05 November 2010

New Tools Boost Small Farm Yields

An Indian farmer heads to work on a tractor designed for use on small plots.

By Kathryn McConnell
Staff Writer

Washington — Agribusinesses are designing tools to help smallholder farmers in countries seeking to produce more food.

It is a welcome trend, as it may slow down a predicted food shortage in years ahead. A new report says farm production has to double by 2050 if the world’s growing population is to have enough food to eat. That requires growth in agricultural productivity of 1.75 percent annually, but over the last seven years the rate of increase has been only 1.4 percent each year.

“We must provide public and private support for an ‘Evergreen Revolution’ that is twice as long and even more productive than the last — without drawing on additional natural resources,” said Bill Lesher, director of Global Harvest Initiative, a consortium of agribusiness firms and conservation groups, which released the 2010 GAP Report in October.

The report predicts a widening gap between food production and population. Lesher refers to ongoing improvements in farming tools when he speaks of a new revolution and compares it to the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which saved 1 billion people from starvation.

Farm machinery manufacturer Deere & Company and seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. are two U.S. firms making tools for farmers in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa — regions expected to have the greatest population gains, said Global Harvest’s Lesher.

A Tanzanian farmer surveys a field of maize grown from improved seed. New products help smallholder farmers produce more food.

“The challenge to industry is to make sure it improves [farming] technology fast enough” to meet future needs, said Deere executive J.B. Penn. Even countries that simply build roads and create business environments that encourage foreign investment will help make new farm tools accessible to a wider group of farmers, he said.

In 2010, Deere’s plant in India began making small tractors and implements like hoes and cutters designed to be used on plots of a few hectares. The equipment, exported to nearly 70 countries, allows farmers who had planted and harvested by hand or with oxen to work faster and when rains and temperatures are optimal. Farmers using tractors spend less time harvesting and can use the time saved to plant two crops in a year and earn more. Instead of getting about 1.4 tons of grain per hectare per year, they tend to get around 4 tons per hectare, Penn said.

Deere has also stepped up manufacturing of drip irrigation systems that apply water directly to seeds. The systems produce the same amount of yield using up to 30 percent less water than irrigation systems that flood fields, according to Penn.

Pioneer, working with international partners, is developing new varieties of the staples maize and sorghum specifically suited to sub-Saharan African weather and soil conditions, said Marc Albertsen, the company’s research director. Pioneer identifies traits in varieties of maize that grow well in the low-nitrogen soils of southern Africa. It aims to combine the strongest traits to create hybrids that use nitrogen more efficiently by absorbing it from soil quickly and transporting it from roots to leaves. Nitrogen plays a key role in making stalks grow and ears develop kernels.

Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and international research partners, the Pioneer program plans to make improved seeds available at prices affordable to smallholder farmers after field trials in Africa. The first seeds available to farmers will be bred conventionally and ready for sale around 2014.

Another Pioneer project supported by the Gates Foundation aims to improve the health of the more than 300 million Africans whose main food is sorghum. Working with a consortium led by Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International, Pioneer is developing varieties of sorghum that are easier to digest and are fortified with higher levels of vitamin A, iron and zinc. Initial research is focused on improving sorghum varieties grown in Kenya, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, where soil conditions prevent growth of more nutritious crops like maize, legumes and green vegetables.

The advocacy group Farm Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture contributed to the 2010 GAP Report (PDF, 640KB), available on Global Harvest’s website.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)