seed security response are also explored.The study concludes with actionable and practical recommendations for further advancing the evidence base, as well as implementation suggestions. Continuous collaboration of key stakeholders in seed systems is essential to advance the discussions and action on the way forward with cash and seed systems.In the Feed the Future Global Supporting Seed Systems for Development (S34D) activity, funded by the Feed the Future initiative through the Bureau for Food Security and USAID through OFDA, CIAT-PABRA is leading the component that focuses on seed security in contexts characterized by emergency, chronic stress, and resilience. This study is initial research under this component to explore the demand side/farmer side of the feasibility of using cash transfers in various contexts to provide last mile seed for chronic stress contexts, or in emergencies for acute stress. A complementary study looks at market side aspects specifically (Walsh & Sperling, 2019). By identifying opportunities and potential barriers to using cash transfers for seed security, the study informs further actions regarding the types of contexts (when, where and how) cash transfers can be promoted as an effective means for fostering seed security and to further test promising practices and new approaches. Cash is increasingly being used in emergencies for sectoral outcomes, notably shelter, food security and WASH. A 'thinking group' comprised of representatives from various organizations active in cash transfers and seed systems in emergencies guided the study and provided valuable input throughout the process.This study delves into the specific opportunities and challenges that cash transfers bring for promoting seed security. As staff who have worked in emergency responses can attest to, any two situations that appear similar to an external viewer are often actually incredibly complex and different. Because not all emergencies (acute and chronic stress) are the same, it is essential to have a range of options that may suit the context rather than having a \"one size fits all\" approach, or a standard response. While this study looks specifically at cash transfers, it is not a study that advocates for cash in all situations and contexts. Rather, it seeks to expand the options that are available to best meet the seed needs of project participants by giving beneficiaries choice and encouraging sustainable seed systems-to allow them real choice in times of stress, to choose crops and varieties and the timing of when and where to access seed.The most common approach for seed systems in emergency response remains direct seed distribution (DSD) (Sperling, Cooper, & Remington, 2008), followed by vouchers. An extensive review of the history and impact of DSD or vouchers is beyond the scope of this study; however, a few key issues are necessary to provide the backdrop to the cash for seed security discussion.DSD has been the dominant approach in emergency response for decades. While appropriate for seed relief sometimes, DSD can occasionally cause supply-side issues by distorting the markets through large seed procurements, and by often benefiting large suppliers rather than more local, typically smaller seed suppliers. Common demand-side challenges related to DSD include inappropriate, unfamiliar or less-preferred varieties/crops, and distributions coming too late for the planting season. Unintentionally providing maladapted varieties can have negative consequences by leaving farmers worse off than they were before receiving seeds (Sperling & McGuire, 2010). Repeated seed aid distribution had become the norm in many countries even 10 years ago when Sperling et al. characterized the issue, such as 34 years of near continuous seed aid in Ethiopia since 1974 (Sperling, Cooper, & Remington, 2008). The article recommends more market-based approaches to address seed system issues. In addition, research shows that access, not availability, is the main seed-related constraint for vulnerable or disaster-affected farmers (Sperling & McGuire, 2012).Seed vouchers and fairs have been used in emergency situations as early as 2000 for CRS in East Africa (Remington, Maroko, Walsh, Omanga, & Charles, 2002) and FAO in Mozambique in 2002(FAO, 2019). The primary purpose was to enable disaster-affected farmers to access seeds of their own choosing rather than direct distribution of seeds chosen by NGOs or government (CRS, 2017). Vouchers are appropriate in some contexts, but can limit farmers' choice to selected suppliers and crops/varieties selected by the organizing agency.Cash for seed, although not a new approach, has been used as early as 2006 in Ethiopia (Sperling, et al., 2007)on a relatively limited basis to date, and therefore extensive evidence on its effectiveness in various contexts is not robust. However, in principle, cash provides farmers with the ability and flexibility to strategize in times of stress; evidence indicates that within one season or across seasons, farmers will choose crops and varieties that are known and trusted by them. (McGuire & Sperling, 2013).This study recognizes that while cash can be a viable option, it may not always be appropriate in every situation, just as direct distribution and vouchers are not always appropriate. In addition, multi-purpose cash is usually aimed at meeting project participants' various needs, while cash linked to a sector may have expected program outcomes that ultimately may not be met, as cash is fungible and can be used according to the choices of the participants. In sectoral programs, the transfer value is often based on expected expenditures and the accompanying information provided to participants ensures that they understand its expected use; alternatively, cash intended for sectoral outcomes is commonly issued in \"tranches,\" the next tranche only distributed if recipients show progress towards the sectoral aim.1. What is the ability of unconditional cash, either alone or in conjunction with other support ('plus'), to enable people to meet their preferred seed needs (availability, access, and quality)? 2. What are the opportunities that cash assistance can offer in humanitarian context for seed security (availability, access and quality), and how does this compare to opportunities in other sectors (e.g. WASH, Shelter)? 3. What are the potential barriers to using cash assistance for seed security in humanitarian context, and how do they compare to barriers in other sectors (e.g. WASH, Shelter)?While cash for seed security is not as commonly utilized as DSD or vouchers, examples of using cash for seed security do show a wide range of approaches in various contexts. These approaches include: the use of multiple modalities, even within the same program, based on quality of seed and security concerns; both supply-and demand-side interventions to ensure local availability of sufficient farmer-preferred seed; cash plus business coaching and agricultural extension; mixed modalities such as vouchers plus enabling project participants to use their own cash to top up; and, conditional cash delivered before planting time, with transfer values designed to enable seed and input purchases. Although experimentation is happening, it is not well-documented or widely shared externally. The cases below provide a snapshot of the types of responses that have been utilized.1. Iraq (ZOA International) (Ramsis, 2019) Quick, efficient and flexible: cash for livelihood recovery Before providing cash grants, ZOA trains farmers on essential skills: cultivating relevant cash crops, calculating their costs (including seeds, fertilizers, water, labor, etc.), and estimating the income their farming will provide. Once plans are complete, a standard cash grant provides farmers with the necessary economic boost to help them cover these costs. ZOA continues to work with the farmers through its monitoring, business coaching and agricultural extension to ensure their success.2. Ethiopia (CRS) (Weatherall, 2019) Cash for change: Expanding options for seed accessIn 2018, CRS and its implementing partners provided emergency agriculture support for seed access utilizing mixed modalities: cash, voucher and direct seed distribution (DSD). Post-harvest management techniques and messaging on how to manage Fall Armyworm infestation were also part of the project. The planned mixed modality provided commodity vouchers for main crops plus a complementary cash transfer to purchase nutritionally-dense crop seeds (e.g. kale, beans). The balance of modalities helped to guide crop choices. The project was implemented in 19 woredas across the two regions of Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia, targeting a total of 42,467 beneficiaries who were impacted by drought and other natural hazards in the previous season.The project was intentionally designed to transition from direct seed distribution approaches of its previous projects in the area, as was recommended by the Seed System Security Assessment, and to test cash and commodity vouchers. Based on the local context (both attitudes toward cash and seed availability), partners conducted rapid assessments which included information on local availability, preferences, seed price, and average landholding. These assessments informed the type and amount of seed to be supported per household. For some of its five partners, the cash intervention was new, while for others it was not. Changing the delivery model of the program necessitated partner staff buy-in and capacity building. The mixed modality approach for seed provision and the flexibility to change modalities as needed in the context was appreciated by the partners.Project participants also appreciated the mixed modality approach. For them, it provided increased access to modern varieties (improved, hybrid seed) and certified seeds from the formal sector for main crop production that they would otherwise be unable to access locally and unable to afford, while cash provided households with flexibility to buy other crop types for household consumption and more empowerment to women to decide how to spend the cash, and contribute to household livelihoods. Post-distribution discussions indicated that households bought some crop seeds (e.g. kale and cabbage), and in some cases also bought other inputs such as hens for egg production (for household consumption and sale). Although partners provided information to participants on the purpose of the transfer, ultimately participants could choose how to prioritize their needs and use the cash.Because Ethiopia has had many continuous seasons of emergency seed interventions, expectations from participants for future support remained. In future programs, linking emergency and more long-term resilience-focused interventions was recommended. A program review also acknowledged that more systemic issues such as livelihoods diversification and strengthening and support to local seed production would be best addressed with multi-year resilience-focused programs.3. Nigeria (ICRC) (ICRC, 2018)The ICRC implemented emergency programming in response to the conflict context in north eastern Nigeria.A nuanced understanding of the context, including market functionality, seed quality and availability and security, influenced the organization's modality choice for meeting participants' needs.In Biu, functioning markets and assessed adequate quality in the market steered the ICRC to provide cash to 3,160 households. The ICRC agronomist determined the cash value based on the specific needs of each household, including transportation and 10% contingency. One-off grants were distributed electronically via Teasy Mobile. In another location, Muchikia, due to quality concerns about seeds in the local market, the ICRC restricted purchases to limited suppliers where quality had been confirmed; 26,502 households were provided with a restricted voucher that enabled people to purchase a range of quality seeds, including sorghum, maize, cowpea, as well as fertilizer. The vouchers were a one-off transfer for the majority of the target population.The ICRC decided cash and vouchers were not feasible in the context of Maiduguiri due to limited market functionality and security concerns limiting access to markets. Instead, the ICRC provided direct distribution of seeds for crops such as rice, maize, cowpea and other vegetables. In-kind assistance was selected due to these reasons. This assistance was a one-off distribution.4. Uganda (Mercy Corps) (Mercy Corps, 2016) Bringing the market closer to farmers -and leveraging farmers' \"willingness to pay\"Mercy Corps utilized seed e-vouchers to address the limited supply of seeds farmers in Karamoja, Uganda.With the e-vouchers, farmers were able to access high yielding and drought tolerant seed varieties through certified national seed suppliers, agro-dealers, and agents at the community level. Businesses brought their products and services closer to the farmer population, as farmers had subsidized vouchers with which to purchase their wares. The voucher, similar to a mobile phone top up scratch card commonly used in the area, provided a 50% subsidy (worth approximately 3,250 Ugandan Shillings, or $1 USD). The farmer was required to pay the remaining 50% which then amounted to enough to buy approximately 1 kilogram of seed, such as sorghum, maize, beans, vegetables, or groundnuts. The e-vouchers could be used for any type of seed the farmers preferred, so agro-dealers needed to know their customers' preferences in order to be prepared to meet the demand. Using mobile money technology ensured quick payment to suppliers and facilitated longerterm business relationships between these agro-dealers in Karamoja and reputable producers of high-quality seeds at the national level.To address constraints of input costs for farmers, the project also worked with them to plan and help save for planting costs for future seasons. Project-based agricultural extension workers delivered accompanying training to the farmers to support them to maximize the potential of the seeds. The partial rather than full subsidy showed that vulnerable farmers were willing to invest their own funds since the costs and risks were minimized. Farmers' seed choice decisions in future seasons will show how much they value the expected improved yield as compared to the higher cost of the seed.The program's case study documented the following highlights from the program:• Scalability-the e-voucher intervention reached significantly more farmers than paper vouchers, indicating it is highly scalable. • Market actors-the agro-dealers were in a better position to understand and respond to customer demand than the NGOs because of the direct business-to-customer relationship. • Market facilitation-the less-restricted e-vouchers facilitated markets more than commodity vouchers that specify a seed type and quantity. Giving farmers the ability to choose their seeds allowed agro-dealers to respond by stocking preferred certified seeds within the same planting season, increasing efficiency in the market. • Mobile money-the improved cash flow allowed agro-dealers to access their revenue quickly in order to restock their supply. Agro-dealers also repaid seed companies in mobile money, decreasing their payment period and improving the relationship with seed companies. • Seed quality-compared to previous seasons when the seed companies provided seeds directly to NGOs to distribute, the e-vouchers incentivized seed companies to provide higher quality seeds to the agro-dealers because they had a more direct link to their customer. • Farmer capacity strengthening-the farmers learned the costs and benefits of certified seeds. The program allowed staff to explain how the benefits of using certified seeds exceeded the increased costs.5. Ethiopia/Tigray (Relief Society of Tigray (REST)) (Sperling, et al., 2007) A study on long-term seed aid in Ethiopia reviewed the multiple aid modalities linked to seed security used in 2006 and a few years previous. For the emergency phase, six seed security-related approaches were variously used, mostly dependent on organization preference. These included: direct seed distribution; revolving seed funds, seed vouchers (also called 'coupons'), seed vouchers and fairs (sometimes linked to livelihood fairs), seed swaps (grain for seed, which is then redistributed), and cash for seed (in relief context).One local organization, REST, had a very strong preference for the use of cash linked to seed security response. Their rationales for choosing this approach include cash is the fastest modality; cash allows farmers to make their own choices on crop/variety of seeds that match their agro-ecology, timing of rain, and land fertility; farmers are in control of the quality of seed they purchase; and farmers are responsible for their own choices. In addition, the organization had specific concerns about DSD, including: the quality of seeds, and lack of system for confirming/controlling private seed supplies, and the additional costs (e.g. transportation, loading/unloading, and storage).In South Tigray, farmers were able to buy more seed with cash (26kg), as compared to DSD (16 kg), and had slightly more variety with cash. The main difference was choice and flexibility: by having cash farmers could strategize about what to buy-for example based on the rainfall pattern they could choose the most appropriate variety for their context. Farmers in South Tigray predominantly purchase farmer (not certified) varieties (landraces), but DSD was predominantly certified varieties. An evaluation showed that 78% of the farmers preferred cash because of quality (previous DSD chickpea did not germinate); the freedom to purchase from local, trusted sources; and their flexibility and choice.6. Zambia (CRS) (CRS, 2016) (Mwenya, 2016)In 2014, DiNER fairs were held in Eastern Province Zambia, a drought-prone area characterized by substantial use of maize hybrids by smallholder farmers. DiNERs-Diversification in Nutrition and Enhanced Resilience fairs-are a seed-related agricultural response specifically geared to helping households improve nutrition and strengthen farming system resilience. A variant of seed vouchers and fairs, DiNERs let farmers choose which crops and varieties to grow in times of chronic stress, aided through the provision of vouchers. The supply side of the fair is actively shaped, as sellers are asked to widen what they would normally bring to the venue-much more diversity and an array of potentially nutritious crops. DiNERs also aim to stimulate positive change more sustainably, particularly in terms of promoting future supply channels for seed.For this reason, DiNERs invite strong private sector involvement along with other vendors at the organized fairs. In 2014, 11 DiNERs were held across Chipata and Lundazi Districts serving a total of 4,223 farmers. Seed of a wide array of crops was accessed by farmers: in order of scale, maize (their main preference), vegetables, soybeans, groundnuts, sunflower and even papaya tree saplings. Suppliers included many of the major private companies (MRI/Syngenta, ZamSeed, SeedCo, Pannar, Dupont/Pioneer); research institutions (CIMMYT, IITA); local agrodealers; and, many local farmers and farmer-producers (who offered several types of bambara). A Zambian Government seed inspector from the Seed Control and Certification Institute was also present full time to inspect the quality of seed on offer from diverse suppliers and ensure compliance with Zambia seed laws and standards.The real innovation of this DiNER was the use of mixed modality. Vouchers were issued by CRS, in units ranging from ZMW5 to ZMW 50, to allow for bargaining over prices. Equally, however, cash was allowedfarmers were welcome to purchase directly, with their own funds, additional crops or varieties as desired.Overall, tallying of sales showed a large volume of seed was purchased by farmers. While $190,322 was generated through voucher sales, farmers (using their own cash) made purchases valued at $21,642.Enhancing access to seed through catalyzing the supply sideIn 2019, CRS conducted a follow-up learning review on DiNER fairs implemented in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Madagascar in 2015-2018 (see case 6 for DiNER explanation). The learning review, which included extensive fieldwork, sought to understand how to serve direct farmer clients better; how to engage with suppliers more strategically so they are keen on serving communities longer-term; and, more generally, the post-fair effects on households in terms of diversity, nutrition and income. The preliminary findings provide insights from those most affected-farmers and the suppliers.Box 1 below provides specific feedback from farmers on why they did or did not use cash during the fairs.Vouchers were issued to all farmers, so beneficiary use of cash was supplemental and elective. The reasons cited suggest that farmers' cash use may be guided by a wide range of concerns, many of which might steer future DiNER fairs refinement.• Most common reason for farmers for use of cash: the voucher amount was not sufficient to cover purchases • Most common reason for farmers for not using cash: lack of the cash itself (58 of 127 respondents) • Others suggested they had enough voucher amount (22 of 127 respondents) but did not know they could use the cash (34 of 127 respondents) • \"Last year we ably bought seeds using a voucher, otherwise it would have not been possible for us to buy using cash because we did not have any money.\"• Most cited reason for not using own cash is that the voucher amount was sufficient to cover their needs (54 of 130 respondents) • The other key reasons were: i) they did not know they could use own cash at the fair (35/130) and, ii) they did not have any cash (38/130) • \"If we knew that we can negotiate at the fair, we'd have carried cash as it is easier to negotiate when buying on a cash basis\" • \"Locals wanted cash instead of vouchers citing that the voucher system is slow.\"• \"Local suppliers did not respond to the announcement by the Councilor pertaining to the Fair because they did not want vouchers but they only needed cash.\"• Most (101/127) cited reason for farmers not using cash was that they did not have cash.The intensive DiNER fair follow up on the supplier side was particularly unusual, both because of the supplier focus and because fieldwork looked at post-fair changes (Box 2). Prior to the fairs, considerable effort was spent sensitizing suppliers to farmer needs: greater diversity, nutritional impacts, more affordable, and products brought closer to rural homes. In this way, the fairs, which were intended to support farmers facing chronic stress, seem to have had some sustaining, and more developmental effects.Malawi:• Some of the suppliers, as a post fair strategy, sold smaller packs to make seed more affordable • Other suppliers have since started using bikes and motorbikes to reach more rural customers Zimbabwe:• Suppliers promoted vegetable seed as a value pack i.e. if a farmer buys from any seed line, they would choose a promotional pack of vegetable seed • Sales agronomists were incentivized to get closer to the farmer, by conducting demos and training farmers. This sometimes included using motorbikes or bicycles to move seed • Suppliers used mobile money more readily, as this allowed some of the clients to follow through on seed purchases post fair • One chicken supplier is working on a model buy-back facility; in this model the supplier provides chicken to the farmers who care for them and grow them before selling them back to the supplier. The supplier then slaughters and supplies to retail outlets Madagascar:• Suppliers have not shifted to smaller packs, as the packaging costs have direct bearing not only on their profitability but also on how they can meet conditions set by the program on pricing • Some of the suppliers offer price discounts for the seed they sell and offer additional gifts as long as the farmer buys a minimum amountThe overall changes noted by the full sample of suppliers offers insights that can further inform future DiNER fairs. In short, supply-side changes from this approach included the following:• Availability/ Geographic reach: ▪ Suppliers opened outlets closer to farmers ▪ Suppliers extended reach through use of bikes, motorbikes, satellite vans ▪ Suppliers brought their sale trucks to markets on local market days • Access:▪ Suppliers packed smaller (extending social reach) ▪ More use of mobile money-to better link with clients after fair. • Quality: Suppliers expanded crops/varieties on offer 8. Guatemala (CRS) (Walters, 2019 (forthcoming))Comparing cash to vouchers: Which did participants prefer?Responding to drought conditions in Guatemala, CRS implemented food security and child nutrition projects called Superamos I and II, and Adelante. Vulnerable families received cash transfers for food items, as well as education in nutrition and agriculture, and they also participated in Diversification in Nutrition and Enhanced Resilience (DiNER) fairs to access seeds and other agricultural inputs.DiNER fairs in Guatemala were single-day fairs organized by the project to bring the vendors (private sector input dealers, community-based seed multipliers and individual sellers) closer to the participants to improve access to diverse seeds and agricultural products that will contribute to improved household nutrition, food security and resilience. Typical products on offer at the fairs included staple crops, vegetable seeds, tools, fertilizer, small livestock and animal feed. Nutrition and agricultural education sessions further enhance the market activity.The Superamos DiNER fair provided electronic vouchers with a value of $48 to 4,912 participants to purchase goods at the fairs. Based on a recommendation in a 2018 multi-agency study on market approaches, the Adelante project decided to use cash for their DiNER fairs. At the first of two fairs, approximately 4,421 beneficiaries received $45 in cash to be used at the fair. A learning study conducted in August 2019 compared the relative benefits of both the cash and voucher modalities. Key learnings include: Project participants' preferences: Focus groups commented that the advantages of cash outweighed any advantages of vouchers. Participants preferred the cash fairs, as they allowed for more choice and better value for money (with the ability to better negotiate price). All focus groups cited the main advantages of cash as the ability to spend it outside the fair for their needs, to buy local seed in their communities, and to better track their spending.Price: Participants reported that with vouchers, the prices were higher, but with cash the prices were about the same as normal. Over half (63%) of respondents thought prices were inflated when purchasing via vouchers, as compared to 30% who considered cash prices to be inflated. In addition, 32% of cash participants considered that prices were lower than the market. For both cash and voucher fairs, vendors were contractually obligated to respect agreed-upon price ceilings. The voucher price was fixed in the electronic e-voucher platform, while the cash prices were flexible downward.Quality: To ensure quality standards would be met, project staff inspected all goods to be sold at both cash and voucher fairs at least three weeks in advance.To encourage spending at the fair, cash was distributed at the fair, so that the first option to purchase goods would be at the fair. In addition, the products on offer were based on beneficiary priorities and families were also receiving regular cash transfers for basic needs. However, focus groups agreed that most participants had retained some of the cash transfer for other expenses, including purchasing local seed from neighbors, transportation, tools, or to save for emergencies. Post distribution monitoring results show that on average participants kept 16% of the cash for use outside the fair. Participants commented that this cash expenditure supported the local economy. In contrast, voucher recipients commented that because they had to spend the whole amount at the fair, they sometimes purchased products they did not need.Complementary activities: Awareness raising on livestock rearing, improved agricultural techniques, and household budget management and joint decision making between spouses complemented both the voucher and the cash fairs.Gender implications: Both cash and voucher fairs did not report any differences between men's and women's experiences. A perceived risk that cash fairs would put women more at risk was not borne out by the experience. The project did, however, adjust the location of the fair to be closer to the community in response to beneficiary feedback about the distance and security concerns. All focus groups agreed that couples made joint decisions on what to purchase, with the cash being divided for men to purchase tools and staple crops while women purchased poultry and vegetable seed.Staffing needs: On the day of the fair, cash fairs required fewer staff as compared to voucher fairs: 12-14 staff and 40 staff, respectively. More learning studies comparing modalities in similar contexts would be useful to further understand the nuances of modality choice, and the impact on the overall access to preferred seed. 9. Malawi (Save the Children) (FEG Consulting, 2018)  (Lwanda, 2019) In Malawi, Save the Children International led a consortium including Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, Concern Worldwide, Cooperazione Internazionale, GOAL, Oxfam, United Purpose and UN Food and Agriculture Organization to respond to a food security crisis. The consortium implemented two projects aimed at breaking the cycle of humanitarian response by adopting approaches that combine humanitarian assistance with complementary resilience building activities: \"Breaking the Cycle of Humanitarian Assistance through Enhancing Resilience and Shock-Responsive Capacity\" (DFID/UKAID, 9 months bridge project, 2017-2018) and \"Enhancing Community Resilience and shock response to climate change\" (Irish Aid, 5 months, 2018). The program activities were designed to address the short-term food needs and support medium to long-term recovery and resilience building.In addition to unconditional cash transfers intended for food, conditional cash transfers were provided to 22,783 households (DFID/UKAID) for four months. The purpose of this transfer was to increase household's access to maize, beans, and Orange Flesh Sweet Potato Vines (OFSP) for the 2017-18 summer cropping and the 2018 winter cropping. The households also participated in other resilience and livelihood interventions, such as the Irish Aid project, in which 2,897 households received OFSP vines, in addition to other resilience and livelihood interventions. For both projects, these additional interventions were intended to enable communities and households to build their productive capacity by addressing some underlying issues that contribute to their agriculture vulnerability. Activities included: climate smart agriculture training, catchment conservation, post-harvest training, pest and disease control training for army worm, seed fairs, small irrigation support, and kitchen garden support.After conducting multiple assessments, including market and crop-specific outlook, the consortium decided to utilize conditional cash transfers for livelihood recovery. To ensure project participants had some means to develop productive assets, the project supported households with minimal access to food post-harvest (food supply for 0-3 months), access to labor, and some access to land and water. The cash transfers placed participants' choice and their own prioritization of their needs and livelihoods investment decisions at the forefront, thereby allowing project participants a wider and more dignified choice on where to invest the funds.At the start of the rainy season in October, project participants received a cash transfer for one month. Conditions required project participants to develop productive assets, such as engaging in land preparation for the next rain-fed cropping season, or irrigation for winter cropping. Productive asset development was adapted to the community needs and available resources. These initiatives focused primarily on climate adaptive techniques like water harvesting structures, soil and water conservation, conservation agriculture on individual's land and small-scale irrigation at the community level. Attending trainings on climate adaptive technologies, nutrition and Village Savings and Loans (VSL) were considered as soft conditionality to ensure that all targeted project participants could qualify for the cash transfer.To encourage project participants to invest in productive assets, they were informed that the cash transfer amount was calculated based on the value on farm inputs/tools (e.g. fertilizer, seeds and pesticides) and labor for agriculture production. Although this calculation was the basis of the amount, ultimately project participants had the flexibility to use the money received for their own priorities, including buying food and meeting other needs. Over 80% of the project participants used the funds to buy inputs or seeds related to food production. Project implementers collaborated with STAM (Seed Traders Association of Malawi) to ensure quality of seeds and with seed inspectors from the Ministry of Agriculture to check quality of seeds during seed fairs. However, participants could buy seeds on their own in other locations as well, so post monitoring distribution confirmed their satisfaction with the seed quality they purchased.All (100%) project participants reported satisfaction with the cash transfer modality, but for the overall project interventions suggested timing, quantity of support and length of time for support could be improved to achieve sustained impact.Each of the case studies can be mapped according to the seed security parameter it addresses as well as to whether it intervenes in the supply side or demand side. The table below uses the standard seed security framework parameters of availability, access and quality (for the last, subdivided by variety quality and seed health). It includes a fourth parameter of two-way information systems-information to users and feedback from users. The supply side is divided into formal sector and informal sector, recognizing that each channel has appropriate and perhaps diverse interventions to better enable suppliers to meet the needs of farmers.The cases in this study were especially chosen to focus on experience from the client/demand side, as a concurrent complementary study is focusing on the market/supply side (Walsh & Sperling, 2019). Yet, even with this focus on the client/demand side, we have found it difficult to draw even a conceptual line ignoring supply. The market/supply side is important to effect sustainable change in the seed system so that it is resilient to stressors. In most cases, availability is not the primary issue, but rather access.As can be seen in the table below, all of the cases analyzed within this report address access to seed, which is consistent with many cash programs. Within this enabling 'access' strategy, the following main approaches were used: \"soft\" conditionality with cash transfers (where project participants are informed of the intended use of the cash, but they are not penalized if these guidelines are not followed), unconditional cash transfers, vouchers for diversity, and then a mix of these modalities within the same implementation program. Perhaps of note is that there were a good number of cases where both the formal and informal sectors were leveraged within a single response program. Interestingly, several cases also addressed availability, and all cases considered quality in some form. The quality of seed is of paramount importance in choosing a response. But what is \"quality\" and who decides what quality is acceptable? This had been an ongoing (and often contentious and political) discussion for decades-and will likely continue to be debated for decades to come. A full discussion of quality is beyond the scope of this study, but key aspects of quality warrant attention. This study advocates for a multistakeholder perspective on the quality of seed, while offering farmers the most flexible and most appropriate response possible for their given situation. After all, it is the farmers who will be most impacted by the quality of the seed. For them, it is not a theoretical question but a practical and risk management question.Quality is in the eye of the beholderHow do farmers define quality? Farmers' definition of quality may differ depending on the context, but common aspects they are looking for include: 1) full grain size, 2) no pest damage, 3) variety known to be adapted to their local agro-ecology, 4) stocks that are free from sticks and dirt and pebbles, and 5) known vendor/trust in vendor (CRS, 2017). Additional aspects include preferred and acceptable, known and trusted by farmers, and responsive to farmers' management conditions.How does the formal system define quality? Quality is inclusive of both seed health and crop/variety quality.Seed health encompasses aspects such as being disease-free, of full maturity, whether the seed will germinate, and free of inert material. Variety quality includes yield potential, plant type, color, and other traits. (Sperling & McGuire, 2010). Certified seed undergoes inspection to determine if the seed meets quality standards according to these parameters.Quality Declared Seed (QDS) is often discussed in emergency responses as practical quality 'middle ground'.After being instrumental in establishing the QDS concept in the early 1980s, FAO published guidance on QDS in the mid-90s, and in 2006. The 2006 publication recognizes the purpose QDS can serve, especially in emergency situations: \"QDS is an attempt to reconcile the continuing need to improve seed supply to farmers with the desire to reflect and accommodate the diversity of farming systems, particularly in the more difficult areas where highly organized seed systems do not function well. QDS is a relatively open scheme, which meets the needs of farmers in a flexible way but without compromising basic standards of seed quality. It may therefore contribute to the wider policy objective of diversifying the seed supply system so that farmers may have more choice.\" (FAO, 2006). However, QDS is actually not very flexible system, as it is still closely supervised in the formal sector with strict inspections and regulations.Quality standards are broadening in some countries to QDS (e.g. Tanzania) but also to standard seed/farmer seed (e.g. Kenya). The challenge may be to open standards even further, while minimizing risk to ensure that farmers get access to the right crops and varieties: right for their preferences and management conditions and with acceptable quality that is adapted to their agro-ecology.Donors also shape the quality discussion by what they encourage and enable. For example, OFDA guidelines make clear that \"for USAID/OFDA, the seed system is the entire network of places where farmers source seed, e.g. their own stocks, neighbors, the local informal market, and formal seed sellers, such as agro dealers and shops. Supporting farmers' access to a wide variety of seed options, from local preferred varieties to quality declared seed to certified seed and modern varieties strengthens the resilience of farmers and their ability to make decisions which reduce risk.\" (OFDA, 2019)Therefore, in a cash for seed security response, how is quality going to be assured, especially considering that what constitutes \"quality\" may be different to farmers, international organizations, donors or host governments? Some organizations procure or put on offer the highest quality seed available, based on formal sector quality standards. Other organizations may prioritize beneficiary preferences yet still have some seed inspection to verify quality.Is consensus about what seed is 'good enough' in an emergency possible? Having a quality screening process with agreed upon standards of quality that are deemed acceptable to all (farmers, implementing organization, host governments and donors) involved in a particular project or response will be critical to success. As noted by (Sperling & McGuire, 2010) it is important to remember that \"… quality is not the exclusive possession of one variety type, regulatory system, or seed channel. Following emergencies, what is important is that seed be 'at least as good' and 'farmer-acceptable' as what farmers normally sow, and that the right seed channels and quality-control mechanisms are used to ensure these minimum standards.\"Analysis of the cases, further complemented by key informant interviews and literature review, lead us to the key findings. In light of the vast literature on cash transfers but not specifically on cash for seed, some general cash trends (e.g. coordination) are extrapolated to apply to seed. These are listed below in no particular order of importance: all are central.1. Market and needs assessments must include a seed component or SSSA to ensure a response designed to address the right problem, not the assumption. For markets, both informal and formal seed markets need to be included.A common reflex reaction to both chronic and acute emergencies is to provide seed directly rather than base a response on a market and needs analysis specific to seed. Initial multi-sectoral humanitarian needs assessments should include a seed-specific component, but this is not often the case. While response analysis in humanitarian context is improving, seed assistance is still sometimes governed by assumptions rather than evidence. Two common assumptions include: that farmers have eaten all their seed out of stress, and that a yield drop due to disaster automatically means a lack of seed (Sperling & McGuire, 2010). As time is a critical factor in acute emergency responses, including seed security-related questions in rapid needs assessments and response analysis could provide initial information on appropriate seed responses.In terms of seed-related markets, the central overarching question is: are both informal and formal markets able to meet demand for seed in terms of quantities, crops, and desired varieties? Having a solid SSSA to determine these key issues will lead to program design based on knowledge and evidence, as has been shown by the case studies above.While tools for assessing seed security are relatively advanced (see https://seedsystem.org/), quantifying the market component is particularly challenging. Not all formal sector seed available may include the key crops or varieties needed or even be adapted to the stress conditions. Also, not all that is found in the local market can be used as potential seed, as much of it is best for grain.Most cases, such as Guatemala and Malawi above, demonstrate that most cash is being spent where implementers anticipate participants will spend it. The response analysis and effective program design contribute to this success, as participants will spend according to what their needs are, so if they are spending funds on seed, then the response analysis and program design have been on the mark. If needs assessments show that basic needs are a concern, addressing this can be built into the program design, as was the case in the Save the Children Malawi example above. Project participants will use cash for their most appropriate needs and the evidence overwhelming shows that the fears of spending for \"anti-social\" uses like alcohol are often unfounded (CaLP, 2018). Cash enables farmers to prioritize, choose and strategize-if the cash transfer is timely and if the crops and varieties farmers want are available locally.Response analysis should consider the feasibility of cash transfers for fostering seed security. However, organizational mandates, organizational expertise and fixed mindset may all lead to different choices being made than a proper response analysis would provide. These complexities are not easily addressed, especially when internal politics and resources are involved. For example, as detailed in a recent Mercy Corps report, \"Aid actors still struggle to use cash transfers over in-kind aid in many appropriate contexts. And the market distortion caused by in-kind distributions can be used to justify its continuation. In a recent review of responses to three crises, the Overseas Development Institute found in-kind aid distribution prevented market supply from returning to previous levels-a problem that was then used to justify continuing in-kind aid.\" (Mercy Corps, 2018). This underlines the importance of response analysis and program design that best matches the context, as was shown in the ICRC Nigeria example.However, in addition to having analyzed participants' priorities, the program must be designed well, including providing sufficient cash to meet the expected outcome, as shown by an NRC cash-based shelter intervention in Afghanistan: \"Although shelter was listed as the biggest protection need amongst IDPs, the amount of cash received seems insufficient to address the problem as the vast majority of beneficiaries choose to spend their assistance on food or other items. This highlights the importance of dedicated cash for shelter interventions.\" (Taylor, Kreidler, & Harvey, 2019). The same result was found in an outcome monitoring for a shelter and livelihoods programme supporting displaced women in Afghanistan where the cash was meant to be used for shelter purposes: \"The trend that the majority of the households spent the cash on food and other expenses despite having been told what to spend on suggests that some households are using the cash grant meant for shelter to cover other immediate needs (food, health, debt repayment and education) and yet borrowing the cash to construct their shelters.'' (Taylor, Kreidler, & Harvey, 2019).Although practitioners agree that participant preferences on how to receive assistance is important, these preferences are not systematically included in response analysis. When it was included, recipient preference was often used to justify the preferred or modal response, rather than as a driving decision-making factor (Maxwell & Stobaugh, 2012).Participants' preferences will differ-even in similar contexts. As the cases in the Ethiopia 2006 study show, farmer preferences for one or another modality may differ for myriad reasons (Sperling, et al., 2007). For instance, some farmers like DSD because it is the only way they can access new varieties or certified seed.Qualitative data from the same study give insight into why farmers may prefer a particular type of seed aid, as indicated by farmers' quotes:• \"Poor farmers prefer vouchers. I prefer vouchers. You know my daughters and sons may see money in my hand, and we have problems. So better I get the voucher so I do not spend money.\" • \"With vouchers, you are tied to 1 or 2 traders -with cash you can select the seed you really need.\"• \"I like DSD, if it is crops and varieties I know.\"• \"The seed of our ancestors was very good, but this new seed [DSD] we just don't have confidence in it.\"• \"Seed aid helps us get new varieties. That is a good thing.\"• \"A good farmer, even in the very worst year, will have seed. I do not need to go to the market, and I do not need seed aid.\"Understanding participants' preferences can be complex, as they may be based on familiarity, on what farmers have received in the past, or on what they think the enumerator wants to hear. Sometimes participants may not have all the information about the pros and cons of each modality, and it is important to help them become more informed about delivery options for cash and the implications of each. And while enabling participants to express a preference, it should be considered alongside other programmatic decisions.The cases above show that mixed modality projects are possible and effective--it does not have to be an either/or choice. However, organizational orientation, capacity and willingness to experiment still play a role in the choice of cash, vouchers and/or DSD. The CRS DiNER fair example from Zambia highlights the diversity of crops that participants were able to purchase through vouchers-and through spending their own cash. The Uganda example from Mercy Corps shows that participants will invest their own cash as well to purchase the seeds that provide value to them. In the CRS Ethiopia example, not only did the mixed modalities broaden crop choices, but also the flexibility to switch to a different modality if the context changed was appreciated by implementing partners.Comparisons of modalities and of the impacts of mixed modality programs for seed are not yet common, however, there are emerging instances of comparisons of modalities post project implementation. For example, preliminary findings from the abovementioned CRS study on cash compared to vouchers show that cash was generally preferred.However, the literature shows very few examples of intentional comparisons between modalities at the outset.In Democratic Republic of Congo, a randomized experiment assessed the relative impacts and costs of equivalently valued cash and voucher transfers. The study found that the voucher program distorted households' purchases as compared with unconditional cash. Yet there were no differences in food consumption or other measures of well-being, in part due to the fact that voucher households were able to resell part of what they purchased. Since the study found no significant benefits to vouchers, cash transfers were considered the more cost-effective modality for both the implementing agency and program participants in this context (Aker, 2017). Future research on rigorous modality comparisons from GiveDirectly (GiveDirectly, 2019) may offer further insights.5. Quality screenings for seed are taking place. The quality of seed is important to organizations and project participants.All case studies noted the efforts undertaken by the project to ensure seed quality-from collaboration with government seed certification agencies to staff inspecting the quality. These collaborations have ensured that organizations, donors, governments-and ultimately farmers -are reassured that quality is not overlooked. In many cases, having adequate and appropriate crop and variety choice can often be just as, if not more important than, having certified seed. It is worth noting that quality should be considered for all modalities of seed assistance. In addition to risks described above for cash, for example, not all certified seed or direct distributed seed is necessarily of good quality, as counterfeit seed exists; without adequate staff to certify seed or without other controls in place, sub-standard or even \"fake seed\" can make it into the supply as well.As seed quality is critical to famers, quality assurance is important to donors as well, as is clear from guidance such as OFDA's seed quality assurance requirements: \"Seeds are subject to quality requirements. Where certified seed is not available, and a Seed Grower's Declaration of Quality cannot be provided, for example in a seed fair situation, the awardee assumes responsibility for ensuring seed quality and must document what quality assurance practices were followed in lieu of certification. …. When using cash or a voucher, you must detail how you have determined that sufficient seed of appropriate quality and variety is available. If awardee cannot obtain a Seed Grower's Declaration of Quality, awardee assumes responsibility for ensuring seed quality and must document their files to indicate what quality assurance practices were followed in lieu of the certification. These quality assurance practices may include but are not limited to: testing for germination; visual inspection for cracked or damaged seed; percentage weed seed and; inspection for insect infestation or foreign matter.\" (OFDA, 2019) (OFDA, 2019). Further discussion of seed quality assurances is in #4 of \"Enabling features\", as well as in the \"Recommendations\" section on things that still need to be tested.There is a limited evidence base for cash for seed security in humanitarian contexts, as with many sectorspecific cash transfer projects, as it is not yet a common or well-documented approach. For example, OFDA is a major donor for seed system emergency response programs. Yet, in FY2018, OFDA supported over 120 different awards for over $ 110 million in 29 countries on Agriculture and Food Security activities but only three of these potentially included cash for seed. (Meissner, 2019) Examples do exist, such as the case studies included in this study, but more needs to be done to systematically gather information on both successes and failures in emergency seed system programming. In addition, a specific discussion about the opportunities and barriers for cash for seed security is overdue, perhaps due to the fact that seed interventions are often subsumed in food security or under the umbrella of Non-Food Items (NFI) so their impacts-both positive and negative-are often not scrutinized.The evidence shows that farmers access a good deal of their seed with cash in normal and stressed times.Analyzing a \"uniquely comprehensive data set, 9660 observations across six countries and covering 40 crops, show that farmers access 90.2% of their seed from informal systems with 50.9% of that deriving from local markets. Further, 55% of seed is paid for by cash,\" (McGuire & Sperling, 2016). Therefore, expanding cash for seed interventions would support farmers' existing seed channels and practices.As several of the case examples demonstrated, cash for seed along with complementary activities or information/ trainings is promising. Where cash is deemed appropriate, this multi-pronged approach helps address concerns about seed quality while assisting farmers with additional knowledge and skills to improve their livelihoods. A recent review of the evidence for multi-purpose cash for meeting sectoral outcomes found that cash alone is often not enough, but rather sector-specific programming in the form of technical knowledge dissemination, training and behavior change is needed to achieve sectoral outcomes (Harvey & Pavanello, 2018).Examples of complementary programming from ZOA Iraq include training/ technical support on essential skills (both agricultural and business) for cultivating relevant crops, such as calculating expected costs (including seeds, fertilizers, water, labor, etc.), and estimating the income their farming will provide. Other complementary activities include providing information to farmers on what varieties are and how to manage them, household budget management, and joint decision making between spouses (Guatemala). In addition, support to markets could be considered an additional or complementary activity (see finding #9 below).FAO uses a \"Cash plus\" approach where seeds are usually provided in kind, and complemented by technical trainings and cash transfers to meet basic needs to maximize opportunities and impacts. An example from Lesotho of the impact of this approach was the Linking Food Security to Social Protection Programme (LFSSP) project where seeds and training on homestead gardening and food preservation were provided to households participating in the Child Grant Programme (CGP). An impact evaluation showed that combining cash transfers with the delivery of vegetable seeds and the training by the LFSSP had a greater impact on household food production and food security -especially in labor-constrained households -than did each program alone. (FAO, 2018).The nexus between emergency and development is a key area for experimentation, learning and innovation. Emergency programs are in general more flexible due to changes in context and, often, more flexible funding. Yet the shorter term funding/program cycles often do not lend themselves to planning for sustainability and longer term impact. In theory, a cash program can facilitate suppliers to serve remote or vulnerable farmers on a more deliberate basis after the relief intervention. The DiNER fairs in Malawi and market support in Uganda specifically aimed to stimulate positive change more sustainably, particularly in terms of promoting future supply channels for seed. Suppliers became familiar with the needs of this new client group and adapted accordingly, as was shown in the DiNER fair cases from Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Malawi.Cash can further contribute to sparking a transition in market development that has already been seen in vouchers linked to small local producers in captured markets, such as organized fairs. The recent DiNERs review showed that a well-designed relief response can spur business development in subsequent seasons. This could be a catalyst to the development of sustainable delivery channels rather than one-off or start and stop demand that can be difficult for suppliers to anticipate and plan ahead. Other opportunities exist in the nexus of relief and development programs. For example, development programs increasingly have learning components built-in to the project and funding to do so and more sustainable outcomes are expected.Building in a learning approach (and documenting the learning) for relief interventions would be particularly useful for seed interventions, as there may be opportunities to leverage relief-phase activities to inform recovery or even development agricultural investments.Opportunities for financial inclusion has been one of the suggested medium-term benefits of cash transfers, particularly in the nexus of relief and development programs. Mercy Corps' program in Uganda suggested that clients and sellers increased their use of mobile money due to the program, for example. However, based on current evidence, this opportunity will only be realized if financial inclusion is a specific objective of the program (Harvey & Bailey, 2017). World Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) notes that donors also need to play a more proactive role in promoting financial inclusion objectives in humanitarian and development nexus in order for them to be more widespread. (CGAP, 2019) 9. Supporting supply side to bring quality seed markets 'closer' to project participants should be considered along with demand-side interventions.As several of the cases highlighted, supporting supply side intervention can be beneficial to assisting farmers to have access to preferred crops and varieties closer to where they live. Especially in the emergency context, the focus of interventions may often be on serving the most vulnerable yet supporting the market may offer an opportunity to benefit them in both the short-term and long term.For example, connecting local vendors directly to farmers such as through DiNER fairs or e-vouchers in shops, and by enabling project participants to use their own cash to top up their purchases, can provide opportunities for building the relationships that will last beyond the life of the project. Likewise, when implementing organizations work with suppliers to prepare them to participate in the project, a better understanding on how the suppliers can be supported develops. While the initial findings from the three country DiNER review are promising, more research needs to be done. It could be that future fairs (cash or voucher) should include \"build market linkages\" as a stated objective.Donors can also support market actors to prepare for crises by offering subsidies and liquidity to ensure they are able to respond to potential increased demand (CGAP, 2019). Subsidies or loans can also be offered by humanitarian agencies as part of relief activities; while not widely documented for seed, many examples of market support now exist in humanitarian responses, to enable market actors to be able to continue supplying local communities with needed goods and services. To date, the vast majority of market support by humanitarian actors is grants to traders (CRS, Oxfam 2017), but there is recent push -and guidance -to promote this kind of thinking (CaLP, 2018).An example from South Sudan shows that, while possible, intentionally building market linkages may not be common:\"Nearly one million refugees who have fled South Sudan's conflict currently live in West Nile, Uganda, and are expected to live there for at least three years. Despite their long-term need for food, agricultural inputs, and income-earning opportunities, humanitarian activities continue to focus on direct distribution, including monthly food rations (which many households resell) and seeds. This distribution hampers trade of the key items people will continue to need throughout their displacement, such as food, even while local marketplaces expand rapidly to sell other items to this new population. This example highlights the need to transition from in-kind aid to cash in functional market areas. But it also highlights an outdated approach to livelihoods programming in key sectors like agriculture: Across 22 implementing agencies, only one project has worked to strengthen local networks for agro-dealers. Very few partners have invested resources in attracting agricultural buyers to the area. Instead, projects have focused on giving out seeds and tools directly to farmers\" (Mercy Corps, 2018), (emphasis added)Seed security market-led support is discussed in further detail in (Walsh & Sperling, 2019).10. Investment in preparedness provides a better foundation to implement impactful cash for seed response.Investment in preparedness has many facets, including agency-level and context specific preparedness.\"To consider different cash, voucher, and in-kind response options equitably in each context requires appropriate preparation of multiple pipelines. That is, if commodities are pre-positioned and similar preagreements are not in place for cash or vouchers, then cash and vouchers cannot be given equitable consideration in response options analysis even if they may otherwise be similarly or more appropriate, effective, cost-efficient, or cost-effective.\" (CaLP;CRS, 2017).At an organizational level, this type of preparedness for cash transfer programs includes learning about government laws that may impact the program (e.g. seed laws, finance issues, policies on cash transfers, existing social assistance), and preparing internal processes and policies. At the field level, knowing the financial service provider landscape and signing pre-agreements with appropriate ones can greatly facilitate a successful program (Xuan & Martin, 2018). Likewise, supporting vendors' capacity in advance leads to more timely and effective interventions, as they are already adequately prepared.Donors' support to such preparedness initiatives are critical. In 2016, OFDA, Food for Peace, and the US Global Development Lab supported Mercy Corps and CRS with 12 -month grants for 'Institutional Preparedness for Digital Cash Transfers in Humanitarian Response'. CRS chose Somalia while Mercy Corps chose its Mali and DRC programs. These capacity building grants enabled both organizations to build their internal country staff capacity, contextualize tools/Standard Operating Procedures for the country context, including clarifying roles and responsibilities of staff; and expand their knowledge of financial service providers' capacity and interest in reaching vulnerable populations. Both organizations shared their learnings both within country (e.g. with cash working groups) and within their organizations. The investment in preparedness will be important for the effectiveness of future project implementation because, as stated in the summary report, \"the impact of a humanitarian crisis is often inversely correlated with a country's level of preparedness.\" (Marketlinks, 2019) (USAID, 2019)What can be learned from other sectors about cash for sectoral outcomes? Many sector-specific cash transfer projects are grappling with the same issues: limited evidence base, concerns about quality, concerns about participants prioritizing other needs besides sectoral-specific outcomes. CaLP's \"State of the World's Cash\" report offers the most comprehensive review and analysis of these key issues. The report states that \"existing systematic studies and syntheses, as well as sector-wide reviews, point to very limited evidence in some sectors, including health, nutrition, WaSH, shelter and protection. There is a need to build credible evidence about sector outcomes.\" (CaLP, 2018).Sectoral discussions taking place in shelter, health and WASH show a real concern that the humanitarian imperative to 'do no harm' and meet the needs of those in need means there still needs to be a control on quality. As discussed in the CaLP report: \"Unrestricted (cash transfer) can promote choice and quality, but evidence is currently limited. Debates about the role of unrestricted cash in achieving sectoral outcomes are rooted in concerns that: a) project participants may not prioritize certain sectoral needs, b) markets may not have the right quality of goods or services, or c) project participants may purchase lower quality goods or services. This cuts to the heart of 'putting people at the center' of decision making and the role of project participants in making complicated decisions in times of crisis.\" (CaLP, 2018). This tension between giving full agency to project participants to determine their own needs and the responsibility felt by humanitarians to ensure project activities have not caused harm (and meet Sphere standards) is likely to continue to be explored and debated.With cash being mainstreamed into technical sectors, the learning and evidence generation will undoubtedly increase. In the new Sphere Guidelines (2018), cash is mainstreamed into each sector. In its proposal guidance, OFDA has recently added \"cash\" as a key word, and now, each sector has a specific mention of cash/vouchers and quality issues. Organizations such as IRC and UNHCR, are moving beyond \"silos\" of cash experts and mainstreaming cash transfer expertise. (CaLP, 2018). These changes will lead to more nuanced discussions within technical sectors, rather than being separated.Meanwhile, a recent study on cash for WASH sectoral outcomes acknowledges the limited evidence base contributes to WASH technical staff reluctance to fully embrace cash initiatives. The study contributes to the evidence base by analyzing five case studies where cash and vouchers have been used for WASH outcomes.The study recommended actions on coordination, preparedness (staff capacity), situation and response analysis, program design, implementation (including quality assurance) and monitoring and evaluation (to redefine their technical staff roles (Le Seve & Mason, 2019). Many of the issues and recommendations align with the seed security technical sector findings and recommendations.In addition, an NRC cash evaluation found that: \"Though Iran does report cash using WASH indicators, the country examples also confirms concerns of WASH specialist that WASH items are not prioritized by project participants when given a free choice: the PDM of the Iran programme shows limited effectiveness as few HHs reported buying hygiene items or NFIs, and when they did, it was very small amounts compared to paying off debt or buying food -further showing priorities are debt repayment, then food… The results clearly indicate that households have other higher priorities (typically food) and the PDM concludes that 'cash is likely a weak modality for achieving hygiene benefits even in the very short term.' But nearly 90% of the project participants of this project preferred to receive cash. Again, this raises the question to what degree agencies should value the choice of the beneficiaries higher than intended sectoral outcomes.\" (Taylor, Kreidler, & Harvey, 2019), (emphasis added)The Shelter sector has been pro-active in addressing and discussing these key issues. In 2016, The Global Shelter Cluster summarized its position on cash transfers as follows:\"Cash is a vital tool in meeting this {longer term resilience and risk reduction} aim but must usually be accompanied by awareness raising and technical support to ensure better quality and safer housing or more detailed facilitation to overcome complex regulatory issues such as tenure rights or access to key services. Such detailed oversight is essential to ensure accountability to project participants, minimize safety risks and liabilities for all parties whilst ensuring responsible utilization of funding. Building structures that are dangerous and do not meet standards or are built in the wrong place can have devastating implications whilst HLP or regulatory issues can block the use of cash by recipients, or eventually lead to cash being used on other needs, without their shelter requirements having been addressed.\" (Global Shelter Cluster, 2016) Additionally, in 2017, the Shelter and WASH sectors collaborated on a joint statement regarding cash and market based approaches. An excerpt below is in line with the previous Shelter position paper, that technical support must accompany cash to achieve outcomes.\"Ultimately, however, it is informed and technically driven response analyses that should define the best combination of modalities that will meet both immediate and longer term needs of people affected by disasters or conflict. This degree of analysis is often missing from decision making and is also at risk from current trends which are suggesting a default approach of multi-purpose cash as being the most desirable. Both sectors see clear opportunity for cash to be a key response modality -with the condition it can be coupled with all other modalities and approaches required to meet identified objectives.\" (Global WASH and Shelter Cluster, 2017).The examples highlighted in the previous sections and the accompanying findings highlight some perceived risks that sometimes influence program design and may discourage considering cash for a seed security response. The table below looks at these perceived risks in detail, and then suggests what could be alleviating or mitigating actions, in cases where a cash response seems feasible and appropriate.The perceived risks are organized by user: that is, perceived risks that affect farmers; perceived risks that affect the implementing organization, like a single NGO, and then risks at a higher level which might be seen to embrace the broader humanitarian community. It should be noted that the substantive list of issues might not necessarily be based on evidence and that issues below include routine assumptions and some status quo beliefs. The aim is to show in practical terms what are often raised as concerns with cash tied to seed, and how it could be addressed. Mitigating actions to address these perceived risks at all levels are also proposed. If addressed, or if the risk itself is proven untrue, all of these could contribute to the decision of whether cash is feasible and appropriate.Some of the perceived risks and actions may also apply to other seed system modalities (direct distribution and vouchers). All resources-whether in kind or in cash-can be vulnerable to diversion or misuse. Large procurements of in-kind seed have inherent risk as well. Proper program design, targeting and controls minimize risk, but will not eliminate risk entirely. However, despite evidence to the contrary, cash is perceived to be riskier. As discussed in the Grand Bargain Cash Workstream Workshop in 2017, \"A perceived bias towards higher acceptance of risks in in-kind rather than cash and voucher programming was noted. However, panelists and other participants agreed that evidence did not show cash to be riskier. It was also pointed out that no delivery modalities are risk free.\"Table 2. Perceived risks of using cash in seed security responseSeed of key crops might not be widely available in local markets• Intervene on the market side to widen crops on offer in formal and informal markets (e.g. support to traders/ agrodealers to expand their businesses to meet farmers' preferences). Market interventions might focus on home use and cash crops--i.e. the range farmers routinely use. • Use mixed modalities (cash and voucher, or cash and direct distribution) to broaden crop choices. Seed of specialized varieties may not be available (i.e. no seed of a particular variety available locally, like drought -resistant maize ; or Cassava Mosaic Virusresistant cassava)• Intervene on the market side to widen crops on offer in formal and informal markets (e.g. support to traders/ agrodealers to expand their businesses to meet farmers' preferences); provide support to community producers who multiply clean vines or stems. • Help farmers make informed choices about quality by having complementary programming on the topic • Review the rapid screening measures which already exist and signal those that need to be developed (like screening local market seed) NOTE -some quality parameters cannot be visually-assessed (e.g. disease, varietal purity-which may be key in some contexts) Germination rates might be low• Conduct germination tests when feasible [Note: the impact of low germination depends somewhat on crop] • Provide sufficient cash transfer value to enable farmers to sow at their normal (often higher-density) rates Cash may hinder (or help) timely planting Evidence on cash and seed is still preliminary, so outcomes are not fully understood• Make commitment to learning and evidence generation across the humanitarian community Different way of doing business may be perceived as threat to existing status quo As with the above on perceived risks and potential mitigating actions, the table below shows some of the perceived opportunities that may exist at each level: for farmers, implementing organizations, and the larger humanitarian community. Realizing these opportunities greatly depends on the context and the specific program design.Table 3. Opportunities for cash as tied to seed security responseAllows farmers to decide their own priorities due to the flexibility of cash Allows farmers to strategize about what seeds they want, and helps reinforce sustainable channels to those seeds (market side) rather than the prescribed channels of vouchers or direct distributions Allows for active, dignified participation in stimulating the local economy Shifts to farmers the responsibility for the choices they've made Builds direct links with vendors and service providers (e.g. for new sources of info, seeds, etc.)Facilitates the relationship between project participants and seed suppliers for more resilient and sustainable seed system for the future Creates space for innovation and new partnerships as organizations adapt to new ways of doing business Shortens supply chains (compared with direct distributions, vouchers) and can require fewer staff, which can lead to more efficient and more timely responses Increases ability to reach scale with more streamlined approach Helps build other aspects of the seed system, including support and use of national capacity to create pathways for more sustainable longer-term quality assurance systemsWith most major public donors (e.g. ECHO, DFID, USAID/OFDA) supportive of cash transfers, create more opportunity for cross-organizational learning and innovation; Commit to building the evidence base for impact on long term seed security Raise visibility of seed specific discussions in different humanitarian networks rather than having seed stay relatively low-profile under non-food items (NFI) or food security discussionsIn parallel to the above mentioned perceived risks at various levels, it is emerging that there are critical enabling features that indicate whether cash is an appropriate and feasible modality for an effective seed security response. These are informed both from cash feasibility and response analysis tools1 and also by close analyses of the field examples above. While some aspects may be common to all cash-based programming, those highlighted below have specific implications or relevance to seed security. 3What features should be in place to enable a cash and seed security response?1. Seed-linked markets functioning at some level, including both informal and formal systemsWhether both informal and formal markets able to meet farmers' demand for seed in terms of quantities and desired varieties should be a central question in determining an appropriate seed response. This appraisal includes gathering knowledge about whether traders and formal dealers are able to operate 'as needed' and will be able to meet demand. If cash is given, but there are no appropriate seeds to buy or not enough supply to meet demand, then cash will not address the seed security problem.Conducting a Seed System Security Assessment (SSSA) will provide invaluable information about the market on specific crops/varieties to determine if cash is an appropriate response. In the following example from Zimbabwe, the recommendations from the SSSA changed the program response:\"The Zimbabwe SSSA (CIAT et al., 2009) took place when donors and NGOs were preparing to distribute seed and fertilizer to 600,000 families (one-half of the farming population) in reaction to the near-worthless Zimbabwean currency, non-functioning formal seed stores (for maize), and the residual effects of a drought the year before. In contrast to this dim view, the assessment found that farmers generally were seed secure. Linked to #1, additional basic support for markets may need to be programmed. Added supply-side support becomes more important in relation to the importance of particular goals (such as building market linkages, longer-term service provision), when community-based / local enterprises are involved (and you want to strengthen them), or you are helping a market system transition to new crops / varieties / links to quality seed producers, or perhaps greater emphasis on supplies of resilient or nutritious crops/varieties. In these instances, supply side support could include activities such as working with traders to help them understand the seed needs of farmers (crop/varietal diversity, small packs, recognition of male/female preferences, importance of having options), or grants to improve/expand their business, especially to have supply in time for farmer sowing.In many countries, there are specific laws that govern seed: who can sell it, and even what is considered seed.Often only certified seed from the formal sector is considered 'seed.' However, more openness to other qualities of seed is beginning to emerge. For example, in Kenya and Zimbabwe, farmer seed is now recognized in the law. In a number of others, QDS has been endorsed. Governments may also restrict the use of cash for emergency purposes. At the time of writing, for example, in Mozambique, unconditional cash is not allowed as an emergency response modality, per government policy.As discussed above, it is important to monitor the seed quality on offer. Implementing organizations need to have an explicit strategy for quality assurance. Quality screening methods for seed (both formal and informal seed) need to be planned. Even if seed is being purchased directly by farmers themselves and they decide which seed is acceptable, implementing organizations should take responsibility to ensure 'do no harm' principles are followed. If farmers will purchase seeds outside of organized fairs or over longer periods of time, quality assurance procedures may be harder to promote and implement. In these scenarios, it is key to have in place easily-accessible and understood complaints procedures for all users (both sellers and buyerssee also #5 below), plus spot testing, and possibly enforcing post-purchase penalties for vendors selling substandard products.With a cash-based response which gives project participants choice and flexibility -as with any program -it is essential to build in feedback mechanisms for farmers to convey their ratings on the type of crop and varieties, and the quality of the seed both pre and post-harvest. This accountability can also be important if one of the goals is to strengthen the seed 'value chain' -i.e. the links between seed users and suppliers.Project participants' modality preference must be taken into account. Do they prefer a cash-based response for seed, or would they rather receive vouchers or in-kind? The answer should not be based on assumptions or organizational orientation, but rather on what participants sense best meets their needs. However, it bears mentioning that often assessing participant preferences can be complex, as such preferences may be based on what farmers have received before/what they are familiar with, what they know this organization may provide, or trying to give the enumerators the \"right\" answer to ensure they receive some support (Maxwell & Stobaugh, 2012). Other important stakeholders are host government and donors-their support of the choice of cash for this particular project/objective is essential.Every modality carries risks. Determining what potential risks associated with cash transfers exist in the specific context should be an integral part of the assessment process. A clear strategy for mitigating or avoiding risks associated with cash for seed (e.g. diversion, security of project participants/staff, etc.) should be developed. For example, transferring funds through established financial service providers rather than staff delivering 'cash in envelopes' is a common mitigation strategy as the FSPs bear security risk and can lessen the potential of fraud.The investment in preparedness-especially in contexts of chronic stress-enables a more robust assessment of modality choice. Many cash transfer programs utilize financial service providers to actually deliver the cash to program participants (in contrast to staff delivering 'cash in envelopes'). Signing pre-agreements with financial service providers can ensure a timelier and more efficient start up (Xuan & Martin, 2018). However, knowing the local context is a pre-cursor to being able to do so. Do financial services exist and exist at scale in the specific areas at last miles that need it? Do these services exist on paper only but not actually function? This analysis is specific to the particular area in each country and would likely need to be done on the ground to advance to know the locally-specific reality. When there are chronic stress contexts, having this knowledge in advance can lead to more rapid response (USAID, 2019).A key takeaway from OFDA digital financial services (DFS) preparedness grants is: \"organizations should put themselves in the best position for success by completing quality due diligence of market providers in advance and assessing internal policies, procedures, and staffing skills. This will enable them to make informed decisions about the types of partners they need to effectively deliver funds using DFS to recipients.\" (USAID, 2019). This type of preparedness is important to know what is available-or not-and plan accordingly. Additional finance-related issues to be aware of include knowledge of tax laws and other government policies that are often complex and unknown until start on the project (e.g. are cash responses allowed/prohibited? are debit cards allowed? do project participants have to pay income tax on what they receive? etc.)The normalization of cash transfers within an organization enables it to be a possible choice, if appropriate based on response analysis, and increases the comfort level of organizations and staff with the option. It is both an open mindset to cash response and the capacity to implement a cash program that enable a successful response. This applies to lead implementing organizations (both in headquarters and in the field) as well as partner organizations collaborating on the project. The willingness to adapt systems (e.g. procurement, finance) to ensure success and to do things differently than they have been done before is critical. For example, having context-specific standard operating procedures for cash transfer responses can facilitate timely responses, as well as ensure operations teams are well-equipped to facilitate smooth cash transfer programs. (Xuan & Martin, 2018). Thought leaders and agricultural technical staff buy-in and support to using cash for seed response is essential.In addition, staff dialogue outside of their sector/department silos can facilitate an effective and impactful response. Humanitarian, development, cash, and sectoral experts all need to be on-board and exchanging ideas or concerns. Organizations that incentivize, encourage, or reward -rather than prohibit-such necessary collaboration will lead the way with innovations and successes.Investment in organization-wide capacity building initiatives, such as those implemented by UNHCR, WFP, and IRC (CaLP, 2018) can show the organization's priorities of adapting and learning. Likewise, donor investments in cash transfer preparedness grants, such as OFDA-funded grants to CRS and Mercy Corps in 2016 mentioned previously offer invaluable opportunities to invest in staff and organizational capacity to implement successful programs.Oftentimes cash can provide a timelier response than in -kind or vouchers, but this is not always the case.There are examples of cash being distributed too late to allow for farmers to purchase the crop and variety they preferred, just as there are examples of direct distribution and vouchers arriving too late for the season.Having sufficient lead time/preparation time for a cash response is critical to ensuring farmers receive cash on time to plan and procure their selected seeds.activity compared to more cash per beneficiary to see difference in outcomes, as recommended in NRC Cash evaluation (2019): \"What would be important in taking this forward is better testing of outcomes. If you add a component to a cash programme, do people get the extra cash? And is the companion programming more or less effective than just giving people more cash with the resources used for extra programming?\" 2. Collaboration: Initiate higher-level discussions with key seed system actors to explore the role of cash use in seed security response. A concrete output could be a position paper on cash to promote seed security outcomes that follows the examples of Shelter and Wash Clusters.3. Gender implications: Generate more evidence on the differential impacts cash transfers for seed security might have for women and men, including focus on intra-household dynamics. Initial studies on general cash transfers have been done by ODI, IRC and others, but there is general acknowledgement that more needs to be done. Conducting a specific study on gender implications of cash transfers to promote seed security could fill a much needed gap.This analysis contributes to the growing discourse around cash transfers, and seed security, in emergencies.As the implementation, evaluation, and learning about cash for seed security continues to grow and be shared widely, humanitarian responses will continue to improve in providing seed security responses that best meet the varied needs of disaster-affected populations."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ab2c893dbfad8bb4ffa024ec6306a4bf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1e666e79-a708-4d49-b586-1dba6506ca2c/retrieve","id":"-216669714"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a7280d77-3741-482c-b6a1-68b3b1327251","content":"El progresivo crecimiento poblacional en el trópico y el consecuente aumento de la demanda por alimentos han ocasionado la expansión de la frontera agrícola con usos inapropiados de los suelos, transformación de los ecosistemas naturales y deforestación, induciendo a la degradación de los suelos tanto en sus propiedades físicas, químicas y biológicas (Lal y Stewart 1990).Con el propósito de aumentar la productividad natural de los suelos, estos se han sometido a practicas de manejo con labranza y aplicación de enmiendas y fertilizantes que aumentan la producción solo por un periodo relativamente corto de tiempo y causan efectos negativos sobre las propiedades del suelo. Esto conduce hacia la insostenibilidad del sistema elevando los costos y requerimientos necesarios para abastecer la creciente demanda. Así, la falta de prácticas que conserven el suelo ha conducido a su degradación.La degradación de los suelos conlleva a la pérdida de la capacidad productiva debido al efecto negativo que tienen estas prácticas agrícolas sobre las propiedades del suelo. De esta manera los efectos adversos de la degradación de los suelos tienden a repercutir de manera desfavorable en las condiciones económicas del sector agropecuario.Para combatir la degradación es necesario determinar cuáles son las propiedades del suelo más sensibles a este proceso, con el fin de adoptar medidas de manejo de suelos y cultivos que eviten y corrijan el deterioro del recurso. Estas prácticas de manejo deben ser recomendadas teniendo en cuenta las interdependencias existentes entre las propiedades identificadas.Para el caso de los suelos de la altillanura plana de los llanos colombianos (3.438.000 ha), la sostenibilidad agrícola se ve afectada por su susceptibilidad a la degradación.Las condiciones de uso y manejo en estos suelos han conducido a la disminución del volumen de macroporos y en consecuencia a su degradación al afectarse la capacidad de aireación, de penetración del agua y de las raíces (Amézquita 1998).Con el fin de propiciar que en los Llanos las raíces de los cultivos tengan un desarrollo favorable y estable a través del tiempo, se plantea la construcción de una capa arable por medio de una labranza que combine la corrección de las limitaciones físicas, aplique adecuadamente enmiendas y fertilizantes hasta la profundidad deseada, y abonos orgánicos y verdes que mejoren la bioestructura del suelo. Una vez corregido el suelo es posible continuar con 6 practicas de labranza conservacionistas que bajo un suelo sin capa arable no tendrían impactos positivos.En ensayos en los Llanos conducidos por CIAT, el mejoramiento biológico con pastos y leguminosas como el mejoramiento físico con cinceles verticales han mejorado significativamente la porosidad de suelos de sabana nativa no aptos para producción agrícola (Amézquita 1998).A partir de la preocupación por detener los procesos degradativos que sufren los suelos de los llanos orientales y de promover una cultura de formación de capa arable para asegurar su sostenibilidad, el proyecto de Física de Suelos de CIAT ha diseñado un árbol de decisión para el uso de la tierra en esta región del país. Este árbol de decisión ha sido estructurado teniendo en cuenta los resultados de los ensayos de CIAT en la zona y considera las condiciones de manejo necesarias para lograr el mejoramiento gradual físico, químico y biológico de estos suelos a partir de las variaciones en textura, pendiente y profundidad efectiva de la altillanura plana.Dentro del marco de un convenio con el Ministerio de Agricultura, CIAT (Proyecto de Planificación Rural) ha desarrollado a partir del árbol de decisión obtenido, una herramienta computarizada o sistema espacial de apoyo en las decisiones (SDSS, en ingles), para que sea empleada por los planificadores del uso de la tierra y productores para implementar alternativas productivas sostenibles. 7Propender por el uso apropiado de la tierra en los Llanos Orientales de Colombia (Puerto López, Meta) mediante la estructuración de un procedimiento de decisión, que conduzca a determinar un uso coherente, eficiente y sostenible de la tierra, con el fin de evitar la degradación y aumentar la productividad.?? Planificar el uso de la tierra con una perspectiva conservacionista.?? Obtener alternativas de usos de la tierra más acordes con el potencial de la oferta ambiental.?? Identificar las áreas en las cuales es necesario hacer mejoramiento gradual del suelo, para desarrollar suelos sostenibles.?? Identificar las necesidades de investigación y focalizar los futuros proyectos en el área.?? Aportar una metodología útil para la estructuración de esta herramienta en otros lugares teniendo en cuenta los objetivos de los tomadores de decisiones, las limitaciones biofísicas, la disponibilidad de información y el conocimiento y experiencia especialista.?? Proveer un ejemplo de esta metodología desarrollando esta herramienta en el municipio de Puerto López (Meta), el cual puede ser replicado en otros municipios o incluso a nivel departamental.?? Brindar a los tomadores de decisiones del Municipio de Puerto López (Meta), lugar donde los planes de gobierno han centrado mucho de sus proyectos de desarrollo agrícola, una herramienta que prevenga el uso insostenible del suelo.Los árboles de decisión son herramientas excelentes para ayudar a realizar elecciones adecuadas entre muchas posibilidades. Su estructura permite seleccionar una y otra vez diferentes opciones para explorar las diferentes alternativas posibles de decisión. En este caso los posibles resultados corresponden a diferentes alternativas de uso potencial de la tierra.Los árboles de decisión son guías jerárquicas multi-vía donde los valores de las características son el criterio diagnostico para evaluar la calidad de la tierra y determinar el uso más apropiado de la tierra.La jerarquía se refiere a que la toma de una decisión o camino lleva a otra, hasta que todos los factores o características involucradas se hayan tomado en cuenta. Es multi-vía porque pueden existir más de dos opciones y es una guía porque al responder una pregunta se llega a una decisión (Rossiter, 1997).Por ejemplo, Qué textura presenta los suelos de su finca? La respuesta significara una decisión frente a la ruta que se debe seguir dentro del árbol y conllevará a otra pregunta y decisión, como cuál es la pendiente del terreno? y así , hasta obtener el resultado final. Cada una de estas preguntas puede tener diferentes respuestas lo cual determinará la decisión final.El siguiente es un componente del árbol diseñado para la toma de decisiones en la Altillanura Colombiana (Figura 1):El esquema muestra como a través del conocimiento de la textura, de la pendiente (%) y de la profundidad efectiva, se puede llegar a determinar los sistemas de uso más apropiados para las condiciones planteadas.De esta manera, el árbol de decisión es utilizado para decidir sobre el tipo de uso de la tierra según las características del lugar respecto a la textura, pendiente y profundidad efectiva. La primera decisión que se toma a lo largo de esta herramienta es determinar el tipo de textura debido a que esta propiedad no puede ser modificada por condiciones específicas de manejo. Según el tipo de textura elegido, el cual corresponde a un grupo textural particular (suelos pesados, medios o livianos) se tendrá que tomar otra decisión según el porcentaje de la pendiente y de manera consecutiva en cuanto a la profundidad efectiva.Figura 1. Sección del árbol de decisiones en suelos pesados para determinar las alternativas de uso de la tierra en la Altillanura Colombiana.Así se evalúan los atributos de la tierra y se plantean los sistemas de producción más apropiados de acuerdo a los requerimientos de los cultivos involucrados y las especificaciones de manejo más adecuadas para lograr un mejoramiento gradual del suelo.Las diferentes combinaciones de la oferta ambiental dan lugar a propuestas de diseños de sistemas productivos. Estos gradualmente aumentaran su productividad en la medida que se mejore el suelo a través de prácticas que contribuyan a la formación de una capa arable productiva y sostenible, en donde las condiciones de oferta edáfica lo permitan. Es decir, a medida que se aumente la profundidad efectiva, mayor será la productividad de los sistemas. Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia 11Un sistema de apoyo en la toma de decisiones se refiere a un sistema computacional interactivo que ayuda a tomar decisiones. En este sentido, el SIG puede ser considerado un sistema de apoyo en la toma de decisiones. Sin embargo, desde un punto de vista más funcional se reconoce un sistema espacial de apoyo en la toma de decisiones (SDSS) (Crossland et al. 1995) como un sistema de información que combina funciones seleccionadas de un SIG con otras herramientas diseñadas para el apoyo en la toma de decisiones.En este sentido, la herramienta \"Arboles\" presentada en este manual es un SDSS. Se basa en la tecnología de SIG usando información georreferenciada y atiende un problema específico.En \"Arboles de Decisión\" se ha aprovechado la gran cantidad de información de los suelos derivada de los levantamientos edafológicos y de experiencias puntuales en campo que al no organizarse en un sistema de información es difícil de interpretar para tomar una decisión en cuanto al uso de la tierra más apropiado en un lugar dado.\"Arboles de Decisión\" funciona a partir de reglas lógicas que estructuran un árbol de decisión diseñado previamente. Estas permiten que la herramienta determine las alternativas de uso de la tierra más apropiadas según las características de la tierra para una unidad de suelo particular.Estas reglas lógicas han sido estructuradas por los especialistas en suelos quienes a partir de sus experiencias de investigación han determinado cuáles son las características y sus rangos críticos que limitan la productividad sostenible de los suelos de la Altillanura Plana Colombiana, permitiendo proponer alternativas de uso y condiciones de manejo que promueven el mejoramiento gradual de estos por medio de la formación de una capa arable.En este manual no solo se proveen instructivos para operar la herramienta sino se proporcionan las bases conceptuales que se han tenido en cuenta para construir la herramienta desde el punto de vista de condiciones bíofisicas del área de estudio hasta definiciones de conceptos útiles para la sistematización de información y estructuración de la herramienta.12El gran desafío que demanda la atención de los especialistas que trabajan en suelos y en otras áreas de las ciencias biológicas, es el de cómo asegurar la sostenibilidad agropecuaria en áreas ecológicamente frágiles cuando son intervenidas por el hombre, debido a la incapacidad de éste para mantener el equilibrio entre las resistencias que opone el suelo a la degradación y las fuerzas degradativas actuantes que causan erosión y transforman el paisaje. Ante de la intervención humana las características del suelo se mantenían en equilibrio dinámico con las condiciones climáticas, pero una vez se hace la intervención, se pierde el equilibrio y los suelos quedan sujetos a degradación.La degradación es el proceso de deterioro de la capacidad productiva del suelo. Durante este proceso se ven afectadas negativamente las características físicas, químicas y biológicas de los suelos así como las interrelaciones e interdependencias que los procesos mismos generan. Estas propiedades y procesos varían espacialmente, por lo cual es difícil definir que unidades de tierra con usos y manejos particulares.Los suelos difieren enormemente en su susceptibilidad a degradación o a mejoramiento. En el caso de los suelos de la Orinoquía colombiana, es posible subir rápidamente los niveles de productividad, pero también aceleradamente disminuye su capacidad productiva y la agricultura no puede hacerse sostenible.La clave de un \"manejo productivo y sostenible\" del suelo, radica en la comprensión y detección de las propiedades más sensibles a las acciones de uso y de manejo, y en el desarrollo de prácticas agrícolas o de labranza para controlarlas.(principalmente arenas finas y muy finas), sellamiento superficial, baja capacidad de infiltración, baja aireación, baja penetrabilidad, bajo contenido de nutrientes y baja retención de agua.La productividad de estas tierras así como su impacto ambiental depende de las actividades que realicen los productores. Las propiedades mencionadas deben ser identificadas, analizadas y localizadas para poder ser manejadas racionalmente en un medio tan frágil como los Llanos Orientales, de tal manera que se pueda aprovechar el clima para obtener el mejor provecho de los suelos localizando unidades de tierra en el mejor ambiente para la producción de cultivos, pastos, bosques, etc. dejando siempre las áreas de protección ambiental. Para este fin, se ha construido \"Arboles de Decisión\" como una herramientas para la toma de decisiones sobre el uso de la tierra en esta región.En las áreas poco fértiles y propensas a la erosión como lo son las tierras de la altillanura de los Llanos Orientales de Colombia, se hace necesario planificar sistemas de producción que hagan parte del proceso del mejoramiento gradual del suelo controlando los riesgos de erosión y degradación.Para corregir estos problemas y poder pensar en una mayor productividad se plantea la construcción de una capa arable, entendiendo por ello, la construcción de una capa superficial del suelo en la cual se han corregido las limitaciones físicas y químicas del suelo, para poder obtener una gran respuesta biológica en términos de desarrollo de raíces por mejoramiento físico y químico del suelo (Amézquita 1998b) Para esto se debe hacer un mejoramiento físico (labranza vertical con cinceles rígidos para mejorar la infiltración, aireación, penetración y distribución de nutrientes) y un mejoramiento químico (enmiendas de fertilización, cal, sulcamag, dolomita, roca fosfórica o calfos), y mejoramiento biológico (siembra de material vegetal adaptado a las características de acidez y baja fertilidad de la región, pero con pastos con un sistema radícular profundo y abundante) del suelo. Con estas practicas se podrán establecer inicialmente pastos y cultivos que mejoraren los suelos con sus raíces y aporten materia orgánica para poder lograr en el futuro el establecimiento de otras especies vegetales con requerimientos nutricionales mayores (Amézquita 1998b).Una vez se desarrolle una capa arable en la altillanura colombiana, se podrán implementar sistemas agroforestales, manteniendo los pastos como componente indispensable debido a que estos permiten una mayor infiltración de agua en el suelo en comparación con los cultivos. Diferentes resultados han demostrado la importancia que tienen los pastos en la construcción y estabilización de la estructura de estos suelos evitando su encostramiento y sellamiento superficial. Por tal razón, se cree que solo a través de sistemas agropastoriles es posible manejar bien estos suelos.Para contextualizar esta herramienta y proponer un marco lógico bajo el cuál las herramientas para la toma de decisiones deben ser construidas se tuvieron en cuenta algunos conceptos descritos para la evaluación de tierras (FAO 1985). En este sentido, se siguieron estos pasos (Figura 2):3.5.1. Identificación de quiénes son los actores Con este fin, antes de iniciar la construcción de una herramienta para el apoyo en la toma de decisiones es necesario identificar quienes son los actores que inciden en su conceptualización, enfoque y aplicación.En el proceso de planificación del uso de la tierra deben responder a los siguientes interrogantes:¿Qué decisión debo tomar? ¿Cuál es la mejor opción? ¿Quiénes son afectados por la decisión?.En este sentido se distinguen los siguientes actores:? Los usuarios: Se refiere a los tomadores de decisión cuyas actuaciones serán apoyadas con la herramienta. Generalmente ellos son quienes han solicitado la herramienta, es decir son los clientes. Estos son: Planificadores, gobernantes, asistentes técnicos, investigadores.? Evaluador y el especialista en usos y recursos de la tierra: Pueden ser representados por un equipo de trabajo. Este incluye: a.) Quien desarrollara la herramienta y cuenta con los conocimientos suficientes para ser el intermediario entre los especialistas y los usuarios. Debe conocer sobre técnicas de computación y SIG.b.) Los especialistas en usos y recursos de la tierra proveen la información necesaria en cuanto a alternativas de uso de la tierra en base a la oferta ambiental y los requerimientos de los sistemas de producción. Estos pueden ser: Investigadores en agronomía, suelos, biólogos, ecólogos, otros. Ellos se podrán apoyar en el conocimiento de los extensionistas, asistentes técnicos, productores, etc que han evidenciado la respuesta de algunas alternativas de uso frente a las condiciones biofísicas de su territorio.? Stakeholders o beneficiarios: Se refiere a las personas que se verán afectadas por la planificación de acciones basada en las alternativas de uso dela tierra propuestas a partir de la utilización de la herramienta. Se refiere principalmente a la población rural del área de intervención.Se fijan de acuerdo con los objetivos de quienes tienen que tomar decisiones. El propósito de la herramienta es:Propender por el uso apropiado de la tierra en los Llanos Orientales de Colombia (Puerto López, Meta) mediante la estructuración de un procedimiento de decisión, que conduzca a determinar un uso coherente, eficiente y sostenible de la tierra, con el fin de evitar la degradación y aumentar la productividad.? Para que este planteamiento se convierta en una realidad, para cada condición de clima, suelo, paisaje, pendiente de terreno y condición textural, se presentan en este documento las alternativas de uso de la tierra a través de sistemas de producción de cultivos, rotaciones y prácticas de mejoramiento de suelos o conservacionistas que más se adecuen a las condiciones edafoclimáticas imperantes en el municipio de Puerto López (Departamento del Meta, Colombia).3.5.3. Determinación de Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra.Se refiere a la identificación de los Tipos de uso de la tierra que más se adecuan a la oferta ambiental, en términos de capacidad productiva y de necesidades alimentarias o económicas de la región, las cuales son muy útiles para los tomadores de decisiones y para los productores.Tipo de uso de la Tierra: Cualquier forma de uso del suelo por el hombre para satisfacer sus necesidades primarias o industriales.? Los suelos de los Llanos Orientales presentan muchas limitaciones edafológicas y son muy pocos los tipos de uso de la tierra que les son apropiados. Sin embargo, por medio de modificaciones a las propiedades del suelo que sean susceptibles a cambios, junto con especificaciones técnicas requeridas, es posible llegar a desarrollar en ellos una capa arable, por media de la cual se puede ampliar el espectro de posibilidades de uso de la tierra. Para esto se requiere incrementar la profundidad del suelo para el desarrollo de raíces, mediante el aflojamiento del suelo con arado de cínceles rígido, la aplicación de cal y de fertilizantes, y de la siembra de pastos de raíces abundantes y profundas, capaces de modificar positivamente la condición inapropiada del suelo.En la tabla 1 se muestran trece alternativas de uso de la tierra para la Altillanura Colombiana, todas basadas en la posibilidad real de ser utilizadas con miras en productividad y sostenibilidad y conservación de los recursos naturales. Se definen los requerimientos de los sistemas de producción en relación con la oferta ambiental del sitio geográfico de ubicación de la tierra.Requerimiento de uso de la tierra: Son las condiciones de la m isma, necesarias o deseables para la práctica exitosa y sostenida de un tipo dado de utilización.? Considerando las limitaciones descritas en los Llanos Orientales para el establecimiento exitoso de los sistemas de producción, se escogieron la textura, el volumen del suelo disponible para el crecimiento de las raíces y las condiciones de terreno favorables para la mecanización, como los requerimientos fundamentales en el establecimiento de los cultivos, pastos y sistemas agroforestales siempre y cuando, se cumpla con algunas condiciones de manejo.Se definen las calidades y limitaciones de la tierra en relación con los requerimientos de los sistemas de producción.Cualidad de la Tierra: Es la suma de atributos del suelo que actúan en forma específica en la aptitud de la tierra para un tipo específico de uso.? En el caso de la Altillanura, las facilidades para \"enraizamiento\" y para la \"mecanización\" reflejan las limitaciones de sus tierras para el establecimiento de las alternativas de uso que le proponen.Se refiere a las características del suelo que se utilizarán para evaluar la calidad de la tierra y compararla con los requerimientos de los cultivos usados en los sistemas de producción. Para este fin, deben seleccionarse características tales que en el caso de que no exista información disponible, sean fáciles de obtener por los usuarios de la herramienta.Características de la Tierra: es una propiedad del suelo que puede ser medida o estimada y que puede emplearse para evaluar la aptitud de la tierra, puede servir además, para direccionar una ruta dada dentro de la estructura del árbol de toma de decisiones.? Las características de la tierra que fueron seleccionadas para la Altillanura fueron: la clase textural, la profundidad efectiva y la pendiente del terreno. Esta información se obtiene de levantamientos edafológicos en campo y de los estudios de suelos existentes. Estas permiten comparar la oferta con la demanda (Tabla 2).Tabla 2. Requerimientos, Calidades y Características de la tierra seleccionadas para proponer las alternativas de uso de la tierra en los Llanos Orientales.Clase textural Volumen para crecimiento radicularProfundidad efectiva Condiciones de terreno para la mecanización Mecanización Pendiente (%) 3.5.7. Unidad Espacial de Decisión (Para \"Arboles 1:100\" (ver sección 1.4.3))Las unidades de decisión representan las unidades de tierra las cuales son delimitadas en el espacio por sus características. Estas unidades de decisión se definen en función de la información y cartografía disponible y las necesidades del usuario. Cada unidad de tierra corresponde a un polígono en el Sistema de Información Geográfica (SIG). Cada polígono esta ligado a unaHerramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia 20 base de datos que contiene la información sobre las características seleccionadas. De esta manera, es posible espacializar las alternativas propuestas o en otras palabras, se espacializa y localiza la decisión que se toma con la herramienta.Unidad de la Tierra: término que designa a un área que se ha seleccionado por su homogeneidad. Es el área de aplicación de las decisiones.? Para el caso de la Altillanura, las unidades de tierra correspondieron a las unidades de suelo descritas en el mapa a escala 1:100.000 (IGAC 2000), las cuales se manejan como polígonos dentro del SIG.! Antes de tomar una decisión sobre las delimitaciones de un área, hay que descartar las que por sus condiciones físicas y/o socio culturales no son viables para la implementación de los tipos de uso de la tierra. Para esto es importante tener en cuenta los criterios y mandatos del ordenamiento territorial de la región.? Para el caso del área en estudio, se han descartado las áreas de bosques de galería por su importancia al comportarse como refugios de la fauna silvestre, porque albergan alta biodiversidad y protegen a los cauces de agua a los que están asociados (Quintero 2001). En la cartografía de suelos estas formaciones arbóreas corresponden a la unidad Al axy. (IGAC 2000).Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de ColombiaQuiénes son los actores? (usuarios, expertos, comunidad) Qué pretenden los usuarios?Qué opciones tienen en su región? (Alternativas de uso de la tierra)Qué puedo medir para saber si la oferta ambiental satisface la demanda ambiental? (características de la tierra).En dónde? (Unidad Espacial de Decisión) Figura 2. Conceptualización de la herramienta como apoyo en la toma de decisiones. Se han construido dos aplicaciones de la herramienta según el alcance de la decisión.\"Arboles 1:1\": Apoya la toma de decisiones para un punto cualquiera en el espacio de la Altillanura, es necesario levantar en campo la información correspondiente a textura, porcentaje de pendiente y profundidad efectiva.\"Arboles 1:100\": El área de decisión corresponde a la unidad de suelo cartografiada a escala 1:100.000. El usuario no tiene necesidad de levantar la información en campo, ya que la interpretación que la herramienta hace es basada en la información temática correspondiente al mapa de suelos (IGAC 2000) proveniente del levantamiento de suelos.La interpretación final la hace teniendo en c uenta los porcentajes correspondientes a la representatividad de cada perfil en su respectiva unidad de suelo. Las diferentes alternativas de uso de la tierra son espacializadas en cada unidad de suelo en el SIG Map Maker Popular(Capítulo 4) según su porcentaje de aplicación.! La interpretación en \"Arboles 1:100\" se hace para todo el Municipio de Puerto López, es decir para la Altillanura Plana, Ondulada y Disectada. Sin embargo, las interpretaciones de las dos últimas solo son una aproximación y la implementación de las alternativas de uso está sujeta a experimentos científicos previos. Por el contrario, las alternativas propuestas para la Altillanura Plana ya han sido corroboradas en campo.\"Arboles de Decisión\" almacena la información de textura, pendiente y profundidad efectiva de cada unidad de tierra (unidad de suelo) en una base de datos en Microsoft Acces,. Esta información es interpretada a partir de las reglas lógicas que estructuran el árbol de decisión construido. Estas reglas han sido escritas como condicionales en lenguaje Visual Basic y permiten que la herramienta determine las alternativas de uso de la tierra más apropiadas según las características de la tierra mencionadas.Cada Unidad de Suelo tiene un símbolo el cual se relaciona con las alternativas de uso de la tierra. Por medio de este símbolo se localizan y espacializan estos usos en el SIG SPRING 1 y se ha desarrollado una aplicación en Map Maker Popular 2 para facilitar su visualización a usuarios que no son expertos en SIG (Capítulo 6).Usted encontrará un archivo llamado arboles11.mdb (correspondiente a \"Arboles 1:1) o arboles1100.mdb (correspondiente a \"Arboles 1:100\"). Cada una de estas herramientas estará disponible en Microsoft Access 97 y 2000. Una vez la herramienta se ejecute, aparecerá una ventana de acceso (figura 3), donde usted deberá digitar un \"Login\" y un \"Password\" (contraseña) que le será a usted proporcionado, una vez reciba esta herramienta. Luego usted tendrá que oprimir el botón .Figura 3. Ventana de acceso a la herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\".Luego de acceder a la herramienta, se desplegara una ventana de iniciación a la herramienta. Para \"Arboles1:1\" usted tiene la opción de escoger el paisaje sobre el cual realizará su consulta. Una vez haya escogido el paisaje oprima el botón \"Aceptar\" (Figura 4).Figura 4. Ventana de Iniciación Aplicación \"Arboles 1:1\".Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia! En esta versión solo se ha estructurado un árbol de decisión para el paisaje de altillanura plana, debido a la información disponible al nivel de detalle requerido para realizar consultas a escala 1:1, es decir, a nivel de finca.En \"Arboles 1:100\" no se requiere escoger el paisaje . En la ventana de iniciación oprima el botón \"Inicio\" (Figura 5).! No se requiere escoger el paisaje debido a que el árbol de decisión utiliza la información del levantamiento de suelos realizada a la escala 1:100.000 siendo la unidad de suelo la unidad de decisión. Así, intrínsecamente va discriminando entre los diferentes paisajes. Las características de la tierra están descritas en rangos amplios permitiendo solo hacer una aproximación al % de aplicabilidad de una alternativa de uso de la tierra en las unidades de suelo, a nivel municipal. En este sentido, las decisiones que se van tomando en el árbol de decisión están acordes con estos rangosEn consecuencia , esta herramienta tiene una aplicación más general en el ámbito de la planificación regional, m ientras que Arboles 1:1 tiene una aplicación en la toma de decisiones del productor. La siguiente ventana que aparecerá en la pantalla de su computador le permitirá hacer la consulta sobre las alternativas de uso de la tierra másHerramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia 28 apropiadas dentro del marco de mejoramiento gradual del suelo, teniendo en cuenta las tres características del suelo ya mencionadas (textura, pendiente y profundidad efectiva).Para \"Arboles 1:1\" el usuario deberá escoger estas características a partir de un menú de opciones para el caso de la textura y la profundidad efectiva. Para la pendiente simplemente tendrá que digitar el valor correspondiente al porcentaje de inclinación (Figura 6).! Estas características corresponden al terreno donde el usuario pretende implementar los sistemas de producción.Una vez esta información ya haya sido seleccionada, se oprime el botón \"Consultar\" e inmediatamente en \"Uso Potencial\" aparecerá el código de las alternativas de Uso de la Tierra que se proponen bajo tales condiciones del suelo y de la topografía. Para \"Arboles 1:100\" el usuario deberá seleccionar el símbolo de la unidad de suelo de interés e inmediatamente aparecerá la información correspondiente a las características del suelo, su pendiente y uso potencial (Figura 7). Para seleccionar la unidad de suelo de interés usted podrá consultar el mapa de suelos oprimiendo el botón \"Mapas\" (ver Capítulo 6).!La aplicación \"Arboles 1:100\" es también útil cuando no es posible levantar la información correspondiente a tales características en campo. En este caso será necesario consultar la cartografía de suelos disponible la cual se podrá accesar desde la aplicación en el SIG MapMaker Popular \"Arboles: Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales\". (Capítulo 6). Desde esta aplicación el usuario podrá ubicar geográficamente su área de interés y conocer el símbolo correspondiente a la(s) unidad(es) de suelo.!Debido a que la descripción de una Unidad de Suelo está basada en el número de perfiles que se encuentren en esta, los usos potenciales arrojados corresponden a cada perfil. Dentro de esta misma ventana (en \"Arboles 1:100\") usted encontrará dos botones \"Anterior Perfil\" y \"Siguiente Perfil\" para ir hacia atrás y hacia adelante, y poder consultar los diferentes perfiles que se puedan encontrar dentro de la Unidad de Suelo seleccionada.!Cada vez que consulta un perfil la interpretación de usos potenciales puede variar debido a que en cada uno de estos puede presentar textura, profundidad efectiva y % pendiente diferentes.Para obtener una interpretación para toda la unidad de suelo oprima el botón \"Interpretación Unidad de Suelo\" y se desplegará una ventana donde se listan los usos potenciales y su porcentaje de aplicación en tal unidad (Figura 8). ! El porcentaje de aplicación de un uso potencial se calcula en base al porcentaje que ocupa cada perfil dentro de la unidad de suelo.También encontrará el botón \"Reporte\" el cual al oprimir le desplegará la tabla en base a la cual se hace la interpretación por unidad de suelo (Figura 9). ! En la tabla \"Reporte\", se encuentra la información correspondiente (columnas) a la Unidad de Suelo seleccionada: Simbolo (símbolo de la unidad de suelo), Uso (código del uso potencial), Porcentaje Total (porcentaje de aplicación del uso en la unidad), y al número identificador (ID) del perfil (porcentaje de representatividad de cada perfil dentro de la Unidad de Suelo).Observe que para cada Uso ( filas) solo encontrará el porcentaje de representatividad de cada perfil donde este es viable y la suma de estos porcentajes corresponde al Porcentaje Total.! Es posible que para algunos perfiles el Uso potencial sea Indefinido. Esto se debe a que la información de ese perfil del suelo no se ajusta a ninguna de las reglas lógicas establecidas. En este caso es necesario focalizar las nuevas investigaciones de suelos de sabana bajo tales circunstancias para realizar recomendaciones sobre el Uso de la Tierra.En el caso que el Uso Potencial sea \" No Uso\" se refiere a que las características de la Tierra no son aptas para ningún sistema productivo desde el punto de vista de mejoramiento gradual de los suelos y sostenibilidad a largo plazo de esos sistemas y/o por conservación de los recursos naturales (bosques de galería, recurso hídrico, etc).Para \"Arboles 1:1\" y \"Arboles 1:100\", una vez se conocen los códigos de los Usos Potenciales, oprima el botón \" Ver Información\" para observar la descripción de estas alternativas.Inmediatamente usted visualizará en su pantalla la ventana \"Sistemas de Producción\" (Figura 10). En esta ventana usted encontrará una descripción de cada uno de los sistemas de producción potenciales que la herramienta propone bajo las características de textura, profundidad efectiva y pendiente que tiene su punto (escala 1:1) o unidad de suelo (escala 1:100.000). Con los botones usted podrá ir hacia adelanta o hacia atrás para conocer cada uno de estas alternativas.En esta misma ventana, visualizará en la parte inferior dos botones adicionales correspondientes a dos preguntas: \" Cómo aumentar los usos potenciales?\" y \"Tiene diferentes grados de pendiente?\". Al oprimir cada uno de estos botones se desplegarán unas ventanas que sugerirán condiciones de manejo que responden a estas preguntas.! La posibilidad de aumentar los usos potenciales solamente aparecerá en los casos que el punto o perfil tiene un número reducido de usos potenciales. Considerando que hay suelos con texturas y pendientes apropiadas para el establecimiento de sistemas de producción pero con profundidad efectiva reducida, es posible que mejorando el suelo mediante la formación de una capa arable sea viable aumentar los uso potenciales en estos lugares. Solo para estos casos este botón aparecerá. Después de consultar los sistemas de producción sugeridos, usted podrá devolverse a la ventana de consulta con el botón Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de ColombiaEn esta ventana (Figura 7) usted encontrará un botón en la parte inferior llamado \"Mapas\" que le permitirá visualizar en el SIG MapMaker Popular la espacialización de cada uno de los usos descritos, en el municipio de Puerto López, Meta. (Capitulo 4)Usted tiene la opción de imprimir las características de la unidad de suelo seleccionada y visualizadas en la ventana de consulta (figura 7), la interpretación de las usos potenciales para la misma unidad (figura 8) y la descripción de los sistemas de producción (figura 10), oprimiendo el botón en cada una de estas ventanas.Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia 34Para utilizar la herramienta \"Arboles 1:1\", es necesario conocer la textura, profundidad efectiva y pendiente del lugar donde se pretende implementar algún sistema de producción. A continuación, se encuentra una breve descripción del significado de cada una de estas características del suelo y se sugiere como determinarlas en campo de una manera sencilla.La textura del suelo se refiere a la distribución de las partículas minerales de arena, limo y arcilla en el suelo. La textura es uno de los atributos más estables del suelo pudiendo solo ser modificada ligeramente por cultivación y otras prácticas que causan la mezcla de las diferentes capas del suelo (USDA 1999).La facilidad de un suelo para cultivar y manejar esta dada por la textura. En este árbol de decisión cada clase textural (arcillosa, limosa, franca, etc) esta relacionada con el hecho de que esta sea liviana, media o pesada.Los suelos con bastantes partículas gruesas son más fáciles de labrar y se relacionan como suelos livianos. Estos suelos usualmente drenan bien y no se adhieren. Por el contrario, los suelos arcillosos, no drenan bien, se adhieren y son plásticos en húmedo y al secarse se endurecen mucho. Estos suelos se conocen como pesados (WILD 1992).Debido a que la textura es prácticamente un atributo inmodificable, el árbol de decisión para determinar alternativas de uso de la tierra en los llanos orientales de Colombia, dentro del marco de mejoramiento gradual del suelo, comienza con la determinación de la textura y según esta se determinan los posibles usos teniendo en cuenta la pendiente (que determina practicas de manejo y arreglos productivos) y la profundidad del horizonte superficial (se puede modificar con manejo formando capa arable).La textura es una característica importante porque influencia la fertilidad y ayuda a determinar la velocidad de consumo de agua, el almacenaje de agua en el suelo, la laboralidad y la amplitud de aireación. Por ejemplo suelos arcillosos retienen más agua y nutrientes que suelos arenosos (USDA 1999).Para determinar la textura del horizonte superficial o \"capa de enraizamiento del suelo\" de una manera rápida puede utilizar el procedimiento textural por tacto (figura 11). Con este procedimiento usted podrá determinar la clase Es muy aspero?Es muy suave?La pendiente en un terreno indica su ángulo en relación con la horizontalidad. Su medición se hace con facilidad utilizando un clinómetro y se expresa habitualmente en porcentaje (%), o sea la relación de la distancia vertical por cada 100 metros de distancia horizontal.Es un parámetro clave en la determinación del uso potencial debido a su impacto directo sobre la tasa de erosión por escurrimiento de agua y los riesgos de deslizamientos. Así, con el aumento de la pendiente, se incrementa la necesidad de plantar árboles. De esta manera se puede proteger con eficacia los terrenos y asegurar un ingreso constante y permanente, al contrario de los cultivos limpios que aprovechan durante un corto tiempo el suelo para dejarlo inutilizable o ausente.Se refiere a la profundidad que pueden alcanzar las raíces sin encontrar impedimentos físicos o químicos. Indica el potencial del suelo para la producción de cultivos, es decir, es un parámetro clave para determinar el tipo de uso potencial del suelo.La profundidad del horizonte superior es importante para el almacenamiento del agua y la provisión de nutrientes para el crecimiento de las plantas. Generalmente, la remoción del horizonte superficial determina pérdida de fertilidad, la capacidad de retención de agua, de contenido de carbono orgánico y de productividad. Mediciones de la profundidad del horizonte superficial a lo largo del tiempo brindan una buena estimación de la pérdida de suelo (erosión) (USDA 1999).Para determinar la profundidad directamente en campo, se recomienda abrir una cajuela de 40 x 40 x 40 cm y mida la profundidad del horizonte superficial. El horizonte superficial se distingue usualmente por un color más oscuro que el material ubicado en las capas más profundas (USDA 1999).Interpretar las formas del relieve también pueden ayudar a determinar este parámetro, como por ejemplo la identificación de presencia de roca visible.Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia 38 5.3.2. Cómo aumentar la profundidad del horizonte superficial del suelo?La capa arable es aquella capa superficial de suelo planificada y obtenida por el hombre con el fin de obtener un suelo que no presente limitantes físicas, químicas ni biológicas para el desarrollo normal de las raíces de los cultivos y que sea estable a través del tiempo.La profundidad de ésta puede variar entre 0-15 cm para pastos, 0-25 cm para cereales y leguminosas y 0-40 cm para cultivos permanentes. Si en el Llano no se maneja el concepto de desarrollo de una capa arable los suelos se seguirán degradando y se harán cada vez más improductivos.Mediante la combinación de una labranza que tienda a corregir los limitantes físicos del suelo, de un buen uso y manejo de enmiendas y de fertilizantes que corrijan la condición química hasta la profundidad deseada y del uso de prácticas de manejo de abonos orgánicos, abonos verdes y residuos vegetales que propicien la formación de bioestructura es posible formar una capa arable y sobre ella una agricultura sostenible. Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia 40Una vez usted oprime el botón \"Mapas\" en la ventana de Consulta (Figura 7, Sección 4.6), se ejecutará en su pantalla la aplicación (Figura 13).Figura 13. Pantalla de iniciación aplicación en MapMaker Popular.En la ventana inicial de presentación (Figura 13) usted encontrará en la parte inferior algunas opciones propias del SIG MapMaker Popular (Figura 14). Estas opciones le permitirán mover los mapas que despliegue hacia la derecha, izquierda, arriba y abajo; acercar y alejar; desplazarlo manualmente sobre la pantalla y hacer un zoom sobre un punto especifico.En la parte inferior izquierda usted encontrará información sobre la escala a la que usted esta visualizando el mapa y sobre las coordenadas planas reales de cualquier punto. En la parte superior de la misma ventana usted encontrará un menú de opciones (Figura 15). En la opción \"Archivo\" usted tendrá la opción de Salir de la aplicación. En la opción \"Alternativas de uso\" usted podrá seleccionar el uso de la tierra que desee consultar (Figura 15). Cada uno de estos usos tiene asignado el mismo nombre y código con el que se encuentran en la herramienta de Microsoft Acces.Figura 15. Barra de menú inicial de la aplicación en SIG.Una vez usted selecciona un uso, se desplegará sobre su pantalla el mapa de % de aplicación del sistema para el municipio de Puerto López, Meta. (Figura 16).? En el mapa se visualizan los diferentes porcentajes de aplicación que están dados según el porcentaje que ocupa cada perfil en una unidad de suelo. Recuerde que la interpretación realizada en la herramienta en Microsoft Acces se hace inicialmente para cada perfil y luego para toda la unidad de suelo según estos porcentajes.Figura 16. Opción de consulta de las diferentes alternativas de uso de la tierra.En la opción \"Mapa de suelos\" usted podrá visualizar el mapa de suelos de la zona (Puerto López, Meta) con el fin de identificar que unidad de suelo es de su interés para poder realizar la consulta en la versión de Microsoft Acess \"Arboles 1:100\" (sección 4.6).En la opción \"Información General\" usted encontrará un mapa de drenajes y de centros poblados del Municipio de Puerto López (Meta).Figura 15. Espacialización de una alternativa de uso de la tierra según su porcentaje de aplicación en cada unidad de suelo.Cuando usted visualice cualquiera de estos mapas, tendrá la opción de consultar la base de datos correspondiente. Para esto usted deberá hacer \"clic\" con el mouse, sobre la unidad de suelo de interés.? Esta opción es útil para consultar el símbolo de la unidad de suelo, el cual usted requerirá para utilizar la herramienta \"Arboles 1:100\" en Microsoft Acces, en caso que no sea claro con los colores utilizados en la leyenda del mapa.!Para realizar esta consulta, usted debe asegurarse que el apuntador del mouse en la pantalla sea visualizado en forma de mano y acompañado de la palabra \"datos\", lo que significa que la opción de \" consultar datos\" esta activa. En caso de que no sea visible, oprima el comando \"Ctrl. Q\".Herramienta \"Arboles de Decisión\": Alternativas de Uso de la Tierra para los Llanos Orientales de Colombia 44 Inmediatamente usted hace \"clic\" sobre la unidad de suelo que quiere consultar, se desplegará una ventana en la pantalla llamada \"Objeto seleccionado\" que contiene toda la información con respecto a este polígono (figura 17).Figura 17. Ventana de consulta de datos para una unidad de suelo o polígono.En esta ventana usted visualizará el símbolo, y también, los porcentajes de aplicación de todos los sistemas de producción en esa unidad de suelo (figura 18).Cada sistema de producción esta identificado con el mismo código empleado en la herramienta \"Arboles 1:1\" y \"Arboles 1:100\".! Ejemplo: El uso \"Forestal para Conservación\" corresponde al código 10A, en la ventana \"objeto seleccionado\" (figura 18) corresponde a A10."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"694955db923f3b525e8af817e45b2fc6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cbb4d167-7d21-473f-97ac-6fb26b251feb/retrieve","id":"788934901"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"14096daa-d340-45f9-ad39-75ed14ac813b","content":"El término \"protoplasto\" se refiere a la materia viva de la célula vegetal, que está encerrada por la pared celular; es decir, la célula desnuda de la planta, que corresponde a la membrana celular y el citoplasma con orga-ne10s.Los protoplastos pueden aislarse a partir de células o tejidos vegetales mediante la utilizaci6n de enzimas degradadoras de la pared celular. Los protoplastos aislados son suspensiones de células carentes de pared celular y rodeadas s610 por la membrana plasmática. La ausencia de una pared celular rígida los hace muy apropiados para la realizaci6n de estudios fisio16gicos y bioquímicos y de diferentes manipulaciones genéticas.Los protoplastos tienen la capacidad de regenerar la pared celular, de dividirse y formar colonias celulares, cuando se cultivan adecuadamente.Igualmente, un gran nÍlmero de especies de plantas tienen la capacidad de regenerar plantas fértiles a partir de colonias celulares derivadas de protoplastos. La alta frecuencia de regeneraci6n de las plantas constituye un requisito importante cuando se trata de utilizar los protoplastos aislados para estudios genéticos.Existen reglas generales, pero nO métodos estandarizados, para el aislamiento y cultivo de protoplastos de plantas. Cada especie de planta y cada tipo de tejido tiene un requerimiento específico para los procedimientos de aislamiento y cultivo de sus protoplastos. Cuando una persona empieza a trabajar con protoplastos, es necesario optimizar el sistema mediante ajustes empíricos de los procedimientos de aislamiento y cultivo.Este corto JlLanual examina algunos' aspectos del aislamiento y cultivo de los protoplastos de yuca, basado en los resultados de un programa de investigación desarrollado en la Unidad de Investigación en Biotecnologia del eIAT, en el período 1984-1986. 1. El material de origen 2. La técnica de aislamiento 3. La purificación de los protop1astos aislados 4. El cultivo de los protop1astos.Cada una de esta etapas está determinada por un número de factores complejos, en interacción, que pueden influir en el éxito del cultivo de protop1astos. l. El material de Origen El tipo y estado fisiológico de la fuente deprotop1astos son factores criticos que pueden influir de sobremanera en el éxito del procedimiento de aislamiento y cultivo de protop1astos. Para el aislamiento de proto-p1astos, es necesario utilizar células de tejidos en crecimiento activo.Las condiciones de cultivo del material de origen deberán ser estandarizadas para poder obtener repetitivamente, altos rendimientos de protop1astos viables. El material propagado in vitro de plantas estériles, generalmente se considera superior, al compararse con plantas cultivadas en el campo o en invernadero.Se encontró que las hojas bien desarrolladas y los ápices de plantas de yuca propagadas in vitro constituyen buenas fuentes de protop1astos (CIAT 1986). Las hojas de plantas de yuca cultivadas en invernadero también se han utilizado con éxito, para el aislamiento de protop1astos (Shahin y Shepard 1982). En nuestro laboratorio también se han utilizado embriones somáticos primarios y secundarios para el aislamiento de protop1astos (ver sección nI).Cuando se utilizan plantas de yuca propagadas in vitro, las p1ántu1as se cultivan en tubos de ensayo de 25 mm de diámetro, en un medio de cultivo solidificado con agar (cuadro 1) y se propagan por medio de estacas de tallo, cada 6-8 semanas. Las plantas se incuban en cámaras de crecimiento con un fotoperiodo de 12 horas, bajo una iluminación de 3.000 lux, y una temperatura de 27 o C.Anteriormente se ha descrito en forma detallada, el procedimiento de cultivo in vitro de plantas de yuca (Roca 1984).Los protoplastos se aislan de hojas jóvenes pero totalmente extendidas, o de ápices de tallos con hojas inmaduras de 5-10 mm en tamaño. Se encontró que, las plántulas de 4-8 semanas de edad producen los mejores resultados en relación con el rendimiento de protoplastos y su viabilidad.El siguiente procedimiento se ha utilizado de manera rutinaria, en nuestro , laboratorio, para aislar protoplastos del mesófilo de hojas de plantas de yuca propagadas in vitro (Figura 1).El material de origen del protoplasto debe tratarse de alguna forma para asegurar una adecuada digestión enzimática. Las hojas totalmente extendidas pero jóvenes de plántulas de 4-8 semanas de edad, se recogen en un frasco Erlenmeyer de 125 mI con un poco de agua destilada estéril (Figura 1. 1).Debido a lo dificil que resulta remover la epidermis inferior• mediante el procedimiento de pelado, se escogió el método de cortar la hoja en pequeños pedazos con un bisturi (maceración mecánica).Generalmente, las hojas flotan en la superficie del agua (u otra solución acuosa). debido aparentemente a la presencia de una capa de cera hidrófoba de la epidermis foliar. La penetración enzimática en el tejido foliar se mejora mediante el pretratamiento del material foliar recolectado con 30% de alcohol (5-10 seg.) y unas 3-4 lavadas con agua destilada estéril antes de la maceración mecánica. Luego, las hojas se trasladan a cajas de PetriCOn unos pocos mI de una solución de lavado osmóticamente estabilizada (solución de lavado No. 1, Cuadro 2).Las hojas se cortan en pequeños pedazos de 3-5 mm aproximadamente, con un bisturi estéril. En este paso también se puede utilizar vacio débil para facilitar la infiltración. La solución de lavado se revuelve con una pipeta Pasteur y se añade luego la solución enzimática (Figura 1.2).Generalmente, los protoplastos se aislan por medio de una mezcla de diferentes enzimas hidroliticas, capaces de degradar la pared celular. Muchas enzimas comercialmente disponibles pueden degradar diferentes componentes de la pared celular, pero para lograr un aislamiento exitoso de protoplastos se requiere una mezcla de celulasa, hemicelulasa y pectinasa. No existen soluciones enzimáticas estandar, por tanto, se deben ensayar mezclas diferentes hasta encontrar la combinación que dé mejores resulados, en un sistema dado.Para el aislamiento de protoplastos de mesófilo de hojas de yuca, se utili-ZÓ una mezcla enzimática (E-l) de celulasa Onozuka R 10, hemicelulasa y pectoliasa Y-23 (Cuadro 3), mezclada 1: 1 con medio líquido de cultivo de protoplastos (el medio de Kao o B5, Cuadro 4). Los pedazos de hojas se mezclan con 8-10 mI de esta solución enzimática, en una caja Petri de 100x 15mm (Figura 1.3). Las cajas se sellan con parafilm, se envuelven en papel de aluminio para protegerlos contra la luz y se incuban a 26 0 C durante 12-18 horas (toda la noche) con agitación continua (40 rpm).Después de una noche de incubación de los pedazos foliares en la solución enzimática, se puede observar un gran número de protoplastos flotando libremente entre los restos de tejido foliar no digerido y desperdicios celulares .• Los protoplastos deberán purificarse de los desperdicios y la mezcla enzimática deberá reemplazarse por un medio de cultivo. Generalmente se empleañ varios pasos diferentes de filtración y centrifugación para obtener una suspensión de protoplastos pura y libre de enzimas.La mezcla de protoplastos, COn tejido sin digerir, células y desperdicios celulares, se resuspende con una pipeta Pasteur y se filtra a través de un tamiz de acero inoxidable con malla de 60-100 Mm o un filtro de nylon para remover inicialmente el tejido no digerido (Figura 1.4).3.2 Centrifugación 3.2.1. Sedimentación 1. La suspensión filtrada de protoplastos se traslada a un tubo de ensayo de 15 mI (preferiblemente con tapa rosca) y se centrifuga a 800 rpm (alrededor de 100g), durante 3-4 minutos (Figura 1.5).3.2.2. Flotación. La solución enzimática se extrae con una pipeta de Pasteur.Los protoplastos precipitados (pellet). se vuelven a suspender en lOml de la solución de lavado No. 2 (Cuadro 2), que tiene 0.4M de sacarosa como osmótico. Luego, utilizando una pipeta Pasteur, se coloca cuidadosamente un mI de la solución de lavado No. 1, evitando que se mezcle con la solución de sacarosa (más densa), formándose una capa translúcida flotante bien definida. Posteriormente, los protoplastos se centrifugan a 1.000 rpm durante 6-8 minutos. Después de este paso de centrifugación, se puede observar una banda verde de protoplastos puros e intactos, en la interfase de las soluciones de lavado No. 1 Y 2 (Figura 1. 6). La solución de lavado No. 2 puede suplementarse con 10% de Percollo 6% de Ficoll, cuando estén disponibles (solución de lavado No. 3, Cuadro 2); con miras a mejorar la eficiencia de la flotación de protoplastos. La banda de protoplastas de color verde debe extraerse con cuidado, utilizando la pipeta Pasteur y se traslada luego a otro tubo de centrifugación, en donde se diluye 10 veces con la solución de lavado No. l.3.2.3. Sedimentación 11. Nuevamente se sedimentan los protop1astos por medio de centrifugación a 800 rpm durante 3-4 minutos (Figura 1. 7). El sobrenadante se extrae y el pe11et de los protoplastos purificados nuevamente se vuelve a resuspender, pero esta vez con un medio de cultivo (Figu-raJ~).Un número de condiciones de cultivo tienen que investigarse y ajustarse cuidadosamente a las necesidades especificas de los protoplastos, con el fin de inducirlos a regenerar su pared celular, dividirse y a continuar creciendo.Generalmente los medios de cultivo de protoplastos son similares a los utilizados para el cultivo de células y tejidos in vitro. Sin embargo, los protoplastos recién aislados requieren una estabilización osmótica que se logra mediante la adición de altas concentraciones de glucosa o manitol, en el medio de cultivo (por ej. 0.35M de glucosa en el caso de protoplastos de yuca). Los protoplastos parecen beneficiarse de mayores concentraciones de iones de Ca 2+ en el medio (600-900 mg/l CaG1), que ayudan en la estabilización de la membrana celular. Además de estas modificaciones, el medio de cultivo de protoplastos generalmente se enriquece suplementando algunas vitaminaS adicionales, ácidos orgánicos, azúcares, aminoácidos, hidrolisado de caseina o agua de coco. Para el cultivo de protoplastos de yuca, resultaron más adecuados, tanto el medio complejo de Kao (Iao 1982), como el medio más simple B5-p modificado del medio de cultivo estandar BS de Gamborg y col. (1968) (ver Cuadro 4). Los protoplastos PUeden cultivarse en medio liquido o semi-sólido que se solidifica con agarosa.La concentración inicial óptima de protoplastos cultivados es un factor de importancia. Una concentración demasiado alta o baja de protoplastos puede condicionar inadecuadamente el medio o incluso volverlo tóxico. Cuente los protoplastos en una cámara de conteo de células (por ej. la cámara de conteo de Levi) y añada medio de cultivo para obtener la concentración óptima de protoplastos. La concentración óptima de cultivo de los protoplastos de mes6filo de yuca fué de 3-5 x 10 4.3 Cultivo de protoplastos en medio liquido Cuando se utiliza un medio liquido, los protoplastos de yuca pueden cultivarse en gotas de 100-200 mI en cajas de Petri de plástico de 50-100 x 15 !IlIII(1 mI de medio/caja Petri, Figura 1.Ba). Los protoplastos también pueden cultivarse en una capa delgada de medio de cultivo (2-3 mI de medio/caja Petri). Es necesario añadir medio fresco directamente a la suspensión de protoplastos a intervalos de 6-8 dias. El medio liquido puede ser más conveniente que el semisólido, ya que los protoplastos y las colonias celulares en desarrollo son fáciles de transferir y el medio puede ser diluido o modificado durante el periodo de cultivo. Sin embargo, en muchos casos (como en la yuca), los protoplastos cultivados se amontonan y la obtención de clones de células aisladas se convierte en un problema.El medio de cultivo se puede solidificar mediante la adición de 0.6% de agarosa de baja fusión (por ej. la Sigma tipo VII) y los protoplastos pueden cultivarse fijos dentro de este medio semisólido. Los pro tapias tos se mezclan con el medio tibio (aproximadamente a 40°C), que contiene agarosa y la mezcla se traslada inmediatamente a las cajas de Petri (3 mI de medio/caja Petri de 50 x 15 mI). Al utilizar este método los protoplastos se mantienen en una posición fija y asi se evita el amontonamiento y se puede obtener la separación de clones (Figura 1.8b).Una amplia gama de temperaturas y condiciones de iluminación se han reportado en el cultivo de protoplastos. En nuestro laboratorio. los protoplastos de yuca se mantienen en la oscuridad, a 27°C, en las primeras 3-4 semanas de cultivo. Luego, las colonias en desarrollo se trasladan a diferentes condiciones de luz: fotoperiodo de 12 horas o luz continua de aproximadamente 3.000 luxo Generalmente las• cajas Petri se sellan con parafilm y se colocan dentro de cajas plásticas con papel filtro humedecido, con el fin de evitar la evaporación del medio de cultivo.El microscopio invertido es de gran utilidad para la observación de los protoplastos cultivados, sin tener que abrir las cajas Petri u otros recipientes de cultivo. Si no se cuenta con un microscopio invertido, se pueden tomar pequeñas alicuotas y el examen se realiza en un porta-objeto.Los protoplastos de la yuca forman paredes celulares en 2-3 días de incubación y empiezan a dividirse 3-5 días después del cultivo (Figura 3B). Una división sostenida lleva a la formación de colonias celulares en 2-3 semanas (Figura 3C). Aproximadamente a las 4 semanas de~pués del cultivo inicial de protoplastos de yuca, las colonias son bien visibles a simple vista.La eficiencia del cultivo de un sistema de protoplastos puede medirse fácilmente mediante la determinación de la frecuencia de protoplastos capaces de dividirse y formar colonias, así:4.6.1 Frecuencia de División: No. de protoplastos en división x 100 No. de protoplastós cultivados Un mínimo de 1.000 protop1astos deberán contarse en cada muestra, 7-10 días después de la incubación, mediante la utilización de un microscopio invertido.4.6.2 Eficiencia de la Siembra: No. de colonias en crecimiento/plato Petri x 10No. de Protoplastos sembrados/Plato Petri El número de colonias visibles en crecimiento, deberá contarse después de trasladar las colonias al medio con agar.Se aconseja agregar medio de cultivo fresco a los cultivos de protoplastos a intervalos semanales. Primero se añade el medio de cultivo de protop1astos para diluir, en unaS dos veces. la suspensión de protoplastos. Las colonias celulares derivadas de protoplastos no requieren más la presencia de un esta-bilizador osm6tico. Posteriormente, cuando se añade el medio de cultivo fresco, gradualmente se deben bajar los niveles osmóticos mediante la utilizaci6n de un medio con osm6tico bajo. La tasa de disminuci6n global del nivel osm6tico deberá ser de unos O.1M/semana.Las colonias celulares derivadas de protoplastos pueden trasladarse a un medio estandar para el cultivo de células o callos, después de 4-5 semanas de incubaci6n.Cuando se cultivan en un medio líquido, las colonias en crecimiento pueden suspenderse fácilmente y transferirse por medio de una Pipeta Pasteur. Las colonias celulares, en un medio solidificado con agarosa, pueden tomarse individualmente, o los pedazos enteros del medio s6lido con las colonias celulares, pueden transferirse al medio fresco (Figura 3D). El sistema de cultivo de los protoplastos derivados de ápices de tallos o de embriones. escencia1mente es el mismo realizado para los protoplastos mesófilo-foliares. Estos protoplastos tienen capacidad de dividirse y formar colonias en el medio Kao y BS-p, ya sea en forma liquida o solidificada. La concentración preferida de los protoplastos fué de 60-80.000 protoplastos /ml. Las concentraciones mayores de 2,4-D en el medio de cultivo, al parecer favorecen la actividad de división de estos protoplastos. Los protop1astos derivados de ápices de tallos se dividen adecuadamente en un medio que contiene una concentración de 2.4-D tan alta como 10 mg/l, en presencia de 0.5 mg/l de zeatina. Los protoplastos aislados de embriones somáticos pueden cultivarse de la misma forma. aunque la frecuencia de división y la posterior formación de colonias generalmente es baja.Cuadro Micronutrientes (mg/l) K1Vitaminas (mg!l) Suerosa (g/1) <.D(1)(1)   M Figura 1. Aislamiento y cultivo de protoplastos de yuca: 1. pretratamiento con 30% alcohol; 2. fragmentación de hojas; 3. digestión enzimática¡ 4. filtración; 5. sedimentación 1 (M: O.4M manitol) ¡ 6. flotación (S=0.4 M suerosa); 7. sedimentación II¡ Ba. cultivo en medio l1quido¡ 8b. cultivo en medio sólido; 9. subcultivo de callos. Figura 2. Efecto de la concentraci6n de protop1astos en la frecuencia de divisi6n de los protop1astos aislados de yuca.  The term protoplast reiers to the living matter oi the p1ant cel1, \"hich is enclosed by the plant ce11 wal1, i.e, the naked pIant cell, corresponding to the cell membrane and the cytoplasm with the organelles.Protoplasts can be isolated from the plant cells by enzymatic methods, using cell wall degrading enzymes. Isolated protoplast are suspensions of single cel1s, without cell wall, surrounded only by the plasma membrane.The lack of rigid ce11 wa11 makes them amenab1e for a number of physiological and biochemical studies and different genetical manipulations.Protoplasts are able to regenerate cel1 wa11, divide and form cell colonies when properly cultured. A great number oi plant species are able also to regenerate fertile plants from the protoplast-derived cell colonies.High frecuency plant regeneration is an important requirement, when someone tries to use the isolated protoplasts for genetical studies.There are general rules, but no standard methods for the isolation and culture of plant protoplasts. Each plant species and each types of tissue has its own special requirements for the isolation and cul ture procedures of their protoplasts. When someone becomes involved in protoplast work, 1t 1s necessary to optimalize the system through empirically adjusting the isolation and culture procedures.The short manual discusses some aspects of the isolation and culture of cassava protoplasts, based on the results of a research program performed in the Biotechnology Research Unit of CIAT in the period of 1984-1986.There are several phases of the protoplast isolation and culture procedure.The most important ones are the fol1owings: l. Source material 2. Frotoplast isolation 3. Purification of the isolated protoplasts 4. Protoplast culture.Each of these phases are determined by a number of complex, interacting factors, which can influence the success of the protoplast culture.The type and the physological state of the protoplast source are critical factor5, which can influence greatly the success of the protoplast isolation and culture procedure. Cells of actively growing tissues are necessary for protoplast isolation. To be able to get repetitively high yields of viable protoplasts, the culture conditions of the so urce material should be carefully standardized. In vítro propagated, steríle plant material i5 usually considered as superior, when compared to greenhouse or field grown plants. lt was found,that fully grown leaves and shoot tips of in vitro propagated cassava plants are good protoplast sources (CIAT 1986). Leaves of greenhouse grown cassava plants have also been used for protoplast isolation with success (Shahin and Shepard 1982). Primary and secondary somatic embryos of cassava have al so been used for protoplast isolation in our laboratory (see aection III).vitro propagated cassava planta were used, plantlets were grown in 25mm diameter test tubes on agar-aolidified culture medium (Table 1), and were propagated by stem cuttings every 6-8 weeks. Plants were incubated in growth chamber with 12 hrs. photoperiod, under 3000 lux illumination during the light period, at 27 0 C temperature. Detailed in vitro culture procedure oí cassava plants have been described before (Roca 1984).Protoplasts were isolated from young but fully extended leaves, or from shoot tips with immature leaves of 5-10 mm in size. We found, that 4-8 weeks old plantlets gave best results with respect to protoplast y'ield and viability.The following procedure have been routinelly used in our laboratory to isolate mesophyll protoplasts from the leaves of in vitro propagated cassava plants (Figure 1).In order to ensure the proper enzyme digestion, the protoplast souree must be treated in sorne way. Fully extended but young leaves of 4-8 weeks-old plantlets were collected in a 125 mI Erlenmeyer flask, containing a few mI of sterile déstilled water (Figure 1.1.). We had difficulties in removing the lower epidermis by peeling, so we chosen. to cut the leaf into small pieces with a sharp blade.Leaves usually floated on the surface of the water (or other aqueous solution)and submergence were apparently prevented by a hydrophobíct WaX layer of the leaf epidermis,.In order to improve the enzyme penetration into the leaf tissue, we routinelly pre-treated the collected leaf material with 30% alcohol(5-10 sec) and washed them with sterile distilled water 3-4 times, before the mecha ni cal maceration.Leaves were transferred then to Petri dishes and destilled water was replaced by an osmotically stabilised washing 80-Iution No. I (TabIe 2).Leaves were cut into small.siz~ pieces approximately 3-5mm with a sharp sterile surgical blade. In this step a weak vacuum mal' also be used to help infiltration. Washing solution were removed by pasteur pippete and the enzyme solution was added (Figure 1.2).Protoplast are usually isolated by a mixture of different hidrolytic enzymes, capable of degrading the cell wall.Many commercially available enzymes can degrade different components of the cell wall, but for the successfull protoplast isolation, a mixture of cellulase, hemicellulase and pectinase activity is necessary.There are no standard enzyme solutions, a number of different mixtures must be tried to find the combination that works best in a given system.For the isolation of cassava leaf mesophyll protoplasts, we used an enzyme mixture (E-l) of Onozuka R 10 cellulase, Hemicellulase and Pectolyase Y 23 (Table 3), mixed 1: 1 with liquid protoplast culture medíum (Kao-medíum or BS-P medium, Table 4). Leaf pieces were mixed with 8-10 mI of this enzyme solution in a 100 x 15 mm Petri dish (Figure 1. 3). The dishes were sealed by parafilm, wrapped in aluminium foil to protect from the líght snd incubated for 12-18 hrs (overnight) at 26°C, with contínuous shaking (40 rpm).After an overnight incubation of the leaf píeces ín the enzyme solution.a 1arge number of free-floating protoplasts can be seen amist the remaining undigested leaf tissued and cell debris. The protoplasts must be purified from the debris3 and the enzyme mixture replaced by a culture medium.Several different filtration and centrifugation steps are usually employed in order to get apure, enzyme-free protoplast suspension.The mixture of protoplasts, undigested tissue pieces, cel1s and cell debris in the enzyme solution ia resuapended with Pasteur pippete and filtered through a 60-100 um mesh stainless sieve or nylon filter. to remove undigested tissue (Figure 1.4).The fí1tered protoplast suspensíon is transferred to a 15 mI test tube (preferably wíth screw caps) , and centrifuged at 800 No. 3. Table 2). Tbe green band should be removed gently by Pasteur pipette.transferred to an other centrifuge tube and diluted 10 times with the washing solution No. L 3.2.3. Sedimentation 11. The protoplasts are sedimented again by centrifugatian at 800 rpm 3-4 mino (Figure 1.7). The supernatant is removed and the pellet of the purified protoplasts is resuspended in culture medium (Figure 3A).In order to induce the isolated protoplast to regenerate their cell wall, divide and continue to grow, a number of culture conditions have to be investigated and carefully adjusted to the specific needs of the given protoplasm.4.1 Culture medium:Protoplast culture media are usually similar to those used for cell and tissue cultures in vitro. However, freshly isolated protoplasts need osmotic stabilization, which is achieved by adding high concentrations of glucose or mannitol in the culture medium (e.g. O.35M glucose in the case of caSS8va protoplasts). Protoplasts seem, to benefit from higher concentration of ea 2 +ions in the medium (600-900 mg!l CaC1 2 ), which help the stabilization of the cell membrane. Besides these modifications, protoplast culture media are usually enriched by adding some extra vitamins, organic acids, sugars, amino aCids, case in hydrolysate or coconut water. For culturing isolated cassava protoplasts, we found suitable both the complex Kao medium (Kao 1982), or the more simple B5-p medium modified from the standard B5 culture medium of Gamborg et al (1968) (Table 2). Protoplasts can be cultured in in a liquid or semi-sol id medium solidified by agarose.Tbe optimum initial concentration of cultured protoplasts is an importarrt:factor. Too high or too low protoplast concentration may improperly condition the medium or even toxify it. Count the protoplasts in a counting chamber (e.g. Levi counting chamber) and add culture medium to get the optimal protoplast concentration. Cassava mesophyll protoplasts were ususlly sdjusted 4 to 3-S x 10 protoplasts per mI. Although both media (Kso and BS-p) gave the same optimal culture concentration, the Kao medium sllowed the protoplasta to divide at lower concentrations than the BS-p medium (Figure 2). This difference is probably due to the more complex composition of the Kao medium.When liquid medium is employed, cassava protoplasts can be cultured in lOO-200 ~l drops of culture medium in SO x lS mm plastic Pe tri dishes (1 mI medium/Petri dish (Figure 1.8a). Protoplasts can also be culture\\! in a tMn layer of culture medium (2-3 mI medium/Petri dish).Fresh media ls adlled directly to the protoplast suspension at 6-8 day intervals.Liquid medium is convenient, as protoplasts and the developing cell colonies are easy to transfer,and the medium can be diluted or modified durlhg the culture periodo In many cases however (such as in cassava), the cultured protoplasts clump together and the obtention of single-cell clones ls problematic.4.~ Plating oí isolated protoplasts in solid medium.Culture media can be sol1dified by 0.6% of low melting agarose (e.g. Sigma type VII), and the protoplasts can be cultured embedded in this solid medium.Protoplasts are mixed with warm (approx 40°C) agarose-containing medium and the mixture is transferred immediately into Petri dishes (3ml medium/SO x 15 mI Petrl dish). Using this method, protoplasts remain In a fixed position so protoplast clumplng is avoided and separate clones can be obtained If no inverted microscope is available, srnall aliquots can be taken and microscopic examination can be performed on a slide.Cassava protoplasts regenerate cell vall in 2-3 days of incubation and they start dividing after 3-5 days of culture (Figure 3B). Sustained division leads to the formation of cell colonies in 2-3 weeks (Figure 3C). About 4 weeks after the initial culture of the cassava protoplasts the cell elusters are already visible by eye.!he culture efficiency of a protoplast system can easily be measured by de termining the frequency of the protoplasts able to divide and form colonies: Protoplasts-deri ved cell colonies can be transferred into standard cell or calIus culture media after 4-5 weeks of incubation. When cultured in liquid medium. the suspension of growing colonies can easily be suspended and transferred by Pasteur pipette. cen colonies On agarose solidified medium can be picked up individually or whole pieces of the solid medium with the cell colonies can be transferred onto fresh medium (Figure 3D).111. ISOLATION ANO CULTURE OF SHOOT-TIP ANO SOMATIe .~RYO DERIVED PROTOPLASTS Cotyledons, embryogenic axes, shoot tips and young immature leaves \",ere found to have morphogenic capacity and that mature plants can be regenerated from them through somatic embryogenesis (Stamp and Henshaw 1982, Stamp 1984, Szabados et. al. 1987).Pro1iferating secondary somatic embryos can be promising source for protoplast isolation, because relatively big amount can be produced in short time (few weeks), and they have high capacity of plant regeneration.A series of experiments were carried out in our laboratory to isolate and culture protoplasts from these tissues with embryogenic capacity.As cassava is mainly a vegetatively propagated crop, we concentrated on the isolation of protoplasts from vegetative tissues, namely shoot tips and soma tic embryos.Protoplast isolation and culture procedure was similar to that described for leaf mesophyll tissnes (see section Ir, No. 2). 5-8mm sized tips and immature leaves of 4-8 \",eeks old shoot cultures were collected. pretreated as described before and transferred to the washing solution No. 1 (Table 2).Primary somatic embryos or rapidly proliferation secondary embryos \"ere collected and transferred to the same \",ashing solution. Shoot tips and soma tic embryos \",ere then chopped with sharp surgical blades in a Petri dish. Washing solution \",as replaced by an enzyme solution made up from an E-2 enzyme mixture (Table 3) and a culture medium (Kao or BS-p, Table 4) in a 1:1 ratio (8-10 mI enzyme solution in a 100 x 15 mm dish, or 3 mI solution in a SO x 15 mm dish). Sealing and incubation the petri dishes was carried out as described before.Isolated protoplasts from these organs \",ere usually smaller and more compact when compared to leaf mesophyll protoplasts. AShoot tip-derived protoplasts sometimes contained chloroplasts. but they were frequently colorless. Somatic embryo-derived protoplasts did never have chloroplasts.Isolated protoplasts were purified and cultured as described for the leaf mesophyll protoplasts. Due to their higher density, these protoplast usually sedimented in the _shing solution No. 1. Flotation _s achieved when the washing solution No. 2 was supplemented with 20% Percoll, thus increasing buoyant density of this washing solution to a desired level (washing solution No. 3, Table 2).Culture of the isolated shoot-tip or embryo derived protoplasts _s essentialJy the same as of the leaf mesophyll protoplasts. They were able to divide and form colonies in [ao and B5-p medium, either in liquid or .In solidifted form as well. The preferred protoplast concentration was 60-80.000 protoplast/ m1. It seemed that higher 2,4-D concentrations on the culture medium were beneficial for the division activity of these protoplasts. Shoot-tip deriyed protoplasts divided well in a medium containing a concentration as high as 10 mg/l. 2,4-D with 0.5 mIl Zeatin. Protoplasts isolated from somatic embryQs could be cultured in the same way, although the divislon frequency and subsequent colony formatlon _s usually poor., j,    Isolation and culture of cassava protoplasts: 1. pre-treatment with 30% alcohol; 2. fragmentatian of leaf tissue¡ 3. enzymatic digestian¡ 4. filtration; 5'. sedimentation 1 {M;0.4 M mannitoll¡ 6. flotation (S\",0.4 M sucrose); 7.sed:imentation II¡ Sa. culture in liquid medium¡ ab. culture in salid medium¡ 9. sub-culture of callus.   Seishin Pharmaceutical CO. LTD.Tokyo Japan Hemicellulase Sigma Chemical CO USA."}

main/part_2/0397662750.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7d4121a3ac2be2e6415418b3b1dd5f6a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/19327d8a-cdf9-4c05-b9d4-13943db7552b/retrieve","id":"-1957103594"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f06164dd-1b57-4cf8-a97a-f7aa9b4f8867","content":"PART 1: Description and all information of the outcome/impact reported OUTCOME STORY/IMPACT STATEMENT Thanks to AICCRA capacity building on Next Generation (NextGen) seasonal climate forecast systems, the AGRHYMET Regional Climate Centre for West Africa and the Sahel has adopted an objective, traceable, and reproducible seasonal forecasting procedure that enables the generation of improved seasonal forecasts. The NextGen approach is fully operational at AGRHYMET, and NextGen forecasting products are being used to upgrade the AGRHYMET climate information portal. AGRHYMET has also transferred the newly acquired technical capacities to 173 participants from 17 National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in West Africa and the Sahel, enabling them to generate timely and decision-relevant climate information for agricultural sectors in West Africa.AGRHYMET Regional Climate Centre for West Africa and the SahelAICCRA Next Generation (NextGen) seasonal climate forecast systems, and capacity development and engagement have enabled the downscaling/transfer of new capacities from the AGRHYMET Regional Climate Centre to National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) [1][2]. NextGen is a seasonal climate forecasting system that enables the development and dissemination of objective forecasts by combining the best dynamic models, and automates the generation and verification of objective, probabilistic, statistically-calibrated, multimodel predictions of a range of climate or impact variables [1].A key statutory function of AGRHYMET as a Regional Climate Center is to develop seasonal forecasts and organize the Regional Climate Outlook Forum (RCOF). Currently, the West Africa RCOF uses a consensusbased forecasting procedure. However, this consensual approach is subjective, in the sense that it is not easily traceable and reproducible. In addition, it does not enable the fulfillment of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recommendation that seasonal forecast procedures be objective, traceable, and reproducible [3]. The collaborative partnership with AICCRA has offered AGRHYMET a unique opportunity to strengthen its technical capacities to implement NextGen seasonal climate forecasting systems and improve the products available on its climate portal. NextGen is a seasonal climate forecasting system that enables the development and dissemination of objective forecasts by combining the best dynamic models, and automates the generation and verification of objective, probabilistic, statistically-calibrated, multi-model predictions of a range of climate or impact variables [1]. AICCRA supported and embedded AGRHYMET capacity through a series of regional and continental capacity strengthening efforts [4][5][6]. These efforts have enabled AGRHYMET to develop a new approach for seasonal climate forecasting that is tailored to West Africa regional needs [3,7]. NextGen is fully operational at AGRHYMET and NextGen products are being used to enhance the AGRHYMET climate information portal [8].A key challenge frequently mentioned by NMHSs that limits operationalizing the NextGen approach is the lack of consideration of hydrologic parameters in the PyCPT tool, one of the tools to operationalize the NextGen approach [9]. To address this challenge, AGHRYMET has adapted the PyCPT tool for hydrological forecasting [7]. In addition, AGRHYMET now has the full technical capacity to independently train NMHSs. To date, 173 participants from 17 National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (including non-AICCRA countries) have been trained [10][11]. Some NMHSs have operationalized the NextGen approach to generate seasonal climate forecasts [9]. Overall, AICCRA engagement and capacity development on state-of-the-art forecasting systems are enabling regional and national meteorological agencies to generate timely and decision-relevant climate information for agricultural sectors.Gender relevance: 1 -Significant. About 18% (31 out of 173) of the NextGen training participants were women. [4,5,10,11] Cap Dev relevance: 2 -Principal. Through AICCRA training, AGRHYMET is now equipped to provide enhanced climate information services to West African stakeholders. AGRHYMET has also trained 17 National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) (including both AICCRA and non-AICCRA countries for spillover effect). Equip 500 million small-scale producers to be more resilient to climate shocks, with climate adaptation solutions available through national innovation systems."}

main/part_2/0408753414.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"32c87527fa4a30fb45c046dc3f1a8fde","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8b75381a-2cff-40ee-b97b-0bd98d879743/retrieve","id":"-591772022"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"93f4a36d-65b2-457d-9115-28d73a45a226","content":"In the Ethiopian highlands of the Blue Nile basin, lack of critical water supplies is one of the major reasons for low agricultural yields and cropping intensities and thus poor livelihoods. In these areas most past efforts in Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) have not produced desired results as these efforts wer not based on sound agro--hydrological and integrated management systems. New Integrated Rainwater Management Systems (IRMSs) need to be designed based on the landscape concepts and available water under varying agro--hydrologies to meet the demands of all sectors including ecosystem services.The new IRMS approach requires a good understanding of the hydrologic systems and employment of models to assess the impacts of various scenarios. This paper aims to fulfill exactly this gap by firstInternational Forum on Water and Food providing primary biophysical information at a watershed level, and then designing an appropriate basin wide decision support tool. For this purpose hydro--meteorological monitoring stations were established and the information obtained at the watershed level will be used to develop tools that address issues of water availability and use under various storage systems. The developed tools will then be scaled--up to basin wide level to prioritize different RMS, study ecosystem services and downstream impacts of RWM. "}

main/part_2/0415864874.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6ea8e157f7bfa7b83d0134fb41d86218","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/36cfe73b-e025-4ca8-83e1-221bd7979118/retrieve","id":"-747944506"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3bd3b76a-adbf-497b-a03a-92d13f3d9c62","content":"Vitamin A deficiency is the most cause of total blindness in developing countries. It is estimated that 25% of preschool age children in the world has vitamin A deficiency (FAO/WHO 2002). Enhancing the nutritional content of cassava through biofortification will have a significant, positive impact on nutrition status and overall health, especially for poorer communities where cassava is mainly consumed. Several initiatives (HarvestPlus, Agrosalud, SASHA) have been set up to increase the vitamin A concentration in staple food crops to help improve human nutrition status in developing countries. Biofortification is complementary to other strategies for reducing malnutrition like supplementation, fortification, and diversification; nutritional benefits come directly from the biofortified crops with no or little additional costs for consumers. To support biofortification programs there is a need for high throughput techniques to screen macro-and micronutrient concentrations of germplasm and breeding populations in tens of thousands of genotypes in short time frames. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is the common method to determine vitamin A concentration in food crop samples. Although HPLC is very accurate, its high costs and the time required for the analysis limit its use to small numbers of samples relative to those required in extensive screening and biofortification programs. Requiring only simple sample preparation methods, NIRS was selected to facilitate the analysis of several traits simultaneously. The potential to estimate vitamin A carotenoid concentrations by NIRS has been demonstrated and applied for example in maize, potato, andThe purpose of this study was to validate NIRS calibrations for analyzing provitamin A carotenoid content of selected, fresh, yellow root cassava genotypes.A total of 50 freshly harvested cassava genotypes were obtained in four replications from the experimental fields of IITA in Ibadan, Nigeria. The HarvestPlus Standard method of sampling (Rodriguez-Amaya and Kimura 2004) was employed. Tubers were scanned twice within the range of 400 to 2498 nm registering the absorbance values log (1/R) at 0.5 nm intervals for each sample using the NIRS monochromator (model FOSS XDS, solid module) and coarse cell cups (Fig. 1).The total carotenoid (TC) was determined by the HarvestPlus method (Rodriguez-Amaya and Kimura 2004). Existing NIRS calibration equations were used to predict the β-cryptoxanthin, 13-cis β-carotene, trans β-carotene, 9-cis β-carotene, total β-carotene, and total carotenoid concentrations of the samples.The developed NIRS calibration equations for 13-cis BC, trans BC, 9-cis BC, Total BC and Total Carotenoids showed high coefficients of determination for the calibration curve for chopped cassava samples (0.95, 0.98, 0.88, 0.96 and 0.74, respectively) and medium to high coefficients of determination in cross-validation (0.76, 0.90, 0.69, 0.88 and 0.67, respectively). The standard errors of calibration (SEC) and the standard errors in cross validation (SECV) were low for all traits. Also, the results of carotenoid content of fresh cassava roots of the trials analyzed are presented in Tables 1 to  3. The predicted values found for total carotenoids (TC-spec reference) ranged from 3.93 to 10.51 μg/g with a mean of 7.07 ± 2.55 μg/g for the ICT cassava trial (Table 1), 7.97 to 11.03 μg/g FW with a mean of 9.40 ± 0.76 μg/g for yellow root cassava trial 8 (Table 2), and 6.38 to 10.44 μg/g with a mean of 8.74 ± 1.07 μg/g for yellow root cassava trial 9 (Table 3). This study shows that the developed NIRS calibration equations can be used to predict total carotenoids and trans β-carotene content of yellow root cassava and can serve as a fast and cost-effective method for screening large sample sizes by cassava breeding programs.The corresponding total carotenoid results using the reference spectrophotometric method (TC-spec) were found to range from 2.57 to 9.97 μg/g with a mean of 5.66 ± 2.99 μg/g for the ICT cassava trial, 6.55 to 8.74 μg/g with a mean of 7.74 ± 0.64 μg/g for yellow root cassava trial 8, and 4.22 to 11.00 μg/g with a mean of 7.57 ± 1.54 μg/g for yellow root cassava trial 9. There is significant (P < 0.001) positive correlation (r = 0.55) between TC-predicted by NIRS and TC-spec. There is also significant (P < 0.001) positive correlation (r = 0.52) between trans β-carotene predicted by NIRS using HPLC reference and TC-spec (Fig. 2     "}

main/part_2/0417023480.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fe450b99f27e0d890c6ebac24ae43217","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/63c11806-1520-4ee4-82ce-ca48f5fb0305/retrieve","id":"-613625392"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0be36dd3-5a44-40b7-a2df-32f17584f819","content":"En el marco del \"Estudio de apoyo a la preparación del portafolio de inversiones para el desarrollo de la ganadería baja en carbono de Nicaragua\", se realizaron talleres de consulta al nivel local y nacional sobre \"Ganadería, medio ambiente y cambio climático\" para apoyar la formulación de un portafolio de inversión pública y privada para el desarrollo de una ganadería sostenible baja en carbono, durante el período del 25 de marzo al 4 de mayo de 2021 en diferentes territorios ganaderos y al nivel nacional. En el presente informe se describen los aspectos metodológicos de la realización de dichas reuniones y los resultados obtenidos.Generar información relevante sobre situación actual de la ganadería, amenazas climáticas e impactos ambientales relacionados con el rubro en territorios ganaderos de Nicaragua, para el proceso de formulación del programa de inversiones hacia una ganadería baja en emisiones de carbono y con mayor productividad.La metodología para la consulta se estableció que sería a través de Grupos Focales con actores claves de las cadenas de valor de leche y carne bovina en territorios seleccionados por la contribución importante de su actividad ganadera a la producción bovina del país y a la economía local. También, se tuvo el cuidado de incluir municipios representantes de cada uno de las grandes regiones ganaderas descritas por Alemán (2020). Con base en esos criterios se definieron los siguientes territorios (Tabla 1): En cada territorio donde se realizaría un grupo focal se identificaron representantes de organizaciones de productores como FAGANIC, CONAGAN y Cooperativas de acopio y procesamiento de lácteos, y se obtuvo la colaboración de representantes de las instituciones públicas del Sistema de Producción, Consumo y Comercio (SPCC) vinculadas al sector agropecuario (INTA, IPSA, MEFCCA), para coordinar las invitaciones a los actores claves y la logística de los eventos. Se organizaron un total de 11 eventos Grupos Focales, de los cuales se logró realizar 9 eventos que incluyeron 19 municipios. Los otros dos Grupos focales, programados a realizar en Siuna y Estelí (Estelí/Condega-Pueblo Nuevo) tuvieron que suspenderse debido al incremento de casos y mortalidad de COVID en el país y toda la región de América Latina, lo cual obligó a las autoridades de CIAT a reducir a nivel regional la realización de reuniones presenciales para evitar que nuestras actividades contribuyan a la diseminación del virus, y para reducir la exposición del personal y de los socios regionales y nacionales. En los nueve Grupos Focales hubo una asistencia de 180 participantes, los que en su mayoría (63%) son productores ganaderos directivos o socios de cooperativas agropecuarias y protagonistas que son acompañados por los servicios de extensión del SPCC; el 19% de los participantes son técnicos de las instituciones del SPCC, y el 18% restante de los participantes son técnicos de ONG´s que trabajan en desarrollo ganadero, técnicos de organizaciones gremiales y representantes de la Industria cárnica y láctea. Ver detalle de participantes y organizaciones en la Tabla 2 a continuación. Para el logro de los objetivos propuestos, cada reunión grupo focal se estructuró en una agenda de trabajo conformada por cinco sesiones:• Introducción: Las actividades desarrolladas en esta sesión fueron la presentación de cada uno de los participantes y facilitadores del evento, y se realizó a manera de inducción una presentación sobre el tema \"Desafíos para el desarrollo de una ganadería sostenible baja en emisiones de carbono\", a través de la cual se dio a conocer los retos que enfrenta la ganadería por sus bajos niveles de producción y productividad, amenazas ante los efectos de los fenómenos extremos asociados con cambio climático y el impacto ambiental de las prácticas y modelo de desarrollo inadecuados de la ganadería. • Análisis de los sistemas ganaderos y fincas en los territorios, lo cual se abordó en trabajo en grupos organizados por municipios. • Análisis de las amenazas climáticas que afectan la producción ganadera en cada territorio (ver Tabla 3 para un resumen, más detalles se encuentran en Anexo 1 -archivo Excel) • Impactos ambientales ocasionados por la ganadería en cada territorio (ver Tabla 4 para un resumen, más detalles se encuentran en Anexo 1 -archivo Excel) • Análisis de innovaciones promisorias en términos de impactos para enfrentar los principales retos de la ganadería y su integración en propuestas de portafolios de inversión para desarrollo de ganadería sostenible y baja en emisiones de carbono (ver Tabla 5 para un resumen, más detalles se encuentran en Anexo 1 -archivo Excel). Objetivo de la reunión: Someter a la revisión de expertos nacionales y decisores del sector público y privado los resultados de consultas locales sobre ganadería, medio ambiente, cambio climático y oportunidades de inversión pública para una ganadería baja en carbono y con mayor productividad. La Tabla 7 presenta la lista de participantes. La reunión inició con la presentación del contexto del evento, en la que se hizo referencia al proceso de formulación de un programa de inversión pública para una ganadería sostenible baja en emisiones de carbono, liderado por instituciones públicas y con asesoría de FAO. Este proceso inició en 2019 con el estudio \"Análisis de vías alternativas de inversión pública y su impacto en el crecimiento económico, la agricultura y la reducción de la pobreza en Nicaragua\" el cual fue liderado por el Banco Central de Nicaragua (BCN), el Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público (MHCP) y el Ministerio Agropecuario (MAG), y que contó con la asesoría técnica de la División de Economía del Desarrollo Agrícola de la FAO en Roma y de la oficina de FAO en Nicaragua. Luego, se realizó presentación sobre los desafíos climáticos, ambientales y productivos que enfrenta la transformación del subsector hacia una ganadería sostenible baja en emisiones de carbono, y se concluyó presentando los resultados de consultas, mediante grupos focales, con actores claves de las cadenas de valor de carne y leche en algunos territorios con mayor contribución a la producción de leche y carne bovina en el país.• Análisis coincide con lo que se ha hecho antes (Producción-Consumo Gobierno).• 6 grupos focales: 16 territorios (municipalidades), 20-25 personas. 5-6 representantes por municipio. total 100 participantes: acopios, sector público, productores (asociaciones ganaderas), productores privados con acopios. mayor representación de las cadenas lácteas y cárnicas. • Fracción de los territorios: 11 subhúmedo, 5 húmedo. Son datos consensuados (trabajos grupales) por territorio (municipalidad), pude haber diferentes opiniones dentro de las municipalidades.• En general: las amenazas se relacionan con el cambio climático (los cambios y variabilidad comparado con lo \"normal\") • Monitoreo climático. INETER trabaja con los productores (variabilidad climática, cambio climático). • Tema sanitario: avances (bajo riesgo EEB/BSE, libre de FA, Influenza Aviar, Peste Porcina Clásica). • \"Oportunidades para Inversiones\": Riego/fertilización pastos de corte: ampliar a pastos en general y agregar análisis de suelo • Sanidad animal: muchos problemas por hemoparásitos.• Negativo balance N es una realidad: no se soluciona con pasturas y bancos forrajeros. Hay que incluir opciones de alimentación (fermentación). Hay poco conocimiento sobre nutrición animal. Muchos pastos naturalizados. • Huracanes: madera disponible, no hay recursos para uso en la finca.• Incluir información climática, variables climáticas para los productores. Escenarios en muchos municipios. Sequía, temperaturas. • Tema sanitario: muy acertado. Enfermedades, plagas, parásitos.• Agua: requiere línea de acción separada (manejo etc.) • Alimentación estratégica: conservación de forrajes, suplementaciónPREGUNTA 1. Se identifica que la baja carga animal causa la baja productividad de leche y/o carne por hectárea. ¿Qué estrategias e inversiones se requieren para aumentar adopción de pastos mejorados y manejo eficiente del pastoreo? • Según experiencias, la baja productividad ganadera está asociada a tamaños grandes de potreros, pastos que se lignifican rápidamente (ejemplo mombasa) y el mal manejo de pasturas (ejemplo rotación intensiva de Retana no permite recuperación del mismo). Por consiguiente, las líneas de inversión son: El uso de la división de potreros con cercas eléctricas y más capacitación en el uso de manejo de pasturas para aumentar la productividad.• Fomentar a los productores nacionales a la producción de semilla adaptadas a las zonas, con el debido acompañamiento técnico. Hay que darle las condiciones al productor para la producción de semilla, acompañada con una correcta inversión pública para su difusión. • Realizar mapeos o levantamientos del área de finca para diseñar y organizar la explotación pecuaria en función la gestión eficiente del pastoreo. Dar prioridad de pastoreo según la condición del animal (vacas vacías, horas o paridas). • Es aconsejable utilizar o ampliar el programa vigente de producción de semilla de pastos y forrajes, y fortalecer la estrategia de bancos comunitarios para llevar la semilla a los territorios desatendidos. También, es necesario un plan de fortalecimiento de capacidades de productores en tecnologías para la producción local de semilla de pastos. No hay que olvidar el fomento de la inversión para programas de investigación y validación del material forrajero generado localmente, así como también el importado hacia el país. • Una línea de acción importante es multiplicar, a través de promotores jóvenes, el uso del Sistema PRV, siendo esta una alternativa amigable para la medio ambiente y segura para la macro y micro fauna del suelo. La alimentación es importante, pero también lo es la nutrición. Se puede disponer de muchas tierras en abandono para la producción y posterior venta de pasto, pacas o henos, bajo el debido monitoreo de equipos de técnicos que garanticen su valor nutricional.PREGUNTA 2. Uso intensivo de pastos mejorados y bancos forrajeros (gramíneas) implica desbalance del N en el suelo y por ello degradación de pasturas. ¿Qué inversiones se deben apoyar para aumentar uso de leguminosas, uso de estiércol y que otras opciones hay para enfrentar el desbalance de N y el manejo sostenible de pasturas?• Invertir en tecnologías como la teledetección y sensores remotos, softwares especializados, entre otros, para agilizar los análisis de materia seca dentro de las pasturas. • Se requieren inversiones en el mapeo de suelos para conocer la disponibilidad de macro y micro nutrientes en el suelo, de esa forma el tipo de pastura a utilizar. Invertir en la capacitación del personal que realizará el muestreo. Antes de aplicar estiércol como fertilizante, procurar no usar Ivermectina al manejar el ganado, ya que afecta la población de organismos dentro del suelo. Invertir en biodigestores para la generación de biol y biosol a partir de los desechos sólidos de animales y así poner a disposición nitrógeno a los pastos. • Fomentar el uso de biodigestores y el biol generado por la biodigestión del estiércol.• Reforestación de las zonas altas de recarga hídrica y que la ganadería se concentre en las partes bajas de las laderas para reforestar las partes altas o con mayor pendiente. • Llevar control de los factores meteorológicos, tener el monitoreo de amenazas como escorrentías, tala indiscriminada. • Hacer inversiones en el monitoreo climático con estaciones meteorológicas inteligentes que capten y analicen la información que conecten a un sistema de alerta temprana, no solo de lluvia sino en el periodo seco para vientos, golpes de calor, entre otras. • Cosecha de agua para pequeños, medianos y grandes productores. Con los tres primeros se está trabajando un proyecto de cosecha de agua que ha tenido muy buenos resultados. • En la página de INETER hay pronósticos del tiempo, pero podría mejorarse la masificación de esta información. La red meteorológica nacional ha ido creciendo significativamente y cuenta con boletines informativos, sin embargo, habría que incluir la variable de la disponibilidad a tecnologías de información en el campo, ya que puede ser limitada, pero que también ha ido creciendo. • Existen también aplicaciones de IPSA donde tienen información sobre manejo sanitario y buenas prácticas, pero quizá sería conveniente hacer proyectos de masificación de estas tecnologías.• Se menciona la cosecha de agua, pero también es necesario contemplar el aprovechamiento mediante la perforación de pozos en el caso de zonas subhúmedas y en las zonas húmedas, donde hay agua, puede utilizarse el sistema de bombas de ariete que significa una baja inversión en el tema energético, pero se requieren compañías que trabajen en estos temas. • Monitorear además de los factores meteorológicos, la cantidad de materia seca que se produce por mes relacionada a la cantidad de agua de lluvia. Ya que con esto se puede monitorear el resultado de potrero mes a mes y planificar el pastoreo mismo. Es necesario que exista la interpretación de la información, no solamente la información.PREGUNTA 4: Existe compromiso de reducir contribuciones nacionales en emisiones de gases GEI; la ganadería representa una buena opción para reducir emisiones GEI y para aumentar captura de carbono ¿Qué estrategias e inversiones deben promoverse para aumento de adopción a gran escala de los SSP y reforestación de finca ganadera?• Recomendamos la regeneración espontánea donde el ganadero va a dejar áreas donde va a dejar crecer los árboles nuevamente, en zonas con pendiente o bajo potencial ganadero y zonas de recarga. • También los pagos por servicios ambientales, determinar áreas que van a funcionar para estos fines y brindar financiamiento para que los ganaderos puedan recibir esos beneficios. • En la parte técnica los grupos focales retratan las necesidades que se sienten en el sector. Y aunque el sector público ha hecho un esfuerzo para el control de enfermedades, existe en la mayoría de las fincas ganaderas problemas de endoparásitos y hay una gran deficiencia en la transmisión de capacidades para que el productor pueda lidiar con esto. En lo estratégico es importante ver cómo lidiar con el problema, la capacidad de financiamiento es muy baja. Cuando hay proyectos para el financiamiento no son divulgados. Valdría la pena pensar en un fideicomiso que pueda llegar a los productores, con bajas tasas y a largo plazo, es decir, invertir en líneas de crédito. • También es necesaria la formación de capacidades. En las redes sociales hay divulgación de las variables climatológicas y esto deber��a financiarse para mantenerlas funcionando, pero además agregar el cómo sacar provecho de esta información, en el análisis. De igual manera, es necesario invertir en la formación de técnicos no sólo en las ciudades sino también en el campo. • Requiere otra visión desde el punto de vista técnico. Se necesitan expertos especializados en esta área de GEI en sistemas ganaderos. Para verlo en visión de país hay que trabajar como país en la certificación de fincas. Ya que hay muchas fincas que captan carbono en lugar de emitir. Se necesitan certificadoras que brinden el servicio y además mejorar la parte legal para la parte ganadera, hacer empresas que trabajen en medir y en certificar fincas que captan carbono y que estas produzcan incentivos económicos para los productores que estén captando. • Para aumentar la captura es necesario intensificar mediante el uso de pastoreo rotacional Voisin y dirigir el crédito debe ir a zonas piloto del país. • Iniciativa ENDE REED Capacitar al productor. Conocer para ganar sensibilidad y despertar una conciencia ambiental a través de la divulgación de información a través de los medios más utilizados en el campo, en este caso radioemisoras. • Las opciones deberían manejarse a nivel territorial, seguir promoviendo las áreas de regeneración, las cercas vivas, enriquecimiento para las protecciones de fuentes de agua y crecimiento de material forrajero en viveros comunitarios, pago por servicios ambientales y otras medidas que merecen ser incentivadas mediante los impuestos municipales.• Una línea de inversión debe ser fortalecer y mantener estatus sanitario para acceder a mercados internacionales, pero que los márgenes de ganancia por la calidad de los productos también se transfieran a los productores. Esto requiere mejorar capacidades para hacer más eficientes los procesos de vigilancia y control de enfermedades (fortalecer laboratorios, capacitación de técnicos, certificación de profesionales que viven en zonas rurales), y que esas acciones se intensifiquen en territorios con mayor contribución en la producción ganadera.• También, ampliar servicios e indicadores de trazabilidad para certificar que los productos carne o leche provienen de fincas que están contribuyendo en la reducción de emisiones GEI. En esta misma línea, se sugiere complementar con el fomento a la creación de empresas de servicios de asistencia técnica de jóvenes profesionales que brinden acompañamiento a los productores en un horizonte de 3 años. • Creación de un programa de monitoreo de tendencias y mercados relacionados con calidad de carne y leche, que permita proveer información a productores que les estimule y les ayude a tomar decisiones para realizar inversiones tecnológicas en sus fincas. Actualmente existen productores que están invirtiendo recursos propios en introducir innovaciones tecnológicas en sus fincas, motivados por los buenos precios de la leche y la carne. • Los esfuerzos realizados por IPSA han permitido tener avances significativos en los temas de sanidad animal y trazabilidad en el país, se cuenta con una red de laboratorios, bien equipados y con personal altamente calificado; sin embargo, se requiere ampliar la cobertura con la habilitación y fomento a emprendimientos con técnicos locales para la tercerización de servicios de sanidad y trazabilidad. Con inversión pública-privada se puede fortalecer la implementación del esquema que maneja el IPSA para ese propósito. • Hay que seguir reforzando los esfuerzos del IPSA de acercar los servicios de monitoreo y vigilancia sanitaria, calidad e inocuidad de leche y carne. Valdría la pena invertir en el fortalecimiento y ampliación de la iniciativa del IPSA de los laboratorios móviles, para facilitar el acceso de los productores a realizar análisis de laboratorio para diagnóstico de enfermedades. Además del monitoreo de enfermedades zoonóticas como tuberculosis y brucelosis, se debe ampliar el monitoreo sanitario a otras enfermedades como rabia, mastitis, hemoparásitos. • El encarecimiento de medicinas veterinarias, por la imposición de nuevas tasas de impuestos a su venta, ha contrarrestado la implementación de programas sanitarios en las fincas. Normalmente el productor realiza una selección de esos productos por precios sin considerar calidad, observándose una tendencia al uso de medicinas de baja calidad, con menos eficiencia y efectividad producto de sus características farmacocinéticas, con menos duración y menor protección, y afecta costos, reproducción y productividad. Por lo que, se sugiere considerar aspectos de comercialización y adquisición de productos veterinarios, mediante análisis de los canales de comercialización con miras a estandariza precios o revisar márgenes de ganancias, para lograr mejorar la accesibilidad a medicinas veterinarias de alta calidad, complementado con estudios diagnósticos y de prevalencia, lo cual contribuirá a mejorar productividad, calidad e inocuidad de los alimentos de origen animal.PREGUNTA 6. Procesos de certificación ambiental e inocuidad son requisitos cada vez más exigentes por mercados internacionales. ¿Qué estrategias o iniciativas deben apoyarse por la inversión pública y qué actores deben involucrarse para promover procesos más dinámicos para certificaciones en las CV de la leche y la carne?• Debe tenerse clara visión de país acerca de la importancia de la sanidad animal para mejorar competitividad de la producción ganadera y su relación con la sanidad productiva, es decir lo que hacen los ganaderos en el día a día. Por lo que, tiene que haber financiamiento para fortalecer los sistemas de vigilancia y control epidemiológico en el país, que permitan el acceso de los productores a los diagnósticos sanitarios para mejorar la efectividad en la prevención y control de enfermedades. • Conocer más y fortalecer el Sistema Segregado de Producción Bovina (SSPB) que implementa IPSA, y en el que ha estado colaborando CONAGAN, para crecer más en cobertura geográfica y en número de fincas certificadas por buenas prácticas productivas y ambientales, lo que contribuirá a que el país pueda acceder a, y competir en, mejores mercados pero que son más exigentes. • Fortalecer iniciativas de servicios privados de asistencia técnica, pero que estos tengan el compromiso con la visión de nación de fortalecer y promover la certificación de SSPB. • Se recomienda que con una visión práctica contrastar todos los aportes del evento y los resultados de las consultas territoriales con la realidad o estado de situación, para identificar brechas y analizar que tanto peso y pertinencia tienen las acciones o estrategias identificadas en la sesión como para definir programas de atención a los territorios ganaderos en función de sus características de suelo, clima, contribución en la producción nacional de ganadería, entre otras variables. Esta recomendación ya está considerada en el proceso del estudio, se tiene considerado reuniones de consulta y retroalimentación con el equipo técnico interinstitucional del Sistema de Producción, Consumo y Comercio, y en otros espacios que permitan la mejor articulación entre el sector público y privado en la cadena de ganadería bovina. • La competitividad de la ganadería nacional se logrará con la unión de esfuerzos de todos los actores, por lo que es importante fortalecer la asociatividad tanto a nivel nacional como territorial, identificando los roles o aportes que pueden o deben hacer los diferentes actores para lograr la transformación de sistemas ganaderos y mejorar competitividad. • OIRSA ha venido trabajando en un esquema de certificación para acreditarse ante la ONA como una entidad certificadora denominada Oficina de Certificación Agropecuaria Nicaragüense (OCAN), con el propósito de tener un instrumento que permita cumplir con las equivalencias de certificaciones de calidad que los mercados cada vez exigen más. Hay un buen nivel de avance, están en el proceso de implementación del esquema. Esto contribuirá a tener las certificaciones nacionales de calidad para acceso a mercados internacionales y a mejorar la calidad de los productos en las cadenas nacionales.PREGUNTA 7. Qué otras iniciativas o ideas de inversión se proponen para lograr una ganadería con mayor productividad, rentabilidad y baja en emisiones GEI?• Tener en cuenta iniciativa INTA de producción de semilla de especies forrajeras, la cual debe fortalecerse con una estrategia de divulgación para que los materiales que sean liberados sean conocidos y adquiridos por mayor cantidad de productores. • Cualquier iniciativa para disminuir emisiones GEI, debe considerar primero aumento de productividad e ingreso para motivar a los productores y aumentar adopción y se deriven beneficios adicionales de la adopción de prácticas. Como mejoramiento de competitividad, calidad, inocuidad. • Es necesario considerar las iniciativas, proyectos que están en marcha o capacidades instaladas para su fortalecimiento o ampliación de cobertura y beneficiarios • Inversión en censo ganadero, modelaciones o proyecciones ganaderas y TIC • Se destaca otros beneficios o usos de la trazabilidad bovina para la adopción de innovaciones tecnológicas, tiene un valor agregado porque el sistema gestiona información o datos desde las fincas y ofrece oportunidad laboral para técnicos locales • Invertir en iniciativas que convoquen al sector académico a concursos para elaborar aplicaciones para el mejor uso de la tecnología, como mercados digitales, servicios técnicos, información-documentación, entre otros. Incentivo para los estudiantes a que se interesen a desarrollar innovaciones para el sector ganadero.En representación de FAO y CIAT, se ratifica que el evento realizado es parte de un proceso coordinado con el Gobierno de Nicaragua para proyectar cambios en la cadena ganadera hacia el 2030, la cual es de gran importancia por sus aportes en la economía nacional, su capacidad de contribuir a las metas nacionales de reducción de emisiones GEI y por las oportunidades de mercados ante el aumento mundial de la demanda de alimentos de origen animal en los próximos 10 años, todo lo cual ofrece incentivos para la proyección de un programa de inversiones público-privada hacia el 2030.En esta parte se presenta los diferentes enfoques de inversión, como propuesto en los grupos al nivel territorial y durante la consulta nacional. Los diferentes colores representan diferentes líneas de acción. Esta información servirá como base para el desarrollo de una estrategia y un portafolio de inversión para diferentes niveles: nacional, regional y finca. El anexo 1 presenta más detalles sobre las inversiones propuestas al nivel local (municipio, región).Nacional Observaciones Expertos especializados en sistemas ganaderos de bajo carbono Trazabilidad -certificación de fincas Emprendimiento y servicios técnicos pecuarios liderados por profesionales locales con una visión de integración de jóvenes Creación de empresas de servicios de asistencia técnica de jóvenes profesionales que brinden acompañamiento a los productores en un horizonte de 3 años. Invertir en iniciativas con el sector académico para elaborar aplicaciones para el mejor uso de la tecnología, como mercados digitales, servicios técnicos, informacióndocumentación.Incentivo para los estudiantes a que se interesen a desarrollar innovaciones para el sector ganadero.VLA NFA ZS ZP ZT R F Intercambio de experiencias entre productores locales Fortalecimiento de capacidades teóricas y prácticas (forrajes) Manejo eficiente de potreros Uso y manejo adecuado de equipos veterinarios Mejoramiento de hato ganadero VLA: Vía Láctea Ampliada; NFA: Nueva Frontera Agrícola; ZS: Zona Seca; ZP: Zona Pacífico; ZT: Zona de Transición; R: Nivel regional; F: Nivel Finca "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cd16d537dcf3ea95c0fbdac5f8d09f9b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bb8b3071-2839-428e-92fa-101115fe1173/retrieve","id":"1377763317"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3ff76f08-422b-4925-8e3d-12aeb4051c76","content":"Dear Stakeholders, Partners, and Colleagues, I am delighted to present to you the February edition of the Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity newsletter. As we navigate through the challenges and triumphs of agricultural development in Northeast Nigeria, this edition offers a glimpse into the remarkable progress and transformative impact of our collective efforts.In these pages, you will find inspiring stories of resilience, innovation, and empowerment that underscore the profound difference made by the Feed the Future USAID project in the lives of individuals, families, and communities across Borno, Adamawa, Gombe, and Yobe states. From struggling farmers to prosperous entrepreneurs, from revitalized seed systems to thriving poultry production, each narrative is a testament to the power of collaboration, determination, and visionary leadership.Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity (NIAA) Newsletter 33rd Edition | February, 2024Our journey towards agricultural transformation is not without its hurdles. We acknowledge the economic challenges and policy uncertainties that continue to pose formidable obstacles to the sustainability and scalability of our interventions. However, in the face of adversity, we remain steadfast in our commitment to forging ahead, leveraging partnerships, and advocating for policies that foster an enabling environment for growth and prosperity.As we look ahead to the High-Level Stakeholder Forum on Seed System Development scheduled for April 16, 2024, we invite you to join us in celebrating our achievements, reflecting on our challenges, and charting a course for the future of agriculture in Northeast Nigeria. Together, let us seize this opportunity to galvanize leadership commitment, foster collaboration, and propel our shared vision of agricultural resilience and food security to new heights.I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all our partners, stakeholders, and colleagues for their unwavering dedication and invaluable contributions to the success of the Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity. Your continued support is instrumental in shaping a brighter and more prosperous future for the people of Northeast Nigeria.Chief-of-Party Feed-the-Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity We are excited to announce the forthcoming High-Level Stakeholders' Forum on Seed System Development, scheduled to take place on April 16, 2024, at the prestigious Transcorp Hilton Hotel in FCT, Abuja. This event marks a pivotal moment in our collective efforts to enhance agricultural transformation and bolster food security in Northeast Nigeria.Under the auspices of the US Government's Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity, our mission to catalyze agricultural progress has been steadfast since its inception in 2019. With a renewed focus on seed system development, our interventions have been expanded to address the secondary impacts of global events, such as the Ukraine-Russia conflict, particularly in the states of Borno and Adamawa, and our footprint has extended into Gombe and Yobe states.The forthcoming forum serves as a platform to showcase the strides made  This forum is an opportunity to galvanize leadership commitment from governments, private sector entities, donor agencies, and development practitioners to rally behind Nigeria's seed system development. By providing tangible evidence of success and fostering dialogue among key stakeholders, we aspire to cultivate a shared vision for advancing agricultural prosperity and ensuring food security in the region.The objectives of the forum are twofold:1. Showcase and Applaud USG Efforts: We will highlight the tangible outcomes achieved by the Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity in Northeast Nigeria, particularly in the realm of seed system development. Through engaging presentations and interactive sessions, we will celebrate the achievements and innovations driving agricultural progress in the region.2. Engender Leadership Commitment: By presenting compelling evidence of the impact of our interventions, we seek to inspire leadership commitment from governments, private sector entities, donor agencies, and other stakeholders. Through collaboration and collective action, we aim to garner support for Nigeria's seed system development agenda and pave the way for sustainable growth in the agricultural sector.We invite all interested and committed development actors, including public and private sector representatives, development practitioners, and international development agencies, to join us at this seminal event. Together, let us seize the opportunity to shape the future of a sustainable seed system and propel Northeast Nigeria towards greater agricultural resilience and food security.Stay tuned for further updates and registration details in the upcoming months. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of millions of Nigerians.This forum is an opportunity to galvanize leadership commitment from governments, private sector entities, donor agencies, and development practitioners to rally behind Nigeria's seed system development. Alhaji B. Mindi is a sturdy man of fifty, who hails from Borno. With four wives and twenty-five children, his days were filled with the hustle and bustle of family life. Over the years, he navigated the challenges of providing for his large family, relying on traditional farming methods to eke out a living from the land.In those days before the intervention of the USAID Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity being implemented by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), feeding and caring for his family was a daunting task. Despite his decades of experience, his yields were modest at best. His crops-rice, groundnuts, and maize-barely sustained them, with just fifty bags of maize and twenty bags of rice marking the highest yield. Groundnuts, pepper, cowpea, and garden egg supplemented their diet and income, but the returns were meagre.During the dry season, Alhaji engaged in cattle fattening, tending to his three cattle, two sheep, and goats. While these added some extra income, it was a difficult existence. Education was a priority for Alhaji Bukar, with five children attending secondary school, eight in primary, and five in Qur'anic school. However, the financial strain was constant.Then, four years ago, Alhaji Bukar's fortunes took a turn when he met IITA. Through their assistance, he gained access to improved seeds of maize and rice. With these new varieties, his harvest soared. He went from fifty bags of maize to a staggering one hundred bags, and his rice yield doubled to forty to forty-five bags per hectare. Additionally, he began practising mixed cropping, increasing his cowpea harvest to twenty to thirty bags per cropping season.The impact on Alhaji Bukar's life was profound. With the increase in his crops, he expanded his livestock holdings, purchasing thirteen additional cattle. Some were kept for milk production, while others were fattened and sold, bringing in substantial profits. In total, he amassed over four million naira in livelihood. Lifted by his success, Alhaji Bukar invested in more land, acquiring seven additional plots ranging in size from less than a hectare to two hectares. He also bought two motorcycles-one for commercial purposes and the other for personal use-further enhancing his mobility and opportunities. In his words, \"Thanks to the improved seeds provided by USAID, our harvests have flourished beyond imagination, paving the way for a more prosperous future for my family and me.\"The change in Alhaji Bukar's life from a struggling farmer to a prosperous landowner is a success story traceable to his contact with Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture. With the support of USAID and IITA and his determination to change, he had secured a brighter future for himself and his family.Alhaji Mindi posing with his seed harvest kept in store. Armed with the credit of 10,000 naira she got from the internal savings and loans rotation of the women's progressive cooperative group, she produced the first batch of 12 bottles of Tomapepo and was able to sell all the products quickly, this motivated her to do a second batch and consequently remain in business. Madam Fatima Gimba who happens to be the leader of her cooperative group, said of her unique experience with the USAID intervention in her livelihood.Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity (NIAA) Newsletter 33rd Edition | February, 2024 \"Early last year, my neighbour's child was to get married and the tomatoes they bought for the catering wasn't enough, so I dashed out to my house and brought my products. I seized the opportunity to introduce my Tomapepo to them; they were amazed because it had all the required ingredients, so they bought five big jars. In addition, I regularly sell to a food vendor who sells food in the central market and routinely reinvest the money from sales. This business is special for me because I am retired and I rely solely on my pension which often comes late. I usually do not do anything when the farming season is gone, but now I am engaged and get extra money from the Tomapepo business off-season\".Her records show that she could make a gross profit of NGN46,070 within the first quarter of production.The Food Vendor, Aisha Bello, who regularly patronises Fatima's Tomapepo, gave feedback: \"I usually sell food on market days and this Tomapepo has saved me time and strength. I love the quality and even prefer it to the Fresh Tomatoes. I also gained new knowledge during the crop production training on fertilizer application, and I was consequently able to harvest 28 bags of maize last season against the 15-20 bags of maize I harvested the previous year on the same piece of land\" She said. In rural Biu LGA of Borno State Nigeria, Mariam Ali, a 32-year-old mother of five, has faced many challenges in sustaining her family as a farmer. This is her primary source of livelihood, which is supplemented by her husband's petty firewood sales in the dry season. Understandably, they struggled to meet their needs. Despite Mariam's tireless effort in cultivating maize, groundnuts, and beans, her yields consistently fell short, barely affording sustenance and livelihood for the family.Three years ago, Mariam's path changed when she was selected as one of the beneficiaries of the Feed the  "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4e9dfc9f4a8af9bdf568d6d2186133a7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/5094DW/OBZYTC","id":"-878540140"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e9ab2ded-e034-4f07-a9c3-0cf06fcb7c4d","content":"Good morning/afternoon. I am ___________________ from the SEDPrac Consulting Pvt. Ltd. Together with International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), we are conducting a survey that will provide IFPRI with necessary information to carry out research that is designed to help strengthen the resilience of farmers against climate change, particularly in terms of crop productivity and income of the farmers. Your household has been chosen by a random selection process.We are inviting you to participate in this study. Your opinions in this survey are highly valued and there are no wrong answers to the questions asked in this interview. We will use approximately thirty minutes to conduct the survey. There is no risk as a result of participating in this study. Your participation in this survey is completely voluntary. You are free to withdraw your consent and discontinue your participation in this survey at any point of time. All the information collected through this questionnaire will be kept anonymous and you will be identified through code numbers. All the information collected by us from you will be kept highly confidential.Your participation in this research activity is highly acknowledged. The answers you provide will help provide better information to policy makers, practitioners, and program managers so that they can plan for better services that will respond to your needs.The researcher read to me orally the consent form and explained me its meaning. I agree to take part in this study. I understand that I am free to discontinue my participation at any time as I chose, and the investigator will gladly answer the questions that arise during the course of this survey.Thankyou.Perception about climate variability, impact and adaptation techniques 1.Did you observe that adoption of LLL reduces cost of cultivation? (yes -1, no -2) 2.Do you think adoption of LLL reduces crop loss due to climate variability? (yes -1, no -2) 3.How will you rank LLL technique to reduce cost of cultivation? (highly useful -1, moderately useful -2, not very useful -3) 4.How will you rank LLL technique to reduce crop loss due to weather related shocks? (highly useful -1, moderately useful -2, not very useful -3) 5.Did you observe that adoption of DSR reduces cost of cultivation? (yes -1, no -2) 6.Do you think adoption of DSR reduces crop loss due to climate variability? (yes -1, no -2, not sure -3) 7.How will you rank DSR technique to reduce cost of cultivation? (highly useful -1, moderately useful -2, not very useful -3) 8.How will you rank DSR technique to reduce crop loss due to weather related shocks? (very useful -1, moderately useful -2, not very useful -3) 9.Have you heard about LLL? (yes -1, no -2) 10. Do you believe that LLL will be useful to reduce irrigation cost for crop cultivation? (yes -1, no -2) 11. Do you believe that LLL will enhance crop productivity? (yes -1, no -2) 12. Do you believe that LLL can protect your crop from loss due to weather related events? (yes -1, no -2, not sure -3) 13. Why did you not adopt? (machine is not available on time -1, machine rent is very high -2, not sure about its benefits -3, improved seeds not available -4, others -5) 14. Do you believe that DSR will be useful to reduce irrigation cost for crop cultivation? (yes -1, no -2) 15. Do you believe that DSR will be useful to reduce labour cost for crop cultivation? (yes -1, no -2) 16. Do you believe that DSR will enhance crop productivity? (yes -1, no -2)[9] Reason for not adopting LLL or DSR Reason (very highly relevant -1, moderately relevant -2, not very relevant -3) LLL DSRInadequate training 2.Inadequate machine supply 3.Rent of machine 4.Irrigation facility 5.Availability of improved quality of seeds 6.Weeding problem"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"92d291ca9de11eeeae7cf5de76e086e1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1a94a03e-5ab7-4459-b13c-d4014c9940ae/retrieve","id":"-530524337"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8755dd58-baf7-46f2-a427-a57e2dc1ecda","content":"In a previous study, raw cashew kernels were assayed for the fungal contamination focusing on strains belonging to the genus Aspergillus and on aflatoxins producers. These samples showed high contamination with Aspergillus section Nigri species and absence of aflatoxins. To investigate the diversity of secondary metabolites, including mycotoxins, the species of A. section Nigri may produce and thus threaten to contaminate the raw cashew kernels, 150 strains were isolated from cashew samples and assayed for their production of secondary metabolites using liquid chromatography high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS). Seven species of black Aspergilli were isolated based on morphological and chemical identification: A. tubingensis (44%), A. niger (32%), A. brasiliensis (10%), A. carbonarius (8.7%), A. luchuensis (2.7%), A. aculeatus (2%) and A. aculeatinus (0.7%). From these, 45 metabolites and their isomers were identified. Aurasperone and pyranonigrin A, produced by all species excluding A. aculeatus and A. aculeatinus, were most prevalent and were encountered in 146 (97.3%) and 145 (95.7%) isolates, respectively. Three mycotoxins groups were detected: fumonisins (B 2 and B 4 ) (2.7%) ochratoxin A (13.3%), and secalonic acids (2%), indicating that these mycotoxins could occur in raw cashew nuts. Thirty strains of black Aspergilli were randomly sampled for verification of species identity based on sequences of β-tubulin and calmodulin genes. Among them, 27 isolates were positive to the primers used and 11 were identified as A. niger, 7 as A. tubingensis, 6 as A. carbonarius, 2 as A. luchuensis and 1 as A. welwitschiae confirming the species names as based on morphology and chemical features. These strains clustered in 5 clades in A. section Nigri. Chemical profile clustering also showed also 5 groups confirming the species specific metabolites production.Aspergillus section Nigri also known as black Aspergilli are among the most common fungi responsible for food spoilage and bio-deterioration of other materials [1], also causing substantial impact on food safety due to their mycotoxins production. They are known to produce the mycotoxins ochratoxin A [2], fumonisins B 2 , B 4 and B 6 [3,4] as well as numerous other compounds with poorly investigated activities [4,5]. On the other hand, black Aspergilli are also reported to be of biotechnological importance due to their use in the fermentation industry, for example in their ability to produce hydrolytic enzymes and organic acids [6]. Aspergillus luchuensis is reported to be extensively used in Asia for koji production [7]. Moreover, many A. niger processes have been classified as GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) by the Food and Drug Administration of the US government [1] despite the ability of A. niger to produce ochratoxin A and fumonisins. However these mycotoxins seem not to be produced under submerged conditions [8].Black Aspergilli are one of the most complicated species complexes to classify and identify, and the taxonomy of strains in the A. section Nigri has been studied and debated for decades. In 1934, Mosseray described 35 species of black Aspergilli [9]. Later, that number was reduced to 12 species by Raper and Fennell [10]. In 1984, based on morphological features, Al-Musallam [11] revised the taxonomy of niger group to 7 species: A. japonicus, A. carbonarius, A. ellipticus, A. helicothrix, A. heteromorphus, A. foetidus and A. niger. While, in 2009, Nielsen et al. [4] reported 18 species in the black Aspergilli group with A. niger, A. tubingensis, A. brasiliensis, A. acidus, A. carbonarius and A. ibericus as the most common ones. In 2012, Jurjević et al. [12] added A. floridensis and A. trinidadensis as new species to the A. section Nigri. Recently, Varga et al. [13] revisiting the species in A. section Nigri, added 4 other new species and concluded that the black Aspergilli group includes 26 taxa. Therefore, a polyphasic taxonomic approach [14], has been used to accurately identify black Aspergilli at species level. These include morphological, physiological and biochemical characteristics of the isolates, e.g. using high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) as well as DNA sequence analysis. The latter is presently based on the use of β-tubulin [15] and calmodulin [16] genes [7,13], as the ITS regions does not provide sufficient resolution [17].Nuts are nutritious human foodstuffs [18] because of their high content of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, essential minerals and especially unsaturated fatty acids. Nuts are consumed in both developing and developed countries by all age groups and across all social strata [19]. Among tree nuts, cashew nuts are known for their high minerals content (e.g. copper, iron and phosphate) and vitamins (e.g. thiamine, vitamin E and pyridoxine) [18]. In tropical regions of Africa, 48% of the world's cashew nuts are produced, making them crops of high economic importance [20], and in 2011, cashew nut export contributed about 150 million US dollars to the gross domestic product of Benin [21] accounting for 8% of the national export revenues.Since stored nuts generally have a low water activity, their spoilage association consists mainly of fungi and members of A. section Nigri have been reported to contaminate cashew nuts [22].Although strains of A. section Nigri have been found on cashew nuts, very little is known about the risk of mycotoxins contamination from black Aspergilli on cashew kernels. Therefore, the objective of this study was to screen the mycotoxins and other metabolites that can be produced by A. section Nigri strains isolated from raw cashew kernels and, based on their metabolite production, to determine which species are prevalent on kernels from Benin. To accomplish these goals, isolated black Aspergilli were assayed for their mycotoxins and other secondary metabolites diversity by LC-HRMS on a LC-time-of-flight mass spectrometry instrument (LC-TOFMS) and representative strains were identified using molecular methods.All solvents used for chemical analysis were LC-MS grade. Methanol, acetonitrile, 2-propanol, formic acid were LC-MS grade, while ethyl-acetate and dichloromethane were HPLC grade. All were purchased from Sigma Aldrich (Fluka Analytical, Denmark). Purified water was obtained by using a Milli-Q water purification system (Millipore Synergy1 UV, Molsheim, France).One hundred and fifty strains belonging to Aspergillus section Nigri isolated from cashew nut samples from northern Benin were used in this study. These strains were obtained from Lamboni et al. [23]. Cashew nuts were sampled in the main cashew production area covering two agro-ecological zones lying within latitudes 8°1' and 12°3' N and longitudes 0°8' and 3°8' E, with an unimodal rainfall distribution averaging 900 mm to 1000 mm annually and maximum temperatures varying from 28°C to 40°C. Based on the agreement between the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture located in Benin and the Beninese Government, any other specific permissions were not required for sampling cashew nut within the study area. In total, 70 nuts samples were randomly selected in fourteen different locations.After collection, the cashew shell was cut and the kernel (2 cotyledons) aseptically extracted, plated on dichloran 18% glycerol agar (DG18, Oxoid, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK) [24] and incubated at 25°C in the dark for 7 days. Four cotyledons were plated per Petri dish, either in five replicates for surface sterilization (SS) (0.4% aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite) or in two replicates for direct plating (DP), giving a total of 1960 cultured cotyledons. Both culturing methods were used to enable the growth of conidia present in the inner and the outer part of the cotyledons. According to taxonomic schemes and illustrations in Samson et al. [25], colonies belonging to A. section Nigri were first isolated on Czapek yeast autolysate agar (CYA) [24] and later 3 point inoculated on Yeast extract sucrose agar (YES) [24]. The plates were incubated at 25°C in the dark for 5 days. From the centre of fugal colonies, three 5-mm agar plugs were taken with an aseptic steel drill and pooled together into the same vial and stored at 4°C for further extraction.A one step extraction method was used by adding 0.5 ml of a mixture of ethyl acetate-dichloromethane-methanol (3:2:1, v/v/v) with 1% (v/v) formic acid to the vials containing the agar plugs. The plugs were then extracted in an ultrasonic bath for 60 min. The supernatant was transferred to a new vial, evaporated to complete dryness using N 2 flow, and re-dissolved in 500 μl of methanol assisted by ultrasonication for 20 min, and the aliquots filtered into an HPLC vial using a 0.45 μm polytetrafluoroethene (PTFE) filter.Analyses were performed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) with diode array detector and maXis 3G QTOF mass spectrometer (MS) (Bruker Daltonics, Bremen, Germany) equipped with an electrospray source (ESI) and connected to an Ultimate 3000 UHPLC system (Dionex, Sunnyvale, USA) equipped with a Kinetex 2.6-μm C 18 , 100 mm × 2.1 mm column (Phenomenex, Torrance, CA) [26]. A linear water-acetonitrile gradient was used (buffered with 20 mM formic acid) starting from 10% (v/v) acetonitrile and increased to 100% in 10 min, maintaining for 3 min before returning to the starting conditions. MS was performed in ESI + , the scan range m/z 100-1000, with a mass accuracy < 1.5 ppm [26]. UV/ VIS spectra were collected at wavelengths from 200 to 700 nm. Data processing was performed using DataAnalysis 4.0 and Target Analysis 1.2 (Bruker Daltonics) by the aggressive dereplication approach [26], using a database of 495 known and putative compounds from black Aspergilli, tentatively identifying them based on accurate mass (deviation < 1.5 ppm) and isotopic pattern (isotope fit < 50) [26]. For saturated peaks (>10 6 counts/sec) a manual verification of the accurate mass was made in the front and the tail of the peak. A further database of 1500 reference standards, tentatively identified compounds were also used along with a small 50 compounds database of peaks observed in sample blanks. All major peaks (observed in the BPC chromatograms) not tentatively identified by the approach were added to the search list as unknown compounds for mapping.Aspergillus isolates and growth conditions. Thirty strains of Aspergillus section Nigri isolated from raw cashew nuts were randomly selected for diagnostic PCR and sequencing. The strains were 3 point inoculated on separate Petri dishes containing Czapek yeast autolysate (CYA) agar and incubated in micro perforated plastic bags at 25°C for 7 days in the dark, to ensure extensive conidiation of the colonies. From these cultivations on solid media, we prepared stock suspensions for further inoculations and harvested conidia to make suspensions in 5 ml glass tubes containing autoclaved milli-Q water supplemented with 0.05% Tween 80. Conidia were inoculated at 3 points equidistant from the centre, on CYA and incubated in micro perforated plastic bags in the dark at 25°C for 3 days to favour mycelial growth and reduce the total conidiation as this would inhibit tissue-PCR. The Petri dishes were kept at 4°C for sampling.Tissue-PCR for molecular identification of fungal isolates. Tissue PCR alleviates the need for genomic DNA extraction, as fungal mycelial tissue was the direct source for template DNA in PCR reactions amplifying partial genes encoding calmodulin and β-tubulin. PCR tubes containing a total volume of 40 μl had the following components mixed in milli-Q H 2 O; 1X Phire PCR buffer (ThermoFisher Scientific, USA), 200 μM dNTP mix (Invitrogen, Merelbeke, Belgium), 0.25 μM forward and reverse primers and 0.7 U Pfu X7 polymerase [27]. We based molecular identification of the thirty strains on the amplification of two partial genes encoding β-tubulin and calmodulin. The selected β-tubulin primers were T10-F-ACGATA GGTTCACCTCCAGAC [28], and Bt2b-R-ACCCTCAGTGTAGTGACCCTTGGC [15], and for calmodulin Cmd5-F CCGAGTACAAGGARGCCTTC and Cmd6-R CCGATRGAGGTC ATRACGTGG [29]. A sterile pipette tip was used to streak 1 to 3 mm of peripheral mycelium in two replicates. Distribution of the fungal tissue on the pipette tip to PCR tubes resulted in two tubes with different amounts of biomass and thereby template DNA for PCR.The amplification was performed in Agilent SureCycler 8800 Thermal Cycler (Agilent Technologies Inc., Santa Clara CA, USA). The amplification process consisted of an initial denaturation step of 30 min at 98°C to release template DNA from fungal debris, followed by 35 cycles of touch-down PCR with 10 s at 98°C (denaturation), 30 s at 61-52°C (primer annealing) and 1 min at 72°C (extension), and a final extension step of 5 min at 72°C. We verified purity of the amplification products by agarose gel electrophoresis in 1% TAE buffer (tris-acetate-EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid)) stained by SYBR Safe DNA Gel Stain (Thermo-Fisher Scientific, USA) and visualized by UV-light. If more than one product was observed after electrophoresis, PCR products were purified prior to DNA sequencing using the GFX PCR DNA and Gel Band Purification Kit (GE Healthcare UK limited, Buckinghamshire, UK). PCR products were sequenced by GATC Biotech (Constance, Germany). Phylogenetic analysis of sequence data. The identity of the β-tubulin and calmodulin gene sequences was determined using Basic Local Alignment Search Tool for nucleotide (BLASTN) algorithm in the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank database (http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi). They were then transformed into multi FASTA format using DNA Baser software. Phylogenetic analyses and molecular evolutionary were conducted using MEGA (Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis) version 6.0 [30]. Sequences were pairwise aligned by Clustal W method [31] and trimmed both sides up to the same nucleotide position. Phylogenetic trees were prepared using the maximum likelihood method. Evolutionary distances were calculated by using the Jukes-Cantor [32] model embedded in the MEGA package. Bootstrap values were calculated from 1000 replications after complete deletion of all positions containing gaps or missing data. To compare with cluster output of DNA Baser, secondary metabolites of strains were grouped using MultiExperiment Viewer (MeV v4.2).The mycotoxins and other metabolites produced by strains of Aspergillus section Nigri on YES agar are presented in Table 1. From the 150 isolates used for metabolites profiling, 66 strains (44%) belonged to A. tubingensis, 48 strains (32%) to A. niger (with a chemical profile similar to A. welwitschiae), 15 strains (10%) to A. brasiliensis, 13 strains (8.7%) to A. carbonarius, 4 strains (2.7%) to A. luchuensis (synonyms to A. kawachi or A. acidus), 3 strains (2%) to A. aculeatus and 1 strain (0.7%) to A. aculeatinus.In total, 45 metabolites including their isomers were identified during UHPLC-QTOF-MS analysis within retention times (RT) ranging from 1.56 min (nigragillin) to 10.1 min (aflavinine) (S1 Table ). Aurasperone C (positive in 97.3%), aurasperone F (96.7%), pyranonigrin A (96.7%), and fonsecin (96%) were the metabolites identified in most of the strains of A. section Nigri. The metabolites that were rarely produced by strains of A. section Nigri were secalonic acids (2%), tubingensins (2%), antafumicins (2.7%), fumonisins (2.7%), kotanin (4%) and ochratoxin A (5.3%). The detection of orlandin, kotanin and fumonisin B 2 , B 4, B 6 was specific for A. niger whereas the presence of antafumicin A and B was specific for A. luchuensis. Secalonic acids were specific for A. aculeatus.Secalonic acids, atromentin, asperazine and aurasperone C were produced consistently by all the strains in a species. The mycotoxin fumonisin B 2 (2.7%) was detected in strains belonging to A. niger whereas ochratoxin A (13%) and ochratoxin B (5.3%) were produced by strains of both A. niger and A. carbonarius.For example, in Table 1 with UHPLC-QTOF MS, nigragillin was produced by 129 (86%) of the 150 strains studied. Nigragilin was produced by 95% of the strains of A. tubingensis (64/ 66), 94% of A. niger (46/48) and 100% of both the strains of A. brasiliensis (15)  We examined the genetic relatedness of 30 randomly taken strains of Aspergillus section Nigri using nucleotide sequences of β-tubulin and calmodulin genes. Table 2 summarizes the species names based on their metabolite production which was confirmed by sequencing data. Eleven   One hundred and fifty strains of Aspergillus section Nigri were used for mycotoxin and other secondary metabolite profiling using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography. All the 45 chemical compounds identified pertained to black Aspergilli as previously described by Nielsen et al. [4]. Some of these natural products are known to be toxic to human and animals. These where classified in Table 1 as group A and included fumonisins and ochratoxin A, which were reported for Aspergillus niger previously [33]. According to Mogensen et al. [34] and Noonim et al. [35], up to 75% of A. niger isolates produce fumonisins and 41% produce ochratoxins. Also, Massi et al. [36] reported 74% of A. niger to be fumonisin B 2 producers while 32% were ochratoxin A producers. In our results, among the 48 strains of A. niger isolated, only 9% (4 strains) produced fumonisins and 15% (7 strains) produced ochratoxins. The moisture, 1 to 8% of sugars and 60 to 64% of lipids). Isolates from Massi et al. [36] were from different food commodities: dried fruits, Brazil nuts, coffee beans, grapes cocoa and onions. In addition, cashew nuts also have a thick shell that constitutes a first barrier to microbial contamination [38]. It is known that cashew shells contain tannins that are able to suppress mycotoxin formation [39] and probably alter the gene expression by the fungi. More so, on Pistachio nuts, Marin et al. [40] noticed only 5% of A. niger to be ochratoxin A positive.The geographic origin of a strain can reportedly influence its mycotoxin production. Isolates of A. flavus from various geographic regions have revealed differences in the proportions of isolates that produce low, medium and high amount of aflatoxins [41]. This could also apply to fumonisin and ochratoxin production by black Aspergilli. Samson et al. [42] reported ochratoxin production from species of A. section Nigri isolated from different food matrices collected from various regions. Moreover, Perrone et al. [43] reported that 33% of A. niger isolated from grapes in Italy produced ochratoxin A. In our study we did not notice simultaneous production of both fumonisins and ochratoxins from the same strains of A. niger, where Frisvad et al. [8] reported that up to 10% of A. niger strains may produce both mycotoxins. Ochratoxin A production rate can be overestimated in some studies as HPLC with fluorescence detection (even using immunoaffinity purification), can provide false positives [44] which unfortunately has been extensively reported for A. tubingensis. [43,45]. Ochratoxin A production from A. tubingensis was not detected during our screening process, confirming the report of Nielsen et al. [4] and Storari et al. [44] concerning this. Also, in accordance with Frisvad et al. [8], strains of A. tubingensis, A. brasiliensis and A. luchuensis did not produce fumonisins or ochratoxins.A. carbonarius isolates always produced ochratoxin A as reported by several authors [4,46,47]. Our result was in accordance with this consistent production since all the 13 isolates of A. carbonarius showed ochratoxin A production.Secalonic acids, reported as toxic metabolites of A. aculeatus [48] were noticed during our analysis, confirming their production by A. aculeatus as mentioned by Parenicová et al. [49]. These toxic compounds were not produced by A. aculeatinus from cashew nuts which is in contrast to the report by Noonim et al. [50].Some secondary metabolites detected during our analysis, such as Aurasperones, Nigragillin, Malformins and Nigerazine and grouped as B in Table 1 are reported to be toxic compounds to plants, bacteria, and mice [5,51]. Asperazine was reported to have significant in vitro cytotoxicity against human leukemia [52] but no in vivo including bioavailability studies confirmed this. Malformins are currently being investigated for anti-cancer drug potential [53]. Altogether there are very few studies on other effects than in-vitro or in older studies intraperitoneal injection of compounds. However these do not include degradation in the body nor bioavailability of the compounds, and with a definition of mycotoxin being toxic through a natural route of exposure, such studies can only be considered indicative, but also highlights the need for testing these compounds in relevant animal models under relevant exposure conditions. Similar problems are reported in the Aspergillus glaucus group (and formerly Eurotium) [54,55] DNA sequencing using β-tubulin and calmodulin genes was performed to validate morphology and extrolite profile based on identification of our isolates and their association to A. section Nigri. The use of a polyphasic approach, to identify and validate to species level isolates of fungi, was described by Frisvad [56], Oliveri et al. [14]. Our DNA sequences confirmed the species name identified by morphological and chemical characteristics and the phylogenetic tree shows that the main clades belong to the black Aspergilli. Perrone et al. [43] in a cluster analysis of 94 isolates of A. section Nigri identified the same clades confirming the fact that A. tubingensis and A. niger are the main clades of A. section Nigri as reported by Nielsen et al. [4]. Moreover, Samson et al. [57] confirmed the presence of these 4 different clades in A. section Nigri and grouped them as biseriate group of Aspergillus section Nigri in contrast to uniseriate group of Aspergillus including A. aculeatus.The cluster analysis of the 27 strains using their metabolite profiles was similar to the clustering based on sequencing data. The secondary metabolites have been previously used most often in species recognition due to their high species specificity [58]. Samson et al. [57] mentioned that isolates of Aspergillus species usually produce a diverse range of secondary metabolites that are characteristic of the different groups of section of Aspergillus. They also reported that the production of a particular secondary metabolite is an efficient identification aid for allocating a species to section while profiles of secondary metabolites can be very effective in identifying an Aspergillus isolates to species. With few exceptions, this was effective during our analysis where the combined production of orlandin, fumonisins and kotanin was specific to A. niger, and the production of antafumicin A and B was specific to A. luchuensis.The diversity in secondary metabolites including mycotoxins from isolates of Aspergillus section Nigri, analysed using UHPLC-QTOF-MS, revealed several metabolites produced by 7 different species that contaminated cashew nuts samples from Benin. In pure cultures on a laboratory medium, ochratoxin A and fumonisins, the 2 main toxic compounds from black Aspergilli, were produced by strains of 2 predominant species in A. section Nigri, namely A. niger / A. welwitchiae and A. carbonarius, although A. carbonarius is unable to produce fumonisins. Ochratoxins and fumonisins were produced by a relatively little proportion of the isolates of A. niger and A. carbonarius, but it is well know that species of A. section Nigri are the most isolated on cashew kernels, given a substantial number of species that may produce mycotoxins in cashew nuts. Even though the presence of fungi has not always meant the presence of mycotoxins, the production of ochratoxin A fumonisins isolates on A. section Nigri on cashew nuts could constitute an additional and hidden problem in term of mycotoxins content, and can negatively affect cashew nut safety and the nutritional quality of the nuts.There are no regulations on ochratoxin A and fumonisins for raw and processed cashew nuts like those of EU and WHO on aflatoxins. Nevertheless, these findings suggest more investigations in order to detect the presence and the levels of ochratoxin A and fumonisins and to evaluate their exact contribution to the total level of mycotoxins in cashew kernels. But immediate actions should emphasize on the prevention by strengthening post-harvest practices that can lower fungal contamination along the cashew nut value chain, mainly during nut storage, where high contamination of species belonging to black Aspergilli are noticed."}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"311d3c171679c81ebdedd22b92351001","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7a745793-8b54-4a64-8a9d-c683d7d40099/retrieve","id":"881314685"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9d3d9489-4901-4a9f-a429-845c8205380c","content":"This Report was produced as part of the CGIAR Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Initiative's effort to ensure that women and youth are well integrated into to the work of the Initiative's Use Cases and that the EiA Initiative is achieving its gender-and youth-specific impacts: that women and men, youth and non-youth equally participate in and benefit from the agronomic solutions developed, validated, and piloted by Use Cases, and that social innovations that empower women and transform unequal power relations and restrictive social and gender norms are piloted and promoted.This report covers the study area of the Sasakawa Africa Association Nigeria (SAA Nigeria) Use Case in the Northwest (Kano and Kaduna) and North Central (Nasarawa), based on interviews conducted in June and July 2023. The study sites are in Northwest (Kano and Kaduna) and North Central (Nasarawa).• Kano has the lowest number of literate people in the sample and highest number of people in the sample without formal schooling (for male and female study participants) among the three focus states. Almost all the heads of households in the Kano sample are Muslim; while 46 percent and 17 percent are Muslim in Kaduna and Nasarawa, respectively. In most of these communities, especially in Kano and Kaduna, women generally have mobility constraints from going to the farm or market or joining group meetings or community gatherings. Most people in the sample in Kano are in polygamous households, while mostly monogamous households comprise the samples in Kaduna and Nasarawa. Across all states, only a handful of single/widowed/separated heads were part of sample. • Fewer households in the sample are likely poor in Nasarawa and more households in the sample are likely poor in Kano and Kaduna. There are more households who indicated they experience food insecurity in Kaduna and fewer households in Nasarawa, compared with Kano. • In terms of household structure, larger household sizes exist in Kano, while smaller household sizes and fewer younger children and youth in households in Nasarawa. Only 56 percent of households have youth members in Nasarawa compared to 85 percent and 94 percent in Kano and Kaduna, respectively. Land area cultivated is the smallest in Nasarawa, compared with Kaduna and Kano. • Almost all households in the sample in Kaduna and Kano planted maize and rice; most sample households in Nasawara planted rice and maize, but more households planted cassava (44 percent of households in Nasawara compared to 5 percent in Kaduna and 22 percent in Kano).• Women and youth participate to a significant extent in agricultural production, but men (especially older men) are more often considered as the main contributor to farm work and the main decision maker on the main plot.• In 65 percent of households, female household members actively participate in farming (according to the household respondent). • In 70 percent of households, youth members actively participate in farming (according to the household respondent).• However, men are considered the main decision maker on farm work on 92 percent of all plots, and non-youth members are considered the main decision maker on 93 percent of all plots (according to the household respondent). • Based on separate responses of female and male respondents, more than 90 percent of women and youth contribute to agricultural activities for the Use Case focal crops (maize, rice, cassava), and the level of involvement of women and youth in farming is not significantly different with that of men or of their older counterparts. This is consistent across the three states. ¾ Reaching women and youth will necessitate making efforts beyond targeting the person who is considered the main decision maker in the household.• There are large differences across states concerning women's and youth's participation in farming. Women participate in farming at a high level in Nasarawa, while youth participation in farming in Kaduna is highest. Women and youth participation in farming is lowest in Kano. There is also low youth participation in Nasarawa but this is because there are few youth members within the households in this sample (only 56 percent of households have youth members in Nasarawa compared to 85 percent and 94 percent in Kano and Kaduna).• 79 percent of households in Kaduna and 92 percent of households in Nasarawa have female household members actively participating in farming, whereas in Kano, the rate is 25 percent. • Youth household members in 82 percent of households in Kaduna actively participate in farming, whereas youth household members in 51 percent of the households in Kano and 53 percent of the households in Nasarawa actively participate in farming. ¾ Gender-and youth-specific activities may need to be considered within each state thereafter depending on the results.Qualitative inquiries could help to further understand why women are less active in farming in Kano and why youth are less active in Kano and Nasarawa.• Literacy levels are quite high among female and male respondents.• The majority of respondents (80 percent of women and 89 percent of men, and 94 percent of youth and 83 percent of non-youth) are reportedly literate. • However, levels of formal schooling are lower than reported literacy rates, with a quarter of female respondents and 15 percent of male respondents not having received formal schooling, and 9 percent of youth and 21 percent of nonyouth respondents not having attended formal schooling. Furthermore, a third of the sample completed only primary or elementary schooling. ¾ The level of complexities in advanced extension materials and ICT tools will have to match with the level of education of the target beneficiaries when designing an effective extension mechanism related to the Use Case technology.• There is a paucity of professional extension services by government, non-government or private sector actors, especially for women. Both male and female respondents indicated they received low levels of government extension services, and this was even much lower among the youth. Social networks, radio and television programs are important for agricultural information sharing.• Only 13 percent of male respondents and 9 percent of female respondents received government extension services.• Private sector, particularly agrodealers, are a main source of agricultural advice for 22 percent of male respondents and 17 of female respondents, however, female youth reported the least access to these support services. • Almost all female and male respondents indicated they received agricultural advice in the past, however, much of this advice was obtained from relatives or other farmers (for 53 percent of male respondent and 67 percent of female respondents), and much less of this agricultural advice is from government or private sector extension service providers. • There are some differences across states regarding access to agricultural advice. In Nasarawa, the access to government extension is much better than in the other two states, with 32 percent of men and 29 percent of women reporting they accessed government extension services. TV programs are the most common main formal source of agricultural information, with 46 percent of men and 22 percent of women reporting that they access agricultural information from TV programs. In Kano, radio programs are the most common source of agricultural information, with 44 percent of women and 53 percent of men reporting that they access agricultural information from radio programs. In Kaduna, access to agricultural information is generally weakest; the main sources are radio programs, with 23 percent of men and 6 percent of women reporting it as their main source of agricultural advice. Twenty-two percent of men and 13 percent of women reported they accessed agricultural information via the private sector (agrodealers). ¾ Radio programs can be expanded and utilized more in Kaduna and Kano; while TV programs can be expanded and utilized more in Nasawara. In all states, agrodealers and traders play a role in agricultural information dissemination; training and access to improved seeds and knowledge among agrodealers and traders can be an important strategy. However, fewer women have access to such information using these sources, and therefore, ways to facilitate women's access to these sources or alternative sources of information that attend to the needs/preferences of women must be explored and considered along with the social networks women often depend on for agricultural information.• Digital technologies (including cell phones, smartphones, or other devices such as tablets or laptops) are not universally used and owned across farm households in the study area, and rarely serve to access agricultural advice.• Access to agricultural advice through digital apps is currently very low (0 percent for both women and men), social media is only used by 1-2 percent of the sample. • Women were less likely than men to report owning and using digital technologies, while youth and non-youth are equally likely to own and use digital technologies. Overall, 62 percent of female respondents versus 77 percent of male respondents reported owning a phone, though most of these are regular cell phones. Only 17 percent of female respondents and 27 percent of male respondents owned a smartphone. Youth are more likely to own and use smartphones whereas non-youth are more likely to own and use cell phones. However, in total, youth and non-youth are equally likely to own and use either a smartphone or a cell phone. ¾ Alternative approaches are needed to bring extension messages originating from digital tools to farmers, an issue pertaining to male and female farmers -though more critically so for the latter. Youth, a more tech-savvy generation, could be at the forefront of spearheading use of digital tools, though they would still need additional support.• A third of the sample participate in groups or associations, but women are less likely to be part of a group than men, especially young women.• Group membership is very low, especially in Kaduna and Kano. A gender gap in group membership exists in Kano, with only 13 percent of female respondents and 35 percent of male respondents being part of a group or association.¾ Reaching women and youth through group-based extension services may require facilitating the creation of new groups for women and youth farmers or devising a more inclusionary strategy for them into existing groups. When working with group leaders, a purposive approach is needed to attenuate the lesser representation of women and youth. Alternative extension methods that do not require groups as such, could also be considered (e.g., male and female lead farmers).• We examined risk aversion, as an indication of willingness to innovation and try out new technologies, by women and men, and value of production per hectare by gendered household types.• Most respondents are willing to accept some risks on their farming: 10 percent reported not willing to take risks; about a quarter would like to take risks; and the large majority is willing to accept some risks. Overall, more respondents in Kaduna are willing to take risks, and more respondents in Kano generally indicated that they do not like to take risks. Among the gender and age groups, male youth in Kano are most likely to be willing to take risks. • Overall, households with women's involvement in farming have higher value of production than those without. Moreover, households with youth involvement in farming also have higher value of production than those without, but the households with youth involvement only (no non-youth participating in farming) have lower value of production. This may be related to the household composition and availability of labor: households where women and youth are involved in farming may spend more family labor on their plots, thus resulting in a higher value of production. • We also found regional differences. When looking at both mean and median, we only see a clear association between women's involvement and value of production in Kaduna; and between youth's involvement and value of production in Kano. Further in-depth analysis is needed to understand what drives these associations. • Youth, given their willingness to take risks, may be a good target group for successful adoption of new agronomic technologies. When targeting non-youth, sufficient information may need to be provided more information on the extent to which the new tools could help mitigate risk and uncertainty in farm outcomes.• We examined inputs to farming decisions, control over use of income, and access to and control over financial resources as key indicators of empowerment.• Across all farming activities tracked, almost all male respondents reported contributing to most decisions, while only a third of female respondents reported contributing to most decisions and two-thirds contributed to some decisions. Most male respondents normally make the farming decisions on their own, while the majority of female respondents normally make the farming decisions jointly with the male decision-maker. About a quarter of women do not normally make decisions on any farming activity. Over half of women in Kano do not make decisions on farming activities, whereas only about 20 percent of women in Kaduna and around 10 percent of women in Nasarawa do not. • Control over use of income is high among both women and men across all states, although gender gap still exists with fewer women having control over income from farming than men, especially in Kano. • Access to and control over financial resources are generally low, especially in Kano and Nasarawa, where only around 43 percent and 36 percent of households are able to take a loan, compared with 75 percent in Kaduna. Gender gap exists in Kano, with only 27 percent of female respondents and 48 percent of male respondents achieving adequacy, i.e. their households have access to credit and the respondent has some input in financial decisions thereabout. ¾ Reaching women and youth may not suffice for them to also make active production decisions that will help them to ensure innovations benefit and ultimately empower them. Special attention to reducing gender-based, intra-household constraints and inequalities to decision-making in Kano will be needed. Finally, farmers struggle to access credit, thus requiring either agronomic recommendations that do not entail major investment or requiring facilitating credit access into the design of the envisioned intervention.• Gender unequal attitudes persist in the study area: men are perceived as the main farmers and primary income earners and women as \"helpers\" on the farm and mainly responsible for domestic chores.• Persistently strong attitudes supporting gender inequality in farming, livelihoods, and household chores exist. For example, eighteen percent of men and 15 percent of women disagreed to the statement \"It is equally important to improve productivity on women's plots as it is on men's plots\". Fifteen percent of men and 10 percent of women disagreed to the statement \"Husbands should help wives with household chores, like cooking and taking care of children\" Overall, across a total of ten statements female respondents disagreed to 1.47 number of statements out of 10 supporting gender equality; while male respondents disagree to 1.91 number of statements supporting gender equality.Interestingly, male youth support gender equality more. ¾ Trying to reach/benefit women and youth hoping they will adopt the Use Case's minimum viable product (MVP) is unlikely to work, unless interventions also target unequal power relations in households and communities. Innovations that empower them or transform unequal power relations and norms need to be a strong focus in this Use Case. Future work by this Use Case and partners are encouraged to include social innovations to shift gender norms and to change attitudes that preserve gender inequality when piloting their agronomic solutions. ¾ Working with youth role models as communicators and agents of change may be a good strategy.This report serves as a youth and gender diagnostic assessment for the SAA Nigeria Use Case in the EiA Initiative. The SAA Nigeria Use Case combines three fertilizer recommendation tools (AKILIMO for cassava, Nutrient Expert (NE) for maize, and RiceAdvice for rice) in one digital interface that can be used on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Following the request of the \"demand partner\" SAA Nigeria, the decision support tools (DSTs) for fertilizer will be combined with advice on the planting or sowing windows. For cassava, this is already available as a module in AKILIMO, for maize and rice, this is under development. Modified versions of the RiceAdvice tool, RiceAdvice Lite (RAL) and AKILIMO, were tested in 2021 and 2022 (for AKILIMO, only the growing season 2021/2022). Following this technical validation, the Use Case demanded for an enhanced understanding of the context in which the tool will be used to ensure that it meets farmers' requirements. In particular, the SAA Nigeria Use Case needed an improved understanding on how this tool will be useful for men and women farmers as well as for the younger and the older generations. The results presented in this study report will be instrumental in the scaling and dissemination phases of the Use Case.We align our diagnostic assessment with the Reach-Benefit-Empower-Transform framework of Quisumbing, Meinzen-Dick and Malapit (2021) (Figure 1). This framework highlights the importance of not only reaching target beneficiaries, but also making sure that they benefit from any interventions, that the interventions further increase their empowerment, and lead to a transformation of any restrictive attitudes, norms, and power relations that create gender inequalities. Reaching women and youth with agronomic solutions and associated extension approaches requires including them in project activities (Quisumbing et al., 2023). Benefiting women and youth means the project should also improve their wellbeing, e.g., in terms of income, or mental of physical health (ibid.). However, beyond these steps, it is key to also strive to improve women's and youth's empowerment, i.e., ensuring they have the ability to make strategic life choices and act on them (Kabeer, 1999). Finally, sustained positive outcomes require that at community and societal levels, any harmful gender or youth norms, attitudes and behaviors are transformed towards more equality for all (ibid.). Figure 1. A framework for reaching, benefiting, and empowering women and youth and transforming social relations (source: Nchanji, n.d.) This framework helps to ensure that we appropriately anticipate gender and youth dynamics that may prevent the SAA Nigeria Use Case from reaching, benefiting, and empowering women and youth and transforming unequal power relations and attitudes and norms. The diagnostic tool can then serve to inform the design (or re-design) of the MVP and associated extension approaches to be validated and piloted by the SAA Nigeria Use Case. The remainder of the report is structured as follows. Section 2 describes relevant literature related to gender and youth in the context of the Use Case. Section 3 summarizes the dataset and key indicators explored within the reach-benefit-empowermenttransform framework. Section 4 presents the results. Section 5 offers concluding remarks and recommendations.A recent report published by the World Bank (2022) draws on the Nigeria General Household Survey (2018Survey ( -2019) ) to highlight the gender gaps in labor force participation, document the drivers of the gender gaps in key sectors, highlight certain constraints including land and occupational segregation, and provide policy and programming recommendations to close the gender gaps. Similarly, Oseni et al. (2013), based on the earlier nationally representative General Household Survey Panel 2010-2011, provide insights in gender differences in the agricultural sector in Nigeria. Oseni et al. (2013) show that women, like men, are heavily involved in agriculture in Nigeria, including producing staple crops and cash crops, and participating all along the agricultural value chain. At the national level, 55 percent of working-age women and 69 percent of men work in agriculture (World Bank 2022). Women in the North of Nigeria work far less, and 22 percentage points less than men in the North (46% compared to 68%, respectively). Such disparities between women and men do not exist in the South of Nigeria (ibid.).However, women have smaller and less secure plots of land, less access to physical inputs such as fertilizer and herbicide, less use of labor, and less access to extension services. It is not surprising, then, that female farmers earn and produce much less than male farmers (Oseni et al. 2013;World Bank 2022). Female-managed plots, which average 0.3 hectares in size, are significantly smaller than male-managed plots, which measure 0.6 hectares on average (Oseni et al. 2013). Women are almost half as likely to cultivate cereals and greater than twice as likely to farm roots and tubers, vegetables, and melons (World Bank 2022).Fewer women manage their own plots (World Bank 2022). The majority of female plot managers (63 percent) are widowed, separated, or divorced, while almost all male plot managers (94 percent) were married (World Bank 2022). Nationally, 67 percent of male managers report having the right to sell the plots under their control, as compared to only 31 percent of female managers (Oseni et al. 2013). While women can gain access to use and own land through marriage and inheritance, these options are quite complex and exclusionary given customary law and patrilineal inheritance systems (ibid). Women can purchase land, but intrahousehold dynamics and economic constraints create challenges for them to buy land (ibid).Productivity (the value of output per hectare) on female-managed plots is 30 percent lower than that on male-managed plots at the national level, and 35 percent lower than that on male-managed plots in the North (compared to only 25 percent in the South) (World Bank 2022). Women's lower productivity was explained by their limited use of inputs (e.g., fertilizer and herbicides), engagement in less valuable crop value chains, and use of less productive farm labor (ibid). Male plot managers are also more likely than female plot managers to use inputs, such as fertilizer (42 percent and 19 percent, respectively), herbicide (26 percent and 6 percent), and animal traction (28 percent and 3 percent) (Oseni et al. 2013).Female farmers are also at a disadvantage in terms of access to agricultural labor: female farmers use fewer days of family labor, are less likely to hire outside labor, and, when they do, use fewer days of hired labor on their plots; while male farmers tend to hire outside male labor for assistance in their fields while also using more than three times the amount of male family labor than women (Oseni et al. 2013).With regards to access to agricultural extension, only 3 percent of women plot managers in the North received extension services compared to 20 percent of men (World Bank 2022). This is important given that those plot managers who did participate in extension activities had 18% higher productivity. Women's low participation in agricultural extension activities is due to: 1) current extension services may focus on crops mainly grown by men; 2) cultural norms may create barriers for men extension officers to interact with women farmers; or 3) outreach activities may target mostly male social networks (ibid). Furthermore, Oseni et al. (2015) show that in the North, women produce 28% less than men after controlling for observed factors of production, while there are no significant gender differences in the South. In the decomposition results, the structural effect in the North is larger than the endowment at the mean. Although women in the North have access to less productive resources than men, the results indicate that even if given the same level of inputs, significant differences still emerge. However, for the South, the decomposition results show that the endowment effect is more important than the structural effect. Access to resources explains most of the gender gap in the South and if women are given the same level of inputs as men, the gap will be minimal. World Bank (2022) showed how gender norms contribute to gender inequalities in educational investments made in boys rather than in girls that assume men are breadwinners and women are supposed to stay at home and carryout domestic and caregiving duties. Differences in crop choice by women and men may be due to norms that designate cash crops as \"male crops.\" Gender norms can have an influence on how men extension officers interact with women farmers or other value chain actors. Norms may also prohibit women from registering their land in their names, and instead, registering in the name of male family members. Norms can impact women's ownership of small versus larger livestock, which undercuts women's economic potential. Norms around division of labor and value chain activities can shape women's involvement in less remunerative value chains and activities. Norms may restrict women from using mechanized equipment that could reduce their labor and time burdens, and potentially increase productivity and profitability.Similarly, Das et al. (2023) confirms strong gender norms around women's participation in agricultural value chains in the north. Using data from 11,691 aspiring agribusiness entrepreneurs in Nigeria, they explore factors that drive sectoral choice, gender differences in the choice decision, and especially the role played by norms around gender roles. When given a choice of 11 agricultural value chains in a government program, they find the majority (54 percent) of the applicants chose to enter into the poultry value chain, and women were more likely to choose poultry than men. They find evidence of more restrictive gender norms in Northern Nigeria states, which lowers women's likelihood of entering into agricultural value chains where the potential for profit may be higher. The gender bias in sectoral choice is also attributed to differences in work experience especially in agricultural activities and in the chosen value chain, as well as in land ownership. Women with more experience in maledominated agricultural value chains exhibit lower self-efficacy, which could reflect the challenges they face when deviating from social norms to operate within nontraditional value chains.These studies for the North and South suggest that policy should vary by region, and close attention to gender norms is needed, especially in the North. Moreover, several recommendations emerge to close the gender gap (World Bank 2022):1. Promoting women farmers' choice of higher-value crops 2. Enhancing women farmers' use of farm inputs 3. Facilitating access to farm labor and mechanization 4. Unlocking firm owners' access to growth capital 5. Promoting women's engagement in greater value addition 6. Decreasing occupational segregation 7. Easing women's time constraintsThe data from this survey was collected in June and July 2023 in three different States and nine Local Government Areas (LGAs): Kano (Bunkure, Kura, Tudun Wada), Kaduna (Ikara, Lere, Soba), and Nasarawa (Akwanga, Doma, Obi) (Figure 2A and Figure 2B). The LGAs were selected by i) environmental clustering, ensuring that the dominant environmental clusters that were considered relevant for the Use Case were present, ii) environmental conditions were suitable for at least 2 of the three focal crops (cassava, maize or rice), and iii) security considerations. In each LGA, 10 villages were randomly selected when at least two of the focal crops were assumed to be present as well as women involved in crop cultivation. During the training of enumerators, the lists of the 10 selected villages were confirmed and updated based on the enumerators' knowledge of security and accessibility status of the villages (the rains had already started). In each village, a household list was composed via an interview with the village head and included information on cropping of the three focal crops and the involvement of female household members in crop production. From these lists, 24 households were randomly selected and divided into two lists of 12 households each. The second list served as back-up in case households of the first list were not available. Although the team initially intended to stratify households according to the involvement of women in crop production, this stratification was not put into practice given that in nearly all households women were involved in crop production. Over 93% of the households had women involved in crop production; only three villages (Jingin, Kafin-Birgi, Labunawa) had no women involved. In total, 1091 different households were interviewed. The team calculated sampling weights to correct for biases originating from the sampling design, and ensuring that the results would be representative of the target households in each of the three States.Source: Authors' compilationSource: Authors' compilationThe questionnaire administered in Nigeria contained three parts:1. a household-level part that could be answered by any knowledgeable household member; 2. an individual-level part to be answered by one male and one female adult household member (usually the husband and wife) individually and privately; and 3. a plot-level part focusing on (a) general roster information, including plot size, plot tenure status, decision makers and workers on all the land used by the household, and (b) agronomic practices on the main plot(s) (the most important or largest plot(s) where maize, rice, or cassava was cultivated in the last cropping season).Information on a maximum of 5 main plots per household was allowed to be collected. We have 1,091 observations for the household-level part (Table 1). In the majority of these households (N=845) two individual interviews were conducted, one with a male and one with a female respondent, whereas in the remaining households only one individual interview took place, usually with a male respondent though in a few cases with a female respondent. In total, 1,078 male respondents and 874 female respondents answered to the individual-level part.). Note: in three households no individual interviews were conducted. In a few cases, two male or two female respondents were interviewed from the same household.We classify youth as those people between the ages of 15 and 29 years, based on Nigeria's 2019 National Youth Policy 1 .Reaching women and youth with agronomic solutions and associated extension approaches requires including them in Use Case activities (Quisumbing et al., 2023). In the context of the SAA Nigeria Use Case, we look at the following aspects (i) participation in agricultural activities, (ii) access to agricultural extension services, and (iii) access to digital technologies. To understand underlying constraints we also assess education and literacy levels, and preferences and demand for using these technologies/solutions. Moreover, we look at participation in agricultural groups, which are often a main mode of information dissemination (Ainembabazi et al., 2017).https://www.prb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Nigeria-National-Youth-Policy-2019-2023.pdfBeyond reaching women and youth, Use Cases should aim to benefit women and youth. Such benefits could arise if the technology has effectively been adopted, or if the use of technology results in higher agricultural productivity, among other positive outcomes. In terms of benefit indicators used in this report, we explore risk behavior, to understand to which extent we may expect gender or generational differences in risk-aversion or risk-taking toward new technologies. We also analyze productivity levels by sex and age group of the plot contributors.Beyond reaching and benefiting women and youth, Use Cases can aim to help women and youth strengthen their agency or their ability to make life choices and put them into action, for example by participating in major decision-making processes in the household and beyond. We therefore rely on indicators related to inputs to decisions on different farming activities, control over income, and access to and decisions on credit and financial services.Often, changing individual mindsets is not enough and Use Cases must design and employ social innovations to foster transformative change or to change norms and systems on a larger scale. Achieving this change requires addressing structural and institutional barriers perpetuating gender and social biases. In terms of indicators, we measure the extent of attitudes in support of gender inequality by asking respondents to rate various statements that support gender (in)equality in different activities and decision-making levels using a five-point Likert scale. We also look at indicators of gender-based constraints as in market access and mobility.In this section, we first give more background on the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample households and respondents, and general food security status of the sample households. Then, we discuss women and youth's contribution to agriculture in the study site. Finally, we report the results with respect to the Reach-Benefit-Empower-Transform framework. We show results disaggregated by region where relevant, and especially when regional variation is meaningful and sizeable.On average, households in our sample have 9 members (Table 2). The average household size in Kano is the largest with 12 members, and smallest in Nasarawa with 7 members. Most households (97 percent) have both male and female adults, whereas 2 percent consist of male adults only, and 1 percent include female adults only. On average, the household head is 45 years old, and only 5 percent of household heads are youth. Most households (84 percent) include children below five years old, and 86 percent of these households include male or female youth. Nasarawa is different, however, with only 56 percent of households including youth.Given the nature of the study topic, all households in our sample are farm households. On average, a household cultivates 2.7 different parcels, and 2.9 hectares. Households in Nasarawa, however, cultivate fewer parcels (1.9) on a smaller area of land (2.4 hectares) compared to households in Kaduna and Kano. Households in Nasarawa are less likely to be poor (23 percent), as compared to households in Kano (57 percent) or Kaduna (50 percent). Almost all sample households in Kaduna and Kano planted maize and rice; most sample households in Nasawara planted rice and maize, but more households planted cassava (44 percent of households in Nasawara compared to 5 percent in Kaduna and 22 percent in Kano) (Table A3).The demographic characteristics of the study respondents are shown in Table 3 and Annex Table A1, Table A2. A total of 17 percent of the respondents are youth, with more female youth respondents than male youth respondents. Fifty-four percent of men and 67 percent of women are in monogamous relationships, whereas 42 percent of men and 28 percent of women are in polygamous relationships. More male respondents than female respondents have never married (4 percent and 1 percent, respectively), whereas fewer male than female respondents are widowed (0 percent and 3 percent, respectively). Male respondents are more educated than female respondents: 85 percent of the male respondents versus 76 percent of female respondents have received at least primary school education, and 89 percent of the male respondents versus 80 percent of female respondents are literate. Note: In the survey sampling, we asked a primary male and primary female decisionmaker within a household (usually husband and wife).Asterisks indicate significant differences between men and women or youth and non-youth respondents at ***: p < 0.001, **: p < 0.01, *: p < 0.05.Poverty and food insecurity are high among the study households. An estimated 41 percent of households are poor (based on the poverty probability index method; Table 2), whereas households in Nasarawa are relatively better off with 23 percent of households living below the National Poverty Line. Moreover, a large proportion of households experience moderate or severe food insecurity (Table 4). As shown in Figure 3 and Annex Figure A1, most households reported eating only a few kinds of food (77 percent) and being unable to eat healthy and nutritious food (73 percent) during the last 12 months. Households in Kaduna experience the most severe food insecurity as 90 percent of the households reported eating only a few kinds of foods and 85 percent of the households reported eating less than they thought they should. Households in Kano and Nasarawa are better off in terms of food security, but still, 64 percent of households in Kano reported being worried about not having enough food to eat and 58 percent of households in Nasarawa reported eating only a few kinds of foods and having to skip a meal during the last 12 months. Households were classified as \"Food secure\" if none of the 8 responses was \"Yes\". Households were classified as \"Mildly food insecure\" if any response to question 1) to 3) was \"Yes\" but none of the responses to question 4) to 8) was \"Yes\". Households were classified as \"Moderately to severely food insecure\" if any response to question 4) to 8) was \"Yes\". Both men and women work in agriculture in the study sites, though men are involved to a larger extent than women. We present the data collected on all household members by household (Table 5) and by all plots cultivated by each household (Table 6) 2 . Considering all household members, in 64 percent of households both male and female household members are actively involved in crop production, whereas in 35 percent of households only male household members are actively farming (Table 5). It is rare to find households in which only female (and no male) household members are involved in crop farming. Overall, 65 percent of households have female members actively involved in farming and 55 percent of plots have female members actively working on them (Table 5 and 6). Women have decision-making power on the farm in 50 percent of households and in 39 percent of plots. However, men are still considered the main decision-makers to farm work (in 84 percent of households and in 92 percent of plots). Youth members are also actively involved: 70 percent of households and 66 percent of plots have youth members actively involved in farming. Yet, youth are rarely considered the main decision maker if other non-youth household members are also involved in farming. Only 7 percent of plots are managed mainly by youth. Non-youth household members are considered the main decisionmaker in 91 percent of households and on 93 percent of plots. Among the full sample of households, however, we also have 2. Please note that this information is reported by the main respondent in the household (which is often the household head and often male).households without any youth members. If we further limit our sample to households who have at least one youth member, we find that only in 19 percent of these households youth do not participate in farm work but still in 68 percent of households youth do not participate in decision-making about farm work.There are stark difference across states, with substantially lower participation in farming and in decision making by women in Kano.In Kano, 75 percent of households reported only men involved, 94 percent of households reported only male decisionmakers and 97 percent of households reported men as main decisionmakers. In terms of youth participation, when considering all households (also those who have no youth members), the participation of youth in farming is very low in Kano and Nasarawa, in only around half of households. Yet, in Nasarawa this seems mainly due to a lower presence of youth in the sample households. In Kano we still find that in 40 percent of households with youth, no youth member participates in farm activities, and in 88 percent of households with youth, no youth member participates in decision-making regarding farm work. Notes: Based on survey questions asked at plot level: 'Please indicate which household members worked on plot in the last 12 months', 'When decisions are made regarding the agricultural management of plot, who is it that makes the decision?', 'Among those people, who would you say is the main decision-maker on plot?'. Questions pertaining to youth involvement are analyzed both for the full sample, as well as for the sample that includes youth members only (as indicated in brackets). Notes: Based on survey questions asked at plot level: 'Please indicate which household members worked on plot in the last 12 months', 'When decisions are made regarding the agricultural management of plot, who is it that makes the decision?', 'Among those people, who would you say is the main decision-maker on plot?' Questions pertaining to youth involvement are analyzed both for the full sample, as well as for the sample that includes youth members only (as indicated in brackets).Now we transition to understanding the participation in farming the main crops (maize, rice, or cassava) as reported separately by the female and male respondents (Table 7). We found that the self-reported participation of female or youth respondents is higher than Table 5 and 6 indicate, when the main survey respondent / household head was being interviewed. Based on these sex-disaggregated responses, 92 percent of women contribute to agricultural activities for the Use Case focal crops, and the level of involvement of women in farming is not significantly different with that of men. Similar findings hold when considering youth and non-youth. In Kano, female youth respondents have a lower level of involvement in the farming of the focal crops than male youth respondents, whereas in Nasarawa, women have a lower level of involvement in the farming of the focal crops than men, especially within non-youth respondents.  By crop type, women's participation in crop cultivation is lower than men's participation. Again, we find major differences across different regions, with women's participation in cultivating any of these crops being particularly low in Kano (at most 27 percent) and much higher in Kaduna (maximum 93 percent) and Nasarawa (maximum 94 percent). Women's participation is lowest when considering cultivation of sorghum (43 percent), though that is particularly driven by women's low participation in Kano (8 percent). In Kaduna, we find that women less often participate in cassava cultivation (32 percent) as compared to the other crops (between 78 and 93 percent). We summarize here the proportion of respondents receiving agricultural advice from various sources (Figure 4). Almost all male and female respondents (99 percent) report having access to agricultural advice or extension services in the past 12 months. However, much of this advice is obtained from relatives or other farmers (53 percent of male respondent and 67 percent of female respondents indicated this), and much less of this advice is from professional service providers such as government extension services, traders and input dealers, radio or social media (jointly, they reach only 71 percent of male respondent and 44 percent of female respondents). This demonstrates the importance of social network in the surveyed areas, but it also points at a paucity of professional extension services, especially for women.Overall, female youth seem most deprived of professional extension advice, and rely to the largest extent on relatives for advice (68 percent) as compared to any other respondents (Figure 5). As they get older, though, women (female non-youth) do get more advice from government extension services, private extension services or traders. Male non-youth are more likely to receive information from the government, but no other clear difference exists between male youth and non-youth in terms of their access to agricultural advice by source. Note however that the access to agricultural advice through digital apps is currently non-existent (0 percent for both women and men).  There is a stark difference across states (see Annex Figure A2). In Kaduna, access to government extension is very low, with only 3 percent men and 2 percent women reporting it. The main formal sources of agricultural advice for men are radio program (23 percent reporting) and private sector (22 percent reporting). For women, the main sources are private sector (13 percent reporting), and then radio (6 percent reporting).In Kano, the access to government extension is much greater than Kaduna but still few households reported it as the main source of agricultural information, with only 23 percent of men and 9 percent of women reporting. The main source of agricultural information is radio program, with 44 percent of women and 53 percent of men reporting. For women, the second main formal source is private sector (24 percent), and then government extension (9 percent). For men, the second main formal source is private sector (20 percent) and then government extension (23 percent). Very few get advice from government extension.In Nasarawa, the access to government extension is much better than in the other 2 states, with 32 percent of men and 29 percent of women reporting. For men, the main formal source of agricultural information is TV program for men (53 percent reporting), second is government extension (32 percent), private sector (32 percent), and traders (23 percent). For women, government extension, private sector, trader and TV program (with about a quarter of women reporting each of these sources). There is almost no report of radio programs for agricultural advice. There is more usage of social media for receiving information, with 6 percent of men and 2 percent of women reporting in Nasarawa, than in the other two states.When focusing specifically on digital tools, it is important to bear in mind that not all villages yet have access to a mobile phone or internet network. In particular, 2 of the 90 villages in our study, both located in Kano State, do not have consistent access to a mobile phone network (i.e. more than a quarter respondents reported no access). Two other villages, one in Kano and one in Nasarawa, do not have access to internet, as reported by at least a quarter respondents in each village. Women are less likely than men to report owning and using digital technologies (Figure 6). Overall, 61 percent of female respondents versus 78 percent of male respondents own a phone -mainly a cell phone (resp. 53 and 62 percent) and less so a smart phone (resp. 17 and 27 percent). Usage rates are higher (67 percent for women and 84 percent for men), but still not universal. The difference between digital technology ownership and usage is significant for both men and women. In total, 77 percent of men own either a smartphone or a cell phone, whereas 62 percent of women do. In terms of usage, 84 percent of men and 68 percent of women used either a smartphone or a cell phone in the past 12 months. Youth are more likely to own and use smartphones whereas non-youth are more likely to own and use cell phones (Figure 7). Overall, youth and non-youth are not different in terms of digital technology ownership and usage, when 70 percent of youth and 71 percent of non-youth own either a smartphone or a cell phone, and 76 percent of youth and 77 percent of non-youth used one. Smartphone ownership and use are lowest for older women, and cell phone ownership and use are lowest for younger women.  Overall, roughly 40 percent have not or barely received training on agriculture (Figure 8). More respondents in Kaduna and male youth in Nasawara reported not or barely receiving training (Figure 9). While we do not see gender and youth status differences in being prevented from receiving trainings, we see strong gender differences in needing permission to receive training, with more female youth and female non-youth needing permission to receive training than men (Figure 10). Non-youth men are the least likely to be prevented, but if so, this is mainly due to high costs of transportation, lack of time and bad weather conditions. Nonyouth men are also least likely to need permission, only 21 percent of all the non-youth men, but if so, 93 percent of those reports needing permission from spouse. In terms of group membership, around one third of respondents are members of any group or association. Women are less likely to be part of a group than men, especially young women (Figure 11). Non-youth are more likely to be part of a group than youth (32 percent versus 23 percent). Male youth are the most likely to be part of a group, whereas female youth are the least likely. We see similar patterns when focusing on just agriculture-related groups: men are more likely to be part of agricultural groups than women and female youth are the least likely to be part of agricultural groups.As seen previously in Figures 4 and 5, farmer groups are main sources of agricultural advice for only 3-7 percent of female and male respondents.There are differences by state concerning group membership. Group membership is very low, especially in Kaduna and Kano. A gender gap exists in Kano, with only 13 percent of female respondents and 35 percent of male respondents being part of a group or association.Study Report: Sasakawa Africa Association Nigeria Use Case Figure 12 shows the preference for certain farm inputs, tools, or management practices. Almost all respondents like using the inputs, tools or practices tracked (quality seeds, inorganic fertilizer, farmyard manure, kitchen compost, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and water pumps). We see quite a bit more respondents reporting dislike on water pump (roughly a quarter of female youth, male youth, and female non-youth reporting dislike) and kitchen compost (5-9 percent of female youth, male youth, and female non-youth reporting dislike). We summarize here indications of risk aversion or risk-taking behavior, an indication of willingness to innovate and try out new practices or technologies, and land productivity. Figure 13 shows the results on risk aversion and risk taking based on female and male respondents' response on the question \"Are you willing to take some risks on your farm?\". Roughly 10 percent reported not willing to take risks, and about a quarter would like to take risks; and the large majority is willing to accept some risks. There is difference by state. Overall, respondents from Kaduna are most willing to take risks and respondents in Kano generally do not like to take risks. Among the gender and age groups, male youth in Kano are most likely to be willing to take risks.Survey question asked: \"Are you willing to take some risks on your farm?\"In terms of land productivity, we calculated the value of production in Nigeria Naira, NGN, per hectare, at the household level (Table 9). Overall, households with women's involvement in farming have higher productivity than those without. Moreover, households with youth involvement in farming also have higher productivity than those without, but the households with youth involvement only (no non-youth participating in farming) have lower productivity. This may be related to the household composition and availability of labor: households where women and youth are involved in farming may spend more family labor on their plots, thus resulting in a higher productivity.We also found regional differences. When looking at both mean and median, we only see clear association between women's involvement and productivity in Kaduna; and between youth's involvement and productivity in Kano. Further in-depth analysis is needed to understand what drives these associations. We summarize here indicators on inputs on decision-making on farming, control over income, and access to and decisions over credit and financial services.We see major gender gaps in making farming decisions and use of income on the Use Case focal crops (Tables 9-10 show two different questions of asking about inputs to farming decisions). Women have a lower degree of decision-making power in all aspects of farming than men. Women make decisions jointly with others whereas men can make decisions on their own. This finding is consistent with Tables 4 and 5, which show that men are considered the main decision-makers in 84 percent of households and 92 percent of plots.In Table 10, we see that most male respondents normally make the farming decisions solely, while the majority of female respondents normally make the farming decisions jointly. Only 9-11 percent of female respondents reported making farming decisions solely; and about a quarter do not make decisions on any farming activities. Similarly, in the use of income from farming, 56 percent of male respondents normally make the sole decision and 42 percent make joint decisions; while only 16 percent of female respondents normally make sole decisions, 64 percent make joint decisions, and 20 percent do not normally make decisions on the use of income. We see significantly less input made into farming decisions and control over income by women in Kano. As seen in Table 11, across all farming activities tracked, almost all male respondents reported contributing to \"most\" decisions, while only a third of female respondents reported contributing \"most\" decisions and two-thirds contributed to \"some\" decisions. About 2-6 percent of female respondents make no contributions on farming decisions. We see even significantly less input into farming decisions and control over income by women in Kano. In terms of access to and decisions on financial services, 60 percent of households can borrow if they want to (no credit constraint), and around 52 percent of households did borrow in the last 12 months (Table 12).Access to and control over financial resources are generally low, especially in Kano and Nasarawa. In Nasawara, both men and women feel that they could not borrow if they wanted to (they reported highest credit constraint than other states). Inn Kano, women reported more credit constraint and lower control over credit than men. A gender gap exists in Kano, with only 27 percent of female respondents and 48 percent of male respondents feeling like they have adequate access to and decisions on financial services (similar to the subdomain in the abbreviated Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index, AWEAI).There is a gender gap in decisions over financial services, with women having less decision-making power compared to men in terms of borrowing (76 percent versus 97 percent), usage of money borrowed (74 percent versus 97 percent), and being less likely to have a financial account (41 percent versus 55 percent). Note: 1 We combined those who answered either \"Yes\" or \"Maybe\"; 2 Abbreviated Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (AWEAI)indicator is considered adequate when the respondent 1) belongs to a household that used a source of credit in the past year and participated in at least one sole or joint decision about it, or 2) belongs to a household that did not use credit in the past year but could have if wanted to.We explore respondents' attitudes towards gender equality by analyzing the answers to whether they agree or disagree with a series of gender equality statements, shown in Table 13. The statements were in two sets of ten statements: on set was framed in a positive way (supporting gender equality), and another set contained these statements framed in a negative way (supporting gender inequality). Respondents were randomly assigned to only one of these sets of statements. However, for ease of reporting, we will focus here on the responses to statements supporting gender equality, and the answers of those reporting to the inequality statements are adjusted to reflect the analogous answer in the equality framing -thus allowing us to analyze data from all respondents and interpret it consistently according to the equality framing. More details on the gender inequality statements are shown in Annex Table A4.We find persistently strong attitudes supporting gender inequality in farming, livelihoods, and household chores. A total of 31 percent of men and 27 percent of women disagreed with the statement \"It is ok for women to be primarily the ones who cultivate crops\". A total of 59 percent of men and 55 percent of women disagreed with the statement \"It is ok for women to be the primary earners for their families\" A total of 18 percent of men and 15 percent of women disagreed with the statement \"It is equally important to improve productivity on women's plots as it is on men's plots\" . A total of 15 percent of men and 10 percent of women disagreed with the statement \"Husbands should help wives with household chores, like cooking and taking care of children\". Overall, female respondents disagreed with 1.47 number of statements out of 10 supporting gender equality, while male respondents disagreed with 1.91 number of statements supporting gender equality.We find great variation across statements and that a sizeable share of respondents do not agree with some of the statements in favor of gender equality. There are persistent attitudes supporting men as the main farmers and primary income earners (31 percent of men and 27 percent of women, 59 percent of men and 55 percent of women, respectively). Male and female respondents hold different attitudes in most statements, where women are more likely to be in favor of gender equality, especially in aspects like using ICT devices (79 percent of men and 91 percent of women), engaging in marketing activities (83 percent of men and 90 percent of women), and responsibility of household chores (72 percent of men and 81 percent of women). However, they share the same attitudes in support of men's role as main farmers and primary income earners for the household. Note: Disagree includes both respondents who indicate disagree or strongly disagree. The table does not show respondents, who are a few, who answered \"Neutral\" for each statement. Asterisks indicate significant differences between male and female respondents at ***: p < 0.001, **: p < 0.01, *: p < 0.05.There are significant differences across states in terms of attitudes, with one state showing more gender unequal attitudes in some statements while another state showing more gender unequal attitudes on other statements (Table 14). Women and men in Kaduna are more likely to support women to interact with male extension agents, receive trainings, engage in marketing activities, and being owners and managers of non-farm businesses. In summary, people in Kaduna are more open with women interacting with people outside the household. In contrast, respondents in Kano, especially men, are least likely to support the abovementioned activities for women. Respondents in Kano are more likely to support women to be the primary farmers, income earners, and transfer more responsibilities of household chores to men, though the overall rates are still low. Interestingly, we see the responses of male youth supporting gender equality more (they disagreed with fewer statements supporting gender equality) (Tables 15-16).  Note: Gender attitudes supporting inequality means that the respondents answered \"Disagree\" or \"Strongly disagree\". • In at least 65 percent of households, female household members actively participate in farming.• In at least 70 percent of households, youth members actively participate in farming.• Men are considered the main decision-maker to farm work on 92 percent of all plots, and non-youth members are considered the main decision maker on 93 percent of all plots.• More than 90 percent of female and youth respondents contribute to agricultural activities for the Use Case focal crops (maize, rice, cassava), and the level of involvement of women and youth in farming is not significantly different with that of men or of their older counterparts.• • Women are more disadvantaged in their access to schooling as 24 percent of female respondents did not receive any schooling compared to 15 percent of male respondents.• Youth have received more schooling, but still 9 percent of all youth respondents did not receive any schooling. • Only 13 percent of male respondents and 9 percent of female respondents received government extension services.Weakest access in Kaduna.• Private sector, particularly agrodealers, are also a source of agricultural advice by 22 percent of male respondents and 17 of female respondents, however, female youth reported the least access to these channels.• TV programs were more common in Nasawara and radio programs were more common source of information in Kaduna and Kano.• More respondents in Kaduna and male youth in Nasawara reported not or barely receiving training. • 62 percent of female respondents versus 77 percent of male respondents own a phone. Ownership of smartphones is relatively low 17 percent of female respondents and 27 percent of male respondents.• Over half respondents who used such devices have never used social media: 61 percent of female respondents and 54 percent of male respondents never used social media.• 70 percent of youth respondents versus 71 percent of non-youth respondents own a phone. These are mainly regular cell phones. Ownership of smartphones is low: 29 percent of youth respondents and 21 percent of non-youth respondents.• Over half respondents who used such devices have never used social media: 53 percent of youth respondents and 57 percent of non-youth respondents never used social media.• Technology literacy and reading literacy, for both men and women and for both age groups, present another major obstacle. • Women rarely are the sole decision-maker on input usage and agronomic practices (10 percent of female respondents), but often make decisions on input usage jointly with others in the household (60 percent). Men, however, more often consider themselves as the sole decision maker on input usage and agronomic practices (61 percent).• Differences regarding financial decision-making are relatively small between youth and nonyouth, but are significantly large between men and women (61 percent versus 54 percent).• 41 percent of women versus 55 percent of men have bank accounts.    Women should be encouraged and supported as farmers. Women should not be encouraged and supported as farmers.5It is equally important to improve productivity on women's plots as it is on men's plots.It is more important to improve productivity on men's plots as compared to women's plots.It is ok for women to be primarily the ones who cultivate maize, rice, and/or cassava.Men should primarily be the ones who cultivate maize, rice, and/or cassava.It is ok for women to engage in agricultural marketing activities/trade at the market.Women should not engage in agricultural marketing activities/trade at the market.It is ok for women to be the primary income earners for their families.Men should be the primary income earners for their families. 9Women should be encouraged to be owners and managers of non-farm businesses.Women should not be encouraged to be owners and managers of non-farm businesses.10 Husbands should help wives with household chores, like cooking and taking care of children.Husbands don't need to help wives with household chores, like cooking and taking care of children. Note: Gender attitudes supporting inequality means that the respondents answered \"Disagree\" or \"Strongly disagree\". Note: Graph does not show sources of advice used by less than 5 percent of respondents: traders, television, social media, and agricultural apps. The details and full names about the primary sources of extensions are: 1) Formal sources: government, private sector, traders, farmer association, radio, TV, social media, and agricultural apps, 2) Informal sources: relatives and other farmers, 3) Government: government extension agent, 4) Private sector: private sector extension agent (e.g., input company), 5) Traders: traders, input dealers, etc., 6) Farmer association: farmer association/cooperative, 7) Relatives: relatives, family, 8) Other farmers: other farmers (not already captured), 9) Radio: radio, 10) TV: TV, 11) Social media: Facebook, Viber, WeChat, etc., 12) Agricultural apps: agricultural or weather app, 13) None: Nothing, I did not get information related to agricultural production, marketing, or weather. "}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"eaf3ccf4828e3a88f839cafbc1f9a487","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1129ff1e-ed2a-47d7-b013-6b32c323629e/retrieve","id":"931844968"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"81dabbc5-8ae8-4fbd-9c52-26c3c3abd7f9","content":"La tunta y el chuño son dos derivados que se produce principalmente en el altiplano peruano, en Puno, por encima de 4,000 msnm, donde prospera una producción comercial dirigida al mercado peruano y boliviano. Existen sin embargo limitantes tecnológicas que repercuten en la calidad del producto final, evitando su expansión comercial. En este marco, el Centro Internacional de la Papa, bajo la Iniciativa Papa Andina y el Proyecto Innovación y Competitividad de la Papa Peruana (INCOPA), viene impulsando desde el 2005 el trabajo en plataforma. Una de estas actividades se refiere a la innovación tecnológica, con el objetivo de mejorar la calidad comercial de la tunta y consecuentemente mejorar también el ingreso económico de los productores.La innovación tecnológica se desarrolló en el periodo 2005-2009, usando métodos participativos; los resultados fueron: la formulación de las Buenas Prácticas de Procesamiento (BPP) de la Tunta. La amplia difusión de las BPP y la evolución productiva y comercial de la tunta, se concreta con un incremento del ingreso de orden del 47 % para los productores grupo objetivo.Chuño blanco, innovación, buenas prácticas de procesamiento, métodos participativos, capacitación horizontal.Aceptado para publicación: Junio 29, 2011. Processing Tunta (GPPT)\" document, diffusion of the GPPT and the production and commercial evolution of the \"tunta\", with an income increase of 47% for the target's group producers.Additional key words: \"Chuño blanco\", innovation, good processing practices, participative methods, horizontal training.La técnica milenaria de transformación de la papa mediante la cual hombres y mujeres han contribuido con la generación de varios derivados con fines alimenticios y posiblemente también curativos. Estas tecnologías de procesamiento aun se mantienen vigentes a lo largo de la zona Andina, en las regiones quechua, jalca o puna, por encima de los 3,500 msnm. Los más conocidos actualmente son: la papa seca, el chuño (chuño negro), la tunta (chuño blanco), el kachu chuño y el tocosh. Cada una tiene un proceso especial de elaboración y también características particulares (Yamamoto, 1998).La tunta, motivo del presente trabajo, se elabora principalmente en la puna, bajo condiciones naturales del clima altiplánico, durante la época seca, cuando la temperatura ambiental está por debajo de 0° C. En esta época suceden las heladas, a la vez diariamente ocurre una alta radiación solar. El proceso consiste en el congelamiento de los tubérculos de papa y en el remojo de las papas en agua corriente (ríos ó lagunillas) por aproximadamente un mes. El proceso es seguido por el pelado manual y el secado hasta obtener tubérculos deshidratados (14 % de humedad), de color blanco, forma alagada ó redonda y de olor característico. Se trata de un alimento rico en calorías, con alta concentración de almidón y minerales como el calcio y el hierro (Gianella, 2004). Constituye un componente importante en la dieta de los pobladores rurales y urbanos de la región sur de Perú, y también del vecino país de Bolivia; a la vez es una fuente de ingresos importante para la familia rural, con la cual generalmente solventan los gastos de alimentación, educación y salud.La tunta confiere un valor agregado principalmente a las papas nativas de tipo amargo (Solanum juzepczukii y S. curtilobum), resistentes a climas muy fríos. Estas variedades tienen alto contenido de glicoalcaloides 4 , que son eliminadas precisamente en el proceso de elaboración de la tunta, durante el remojo de los tubérculos en agua corriente (Yamamamoto, 1988). También se emplean variedades libres de glicoalcaloides (de tipo dulce), entre nativas y mejoradas (Solanum tuberosum); las variedades mejoradas tienen un fin básicamente comercial.Si bien es cierto, no se cuenta con estadísticas agrícolas oficiales sobre la tunta, se estima por algunos estudios que, la Región Puno concentra el 70% de la producción nacional. En la Región Puno se destaca la Provincia de El Collao, particularmente el Distrito de Ilave por su producción comercial. Le siguen en importancia Yunguyo, Lampa, Azángaro y San Román (Guiet y Lacour, 2003;López, 2003;Mi Chacra, 2006). Otras zonas productoras se hallan en las Regiones de Cusco, Junín y Ancash. Se estima que El Collao tiene una producción anual de 6,000 t anuales aproximadamente y alrededor de cinco mil productores.La mayoría de los productores son del tipo pequeño (68%), que en promedio producen 0.8 t/año de tunta, principalmente con variedades locales (nativas procedentes de su propia cosecha). Los productores de tipo mediano representan el 20% y producen entre 1 a 5 t/año, con variedades locales y adquiridas en otras regiones. Los productores grandes son solo el 12% del total de productores y producen más de 5 t/año principalmente con variedades de otras regiones. Destinan al mercado más del 50% de su producción (Plataforma Puno, 2007) .La tunta se comercializa principalmente en Puno, Arequipa y Cusco. Estos mercados en su mayor parte son informales y la tunta presenta aún serias restricciones de calidad como el color plomizo, manchas amarillentas ó marrones, con restos de cáscara y olor poco agradable. (Guiet y Lacour, 2003;Plataforma Puno, 2005;Mi Chacra, 2006). Dichas características constituyen serias limitaciones para su expansión a un público más amplio. Se ha estimado que la tunta, hasta el 2006, era vendida ligeramente por debajo de su costo de producción, en desmedro del ingreso económico de los productores (Plataforma Puno, 2006). Dentro de este contexto el Proyecto Incopa, desde el año 2005, viene impulsando en Puno la plataforma de trabajo: \"Alianza Institucional para el Desarrollo Competitivo de la Tunta\" (Plataforma Puno) y a través del cual apoya las actividades de innovación tecnológica, comercial e institucional. La Plataforma esta integrada por instituciones públicas y privadas ligadas al desarrollo agrícola de Puno, teniendo como coordinador a la Dirección Regional Agraria -Puno. Tiene como objetivo contribuir al alivio de la pobreza de los pequeños productores de tunta del Distrito de Ilave; para lo cual han establecido tres líneas de acción: (i) La innovación tecnológica, (ii) el fortalecimiento organizacional de productores, y (iii) la articulación al mercado.El presente artículo en tal sentido muestra los avances logrados con respecto a la innovación tecnológica, durante el periodo 2005 -2009. Se parte de un estudio de diagnóstico, seguido por la formulación de las BPP de la tunta, que se difunden en doce comunidades de Ilave. Se resalta la contribución de las BPP en la mejora de la calidad de la tunta, como también en la mejora de la autoestima y de los ingresos económicos de los pequeños productores.La innovación tecnológica en el procesamiento de la tunta, se desarrolló en el periodo 2005-2009, bajo un proceso participativo de alta interacción entre técnicos y productores. El ámbito de intervención se ubica al Sur de Puno, en el distrito de Ilave, Provincia de El Collao, el cual comprende seis comunidades campesinas: Concahui, Chijichalla, Cutimbo, Jarani, Jallamilla, QuelicaniEstas comunidades se hallan distribuidas en las micro cuencas de los ríos Ilave, Huenque y Camillaque. (Figura 1).Se contempló la ejecución de cuatro actividades: el estudio de diagnóstico, el piloto de procesamiento, la capacitación horizontal, y el monitoreo. Dichas actividades estuvieron a cargo del \"Comité de Tecnología\", órgano operativo de la Plataforma Puno, el cual está integrado por tres técnicos y por once productores líderes de las organizaciones vinculadas a la Plataforma.Estudio de diagnóstico participativo del procesamiento de tunta. El estudio tuvo como objetivo conocer el proceso productivo de la tunta, y dentro de cada fase identificar los \"cuellos de botella\" (puntos críticos) que afectan su calidad y sanidad del producto final. El Comité de Tecnología, en mayo del 2005 se organizó para realizar entrevistas a una muestra al azar de 60 productores de tunta, en su mayoría de tipo pequeño (80%), dentro del ámbito de intervención; las entrevistas fueron de tipo semiestructurado, con peguntas cerradas (de respuesta única) y abiertas (de respuesta múltiple). Asimismo organizaron reuniones grupales con los productores en las zonas o ambientes donde se elabora la tunta (chuñahuis¨), a fin de captar de forma objetiva las diferentes labores del procesamiento.Piloto participativo de procesamiento. Con el objetivo de formular las \"Buenas Prácticas de Procesamiento (BPP)\" de la tunta, en julio del 2005, el Comité Técnico estableció un ensayo piloto en la comunidad de Concahui, el cual tuvo la activa participación de 20 productores de la comunidad y once productores líderes del ámbito de intervención. Se usó un módulo básico (Tabla 1), en el cual destaca el alto volumen de la materia prima: 700 kg de papa de la variedad Locka, a fin de obtener aproximadamente 100 kg de tunta (índice de conversión es de 7:1).En el ensayo piloto se aplicaron las correcciones básicas a los puntos críticos que fueron identificados durante el diagnóstico. Estas correcciones constituyeron la base para la formulación de las BPP, considerando que son un conjunto de principios y recomendaciones técnicas aplicables durante las fases de procesamiento, para ofrecer al mercado productos de buena calidad e inocuidad.Capacitación Horizontal. Con el objetivo de difundir las BPP de tunta en las comunidades de Ilave, el \"Comité de Tecnología\" diseñó una estrategia de capacitación (Figura 2), basada en el método de ¨productor a productor¨. El método se inició en el 2006, con la formación de once \"Promotores aymaras\" (productores líderes que forman parte del Comité técnico). La capacitación tuvo un contenido teórico-práctico en Tabla 1. Módulo básico de las Buenas Prácticas de Procesamiento de tuntaPara el personal• Papa fresca (700 kg)• Paja ó ichu • 04 Palos de madera de 2m. de largo y 0.10 cm. de diámetro • Mallas de pescar (10 kg) • Mantas de yute ó polipropileno • Tinas de plástico • Hipoclorito de sodio 250 mltemas básicos sobre manejo de alimentos -riesgos de contaminación, y la ejecución de las BPP. Las capacitaciones se ejecutaron en un primer año en el ámbito de intervención, y los años siguientes 2007 y 2009, se amplió de forma progresiva a otras comunidades vecinas. Se emplearon materiales de capacitación como las ¨Guías de las BPP de tunta¨ (Fonseca et al., 2008), para uso personal de los capacitados y también los carteles, para uso de los promotores. En la mayoría de las capacitaciones acompañaron los especialistas del Comité.Promotor AymaraComité TécnicoSeguimiento y monitoreo. Con el objetivo de conocer el estado de avance de la aplicación de las BPP de tunta el Comité en los años 2006 al 2010, tomó contacto con el 25% de productores capacitados,.En el ultimo año se eligieron diez productores para recabar sus testimonios sobre los efectos de las BPP en la calidad de la tunta, y sobre los cambios socioeconómicos experimentados en su familia. También levantaron información sobre el volumen de producción de tunta del grupo objetivo, en el periodo 2006 -2010.El diagnóstico del proceso de elaboración de la tunta, como punto de partida del presente estudio, permitió identificar los puntos críticos en cada una de las fases del procesamiento de la tunta;. Luego un ensayo piloto contribuyó a la formulación de las BPP de la tunta, el cual constituye una herramienta innovadora que alcanza lineamientos para la obtención de tunta de buena calidad e inocuidad. Finalmente se procedió a una amplia difusión de las BPP mediante una capacitación horizontal, de productor a productor. Los productores adoptaron las BPP de tunta, y con ello incrementaron, año tras año, el volumen de producción de tunta de buena calidad, y consecuentemente mejoraron su economía familiar.Estudio de diagnóstico del procesamiento de la tunta. Por lo general los productores de papa en Ilave destinan aproximadamente el 50% de su cosecha a la elaboración de tunta., el cual se lleva a cabo entre junio y julio. Durante la estación seca que trae consigo temperaturas bajo cero y alta radicación solar; pero un grupo de productores (30%) continúa elaborando tunta hasta el mes de agosto, en función a la caída de \"heladas\" y a la disponibilidad de papa. En el primer periodo, la mayoría de los productores (70%) suelen emplear como materia prima los tubérculos de las variedades de papa nativa, procedentes de sus cosechas; destacan las variedades Locka y Yana imilla. Mientras que en julio y agosto emplean exclusivamente la variedad mejorada Chaska, ésta variedad fue adquirida básicamente de Andahuaylas (Región Apurímac). En el procesamiento de la tunta destaca el uso de implementos locales, como: paja, piedras, y mantas de lana; pero también emplean implementos externos, como: los envases de polipropileno, plásticos y mallas de pescar.Se identificaron ocho fases par el procesamiento de la tunta, en un periodo de 40 a 50 días. En dichas fases se expresa el saber local, basado en los conocimientos y la experiencia de los productores que son transmitidos de una generación a otra. Estos saberes se expresan en aspectos claves ligados al clima, como es la precisión por identificar el inicio del periodo de la \"caída de heladas\" (cielo totalmente despejado en el día, y estrellado por la noche por más de tres días). Esto es el comienzo del proceso de elaboración de la tunta; también al manejo de los tubérculos, como es el cuidado de los tubérculos durante la fase del congelado, cuidando que los tubérculos no reciban los rayos del sol, para lo cual cubren con mantas gruesas durante la madrugada, de lo contrario se tornarán negras (como el chuño).También resalta la precisión en determinar los puntos claves del proceso, usando prácticas sencillas basada en los sentidos de la vista, oído, olfato y tacto, dependiendo del caso. Así, el punto de congelado se determina chocando dos tubérculos entre sí, éstos deben emular el sonido de dos piedras. El punto de remojo se determina presionando los tubérculos, éstos deben notarse blandos y descascararse fácilmente, a la vez su olor debe ser menos intenso que al inicio. El punto de secado se determina con la pulsación de un puñado de tunta, día a día, evaluando el peso, también frotándolos entre si hasta que desprenda un polvo a manera de harina.El procesamiento de la tunta se inicia con una selección ligera de los tubérculos de papa recién cosechada, descartando los tubérculos con daño del gorgojo de los andes (Prenotripes spp.) con niveles altos a severos (más del 50% del tubérculo presenta galerías causadas por la larvas). Luego proceden al congelamiento, por 5 a 8 días, para lo cual extienden los tubérculos al aire libre durante la noche, sobre un piso ligero de paja, y lo recogen al día siguiente muy temprano, cubriéndolo con mantas de lana ó plástico para protegerlo del sol y no se negree. Una vez congelada la papa, la sumergen generalmente en el río, durante 15 a 20 días para después realizar el descascarado y el enjuague; de inmediato procede el secado, para lo cual extienden la tunta sobre una delgada capa de paja, durante 5 a 8 días, bajo una fuerte intensidad solar. Culminan el procesamiento con el pelado final, la selección y el envasado de la tunta, para luego transportarla a los almacenes acondicionados dentro de sus casas (Figura 3). Figura 3. Fases del proceso de elaboración de la tunta en el altiplano peruano En cada una de las ocho fases se hallaron cuellos de botella o puntos críticos, que constituyen potenciales riesgos de contaminación del producto, por agentes físicos y biológicos, que afectan la calidad del producto final. Los detalles de las nueve fases de procesamiento y los puntos críticos se muestran en la Tabla 2.El piloto de procesamiento. La interacción entre técnicos y productores durante la ejecución del piloto de procesamiento contribuyó significativamente en la formulación de las BPP de tunta; para ello en cada una de las fases del procesamiento se hicieron las correcciones a los puntos críticos, de forma conjunta integrando los conocimientos de los productores y las recomendaciones de los técnicos.Las BPP comprenden desde una adecuada selección de los tubérculos de papa, hasta la aplicación de condiciones favorables para el almacenamiento de la tunta. Se recomienda el uso de implementos apropiados para el procesamiento (paja, mallas de pescar, madera, etc.) y para el personal operativo (botas, guantes, tapa boca, etc.). Se enfatiza en la higiene de todos los implementos. En algunos de los implementos se recomienda su desinfección con hipoclorito de sodio. También se recomienda la aplicación de periodos de tiempo apropiados en las fases de remojo y de secado. Los detalles se describen en la Tabla 3.Las BPP de tunta constituyen una herramienta que integra prácticas sencillas en cada una de las fases de procesamiento, garantizando con ello la calidad, la limpieza e inocuidad del producto final. Al respecto cabe resaltar que las BPP han sido plasmadas en dos publicaciones: la Guía de Capacitación, dirigida a técnicos y productores (Fonseca et al., 2008), y la Norma Técnica Peruana de la Tunta: NTP: 011.401:2009, que regula la tecnología de procesamiento de la tunta (Indecopi, 2010), un aporte de incidencia pública, que concede ventajas para su inserción en un mercado competitivo.La capacitación horizontal. La participación activa de once \"Promotores campesinos\" con amplia experiencia en la producción de tunta y con conocimientos técnicos reforzados,Características Punto crítico (Diagnóstico) 1. Selección de tubérculos La mayoría de los productores (80%) extienden los tubérculos de papa directamente al suelo; al seleccionar descartan solamente los tubérculos con daños altos y severos del gorgojo de los andes.Tubérculos en contacto con restos orgánicos, plásticos, vidrios, etc. Deficiente selección, no descartan los. tubérculos afectados con roña (Rhizoctonia solani).Para el congelado, el 60% de productores extienden los tubérculos directamente sobre el suelo, unos pocos extienden sobre una capa de paja (30%) y muy pocos usan mallas de pescar (10 %).Los tubérculos tienen riesgos de entrar en contacto con restos orgánicos, plásticos, vidrios, etc.El remojan de los tubérculos congelados es en el río durante 20 días; el 70% usa pozas a base de piedras y paja, unos pocos usan costales (25%), y muy rara vez usan pozas con mallas de pescar y palos (5%). Generalmente el periodo de inmersión es de 15 a 20 días.Falta de aireación en las pozas a base de piedra y paja y el periodo de inmersión es corto, lo cual no permite una buena lixiviación y afecta la calidad de la tunta: tunta con manchas amarillentas y un olor fuerte.La mayoría de los productores extienden la tunta sobre una delgada capa de paja, por una noche para su oreado Los tubérculos tienen riesgos de entrar en contacto con restos orgánicos, plásticos, vidrios, etc.Para el descascarado colocan un montículo de tunta en mallas de pescar y proceden a su fricción con los pies; el 50% de productores usa sandalias de jebe y el otro 50% usa botas de jebe de uso diario. Realizan 3 enjuagues ligeros en el río. Riesgos de contaminación de la tunta por el contacto con los pies, que por lo general se dañan por la frecuente fricción de los tubérculos. El enjuague con el agua de río no contribuye a lograr la inocuidad de la tunta.Generalmente los productores extienden la tunta descascarada sobre una delgada capa de paja, para aprovechar la alta insolación y obtener un producto seco durante 3 a 5 días.La tunta corre el riesgo de entrar en contacto con restos orgánicos, plásticos, vidrios, etc. Además falta completar el secado. Todo ello afecta su calidad.Generalmente el pelado es ligero: Friccionan la tunta en montículos, con las manos; luego ventean durante la tarde. Muy pocos (10%) practican el zarandeo, colocando la tunta en mallas de pescar, balanceando con fuerza por una pareja de hombres.El pelado es deficiente, la tunta presenta restos de cáscara, que influyen en la calidad. El venteo ocasiona abundante polvo que afecta la salud de los operarios.Generalmente la selección es simple, por tamaño; descartan solo la tunta que presenta manchas marrones y las que están partidas.Selección ligera, baja calidad de la tunta; pesenta manchas amarillas, y de color marrón por las marcas de daño de plagas, y también restos de cáscara. 9. Almacenamiento Los almacenes son ambientes adaptados dentro de la vivienda, generalmente en una sala para diversos usos. Los sacos son colocados directamente sobre el piso.Almacenes son poco apropiados, falta de limpieza de las paredes y techo. Riesgos de daño por roedores y la humedad del suelo afecta la calidad.Tabla 3. Conjunto de buenas prácticas de procesamiento de tunta formuladas en el ensayo piloto, Ilave, Puno, 2005Buenas Prácticas de ProcesamientoExtender los tubérculos sobre mantas de yute o plásticas para su selección, según tamaño y daños de plagas. Excluir los tubérculos afectados por plagas y enfermedades, de grado medio a severo.Extender los tubérculos en un sobre piso a base de una capa gruesa de paja, y de malla de pescar, previamente lavadas; recoger los tubérculos durante el día y cubrirlos con mantas de yute para evitar su negreamiento.Adecuar una poza a base de palos y mallas de pescar, a 1 m. de la orilla del río, depositar la papa congelada, remover los tubérculos cada tres días. El periodo es de 20 a 25 días según la variedad de papa. La poza permite un buen fluido del agua y reduce el nivel de fermentación. Los operarios deben vestir ropa limpia y apropiada, y botas de jebe.Extender la tunta en un sobre piso a base de una capa gruesa de paja, y de malla de pescar, previamente lavadas y desinfectadas con hipoclorito de sodio 10 ppm.Colocar los tubérculos en una manta de malla, usar botas limpias y desinfectadas para el descascarado, enjuagar los tubérculos tres veces, y en el enjuague final adicionar hipoclorito de sodio (100 ppm) para su desinfección. Los operarios deben vestir ropa limpia apropiada y botas de jebe desinfectadas.Extender la tunta en un sobre piso de paja y malla, evitando el contacto directo con el suelo. El periodo de secado varía de 5 a 7 días, según el tamaño de la tunta. Los operarios deben usar guantes y ropa limpia.En una manta de malla colocar aproximadamente 10 kg de la tunta, balancearla de un lado a otro cogiendo de los extremos, para provocar la fricción entre las tuntas y su consecuente pelado. Protegerse la boca y la nariz con una venda, y usar guantes.Extender la tunta en una malla ó plástico desinfectado y proceder a la selección.Excluir la tunta que presenta manchas, sean amarillentas, pardas o negras, también las partidas, las que tienen resto de cáscara y las que muestran galerías por el daño de plagas. Los operarios deben usar guantes y ropa limpia.El almacén debe ser exclusivo para guardar la tunta ó productos secos, mantener las paredes el piso y el techo limpio. Usar tarimas con 10 cm. de altura sobre el piso, para colocar los sacos de tunta.así como el uso del idioma nativo aymara y la jerga local, permitió una amplia difusión de las BPP de tunta. En el periodo del 2006 al 2009 fueron capacitados 602 pequeños productores (70% varones y 30% mujeres) de doce comunidades campesinas de Ilave, en las que se incluye las seis comunidades intervenidas.Hubo una fluida comunicación entre los productores (jóvenes y mayores, hombres y mujeres) dentro y fuera de sus organizaciones, y dentro y fuera de sus comunidades. Dichos productores optaron por una tecnología innovadora que tuvo impactos en la calidad de la tunta, como también en su economía familiar y desarrollo personal; aspectos que fueron verificados en la actividad de seguimiento y monitoreo.Seguimiento y monitoreo de las BPP. La adopción de las BPP de la tunta por los productores ha sido de forma paulatina durante los cuatro años de implementación; alguna de las prácticas tuvieron una mayor difusión, tales como la selección de la materia prima y del producto final, el acondicionamiento para el congelado de los tubérculos, y para el secado de la tunta. Las mujeres cumplieron un rol importante en dichas prácticas, por ejemplo se volvieron expertas en la selección de la materia prima, identificando rápidamente los tubérculos dañados por plagas y enfermedades, según los niveles de daño.En las fases de congelado y secado la mayoría de productores optó por el uso una capa gruesa de paja como sobre piso, y un grupo menor empleó también mallas de pescar, éste último además de favorecer el oreado de los tubérculos, facilita el recojo de los mismos para una mejor operatividad (Figuras 4 y 5).Los cambios fueron relativamente evidentes en las fases de: remojo, descascarado y pelado final; en la fase de remojo un 60% de productores optó por reemplazar las pozas de piedra, por pozas de malla y palos (Figuras 6 y 7), el cual favorece la mayor fluidez del agua, por tanto hay una mayor lixiviación, y la calidad de la tunta se ve mejorada (libre de manchas y un olor suave).Figura 5. Secado con buenas prácticas de procesamiento (BPP)Las razones por el relativo cambio fueron el costo de los materiales, mallas de pescar, y palos de madera, también la falta de costumbre en el uso de insumos como el hipoclorito de sodio, para el enjuague de la tunta después del descascarado; más detalles se hallan en la Tabla 4.Figura 6. Remojo con tecnología tradicional Figura 7. Remojo con buenas prácticas de procesamiento (BPP) Tabla 4. Cambios en el procesamiento de tunta con la aplicación de las Buenas Prácticas de Procesamiento (BPP)Cambios en el procesamiento 1. Selección de tubérculos Uso generalizado de las mantas plásticas sobre el piso. El 80% hace una buena selección de los tubérculos, excluyen los que tienen daños medianos a severos de gorgojo de los andes, (para la alimentación de los cerdos).Uso generalizado de sobre pisos a base de una capa gruesa de paja; el 60% de los productores usó también redes de pescar; con lo cual evitan el contacto directo del producto con el suelo.El 60% de los productores construyó recipientes a base de mallas y palos. Aun el 40% de productores optó por las pozas con piedras, pero evitaron la cubierta de paja; para permitir una mayor circulación del agua.Uso generalizado de sobre pisos a base de una capa gruesa de paja; el 30% de los productores usó también redes de pescar; con lo cual evitan el contacto directo del producto con el suelo.El 70% de los productores usó botas de jebe. Pero el enjuague de la tunta con hipoclorito de sodio, luego del descascarado, ha sido incorporada solo por la tercera parte de los productores.El uso de sobre pisos a base de una capa gruesa de paja es generalizado; el 30% adicionan redes de pescar ó mantas, protegiendo mejor la tunta del contacto directo con el suelo.El 60% de productores empleó mallas para el pelado final lo que facilita el desprendimiento de las partículas de cáscara adheridas a la tunta. 8. Selección final y envasado La selección es una práctica generalizada, en base al tamaño, a la integridad de la tunta, y el color. La tunta más pequeña, partida y con manchas se destinan para el consumo del hogar. 9. Almacenamiento Es frecuente el uso de tarimas, con ladrillos y madera, sobre el cual colocan los sacos de tunta, evitando el contacto directo con el suelo húmedo. El 60% de los productores ha construido almacenes propiamente dichos dentro de las viviendas.Fuente: Resultado del monitoreo a 60 productores del grupo objetivo. Informe Anual de la Plataforma Puno, 2008. La efectividad de las BPP de tunta se tradujo en la mejora sustancial de la calidad de la tunta, expresada en atributos organolépticos como: el color blanco, olor suave y sabor agradable. Se expresa también en aspectos culinarios que facilitan su uso en la cocina, como la reducción del tiempo de rehidratación de la tunta previo a su cocción, de doce a ocho horas, a tan solo media hora, lo cual según la expresión de los productores ha contribuido a aumentar la demanda de la tunta (Figuras 8 y 9).Gráfico 9. Tunta elaborada con Buenas Prácticas de Procesamiento (BPP)De otro lado, los testimonios de los productores, brindan una importante información sobre los alcances de las BPP en la mejora de la calidad de la tunta. Ellos reconocieron la importancia de la selección tanto de la materia prima como del producto final. También la pertinencia del uso de materiales e implementos apropiados durante la selección, el remojo y el secado.\"Desde siempre hemos producido tunta en las comunidades. Sabemos como hacerlo, pero con el proyecto, lo que hemos aprendido, es a mejorar la calidad de la tunta, para poder venderla a un mejor precio (Rómulo Clavitea, Churomaquera, Ilave). \"Antes vendíamos la tunta chiquita, partida y con manchas; ahora nuestra tunta es mas liviana, blanquita y antes de cocinarla se remoja solamente en 15 minutos, lo que antes era en 12 horas o más\". (Teresa Ramos, Concahui, Ilave) \"Hemos aprendido muchas cosas nuevas: Antes hacíamos nuestros pocitos en el río, ahora, utilizamos redes y mallas. Antes, se extendía sobre el campo sin limpiar, ahora, antes de extender la tunta, utilizamos mallas y redes para que no se contamine el producto, para que sea limpio. Antes, almacenábamos todos los productos juntos sobre la tierra nomás, ahora, usamos parihuelas de madera y sobre eso ponemos la tunta, para que el entre el aire por abajo y no se pique\" (Constantino Flores, Jallamilla, Ilave).También los productores reconocen el notable incremento de la producción de tunta en los últimos años, así como la buena calidad de ésta, con lo cual aseveran que obtuvieron precios ventajosos en el mercado. Consideran a la tunta una buena oportunidad para incrementar sus ingresos económicos y mejorar su calidad de vida.\"He aumentado mi capital y estoy invirtiendo en mas ganado para engorde y también en comprar papa de Andahuaylas, para procesar tunta. Tengo más confianza y mas seguridad, porque se que la tunta esta bien seleccionada y no se va quedar sin vender\"(Raul Muñoico, Jarani, Ilave).\"Tengo más ingresos económicos y gano más con la tunta.  Un reciente estudio sobre el impacto del Proyecto Incopa y la Plataforma Puno (Maldonado, et al., 2010), señala que el grupo de productores de tunta intervenidos, obtuvieron un precio ventajoso por la tunta de buena calidad. También un mayor margen de volumen de venta con respecto al grupo control ó no intervenido. Además los ingresos por la venta de tunta mostraron diferencias estadísticas altamente significativas (Prueba de T-test); el grupo intervenido recibió un adicional de S/ 974 nuevos soles por cada tonelada de tunta vendida.Las Buenas Prácticas de Procesamiento de Tunta, fruto de la interacción constante entre productores y técnicos, a través de métodos participativos, constituyen una innovación tecnológica que recoge el saber local de los productores de Ilave, Puno.Integra también aspectos técnicos para la mejora de la higiene durante el procesamiento y la mejora en la calidad de la tunta.La capacitación horizontal a cargo de productores líderes constituidos en \"Promotores\", ha sido clave en la difusión de las BBP de la tunta,. Un total de 600 pequeños productores de 12 comunidades de El Collao, representan el 10% de la población dedicada a la producción de tunta de dicha provincia. La capacitación permitió una fluida comunicación entre los productores, mujeres y hombres, en el idioma nativo, aymara, garantizando el aprendizaje de las técnicas de procesamiento recomendadas, que repercutieron en la producción de una buena calidad de tunta.Los productores alcanzaron testimonios positivos sobre los efectos de las BPP en sus vidas, como la mejora del autoestima. Manifestaron sentirse mas seguros sobre sus conocimientos y habilidades en la producción de tunta; también manifestaron una mejora en sus ingresos económicos, producto del reconocimiento de la calidad de la tunta en los mercados, lo cual los ha animado a incrementar su producción.En cinco años de aplicación de las BPP de tunta, desde el 2006, los cien productores intervenidos han incrementado notablemente la producción de tunta de buena calidad, de 50 t (en conjunto) pasaron a 350 t. A éste incremento se suma el precio del mercado siempre ventajoso para los productores. En consecuencia los pequeños productores tuvieron beneficios económicos significativos, lo cual ha sido demostrado en un reciente estudio de impacto que halló diferencias estadísticas altamente significativas en los ingresos del grupo intervenido, frente al grupo control -no intervenido."}