Glenn Denning

Input Subsidies to Improve Smallholder Maize Productivity in Malawi: Toward an African Green Revolution

Recent hikes in food prices have created economic and social turmoil in many African countries. But in Malawi, fertilizer and seed subsidies have enabled small-scale farmers to improve maize productivity and achieve food security.

The African Millennium Villages

We describe the concept, strategy, and initial results of the Millennium Villages Project and implications regarding sustainability and scalability. Our underlying hypothesis is that the interacting crises of agriculture, health, and infrastructure in rural Africa can be overcome through targeted public-sector investments to raise rural productivity and, thereby, to increased private-sector saving and investments. This is carried out by empowering impoverished communities with science-based interventions. Seventy-eight Millennium Villages have been initiated in 12 sites in 10 African countries, each representing a major agroecological zone. In early results, the research villages in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Malawi have reduced malaria prevalence, met caloric requirements, generated crop surpluses, enabled school feeding programs, and provided cash earnings for farm families.

Partnership in rice research: Rationale, experience, and implications

Individuals and institutions cooperate with expectations of improved effectiveness and efficiency. In this paper, partnership in rice research is examined. We begin by identifying the underlying rationale for partnership vis-a-vis independent initiatives: that the benefits of working together exceed the corresponding costs. We argue that benefits are derived principally from shared interests and differences, while the major costs of partnership emerge from the need to negotiate roles and responsibilities and to exchange information. We then focus on IRRIs experience — its partners and the various collaborative mechanisms employed. Historically the national agricultural research systems have been IRRIs principal research partners. Of late the number and diversity of partners have grown, bringing significant challenges to IRRIs management approach and structure. Increased cooperation with rice farming communities, consumers, non-government organizations, advanced research institutions, and the private sector is anticipated. The emergence of research consortia as a partnership mechanism introduces the problem of “indirect management”, in which there is a separation of responsibility and accountability — both for IRRI and its partners. Several techniques to address this problem are suggested.

An australian-assisted credit scheme for smallholder upland crop production in the Southern Philippines

Summary The Zamboanga del Sur Development Project (ZDSDP) commenced in 1974 through the Philippine-Australian Development Assistance Programme (PADAP). As part of this integrated rural development project, a Multiple Cropping Project was designed to develop, evaluate and disseminate improved crop production technology for smallholders in rainfed, particularly upland, areas of the Province of Zamboanga del Sur. Credit was identified as a constraint to the adoption of improved cropping systems. A credit scheme was developed to overcome this constraint with the participation of a local bank, the Philippine National Bank (PNB), and the support of a guarantee fund provided by the Australian Government. During 1979–1980, the first two phases of this credit scheme gave promising results with an aggregate of 481 loan releases to farmers for maize, upland rice, mungbean and peanut production. Repayment rates of 89.3% and 90.6% were obtained for Phases 1 and 2, respectively. Organisational aspects of the scheme and an agro-economic overview of the first year of operation are described.