John H. Sanders

Population pressure, land degradation and sustainable agricultural technologies in the Sahel

Abstract Increasing population pressure in the semi-arid regions of the Sahel has resulted in a breakdown of the fallow system, low crop yields and reduced availability of communal land. Adoption of sustainable, yield increasing technologies is critical to the future development of the region. A farm level programming model was constructed for the Central (Mossi) Plateau of Burkina Faso). According to the model predictions, farmers are induced into adopting yield increasing intensive technologies as land supply becomes more inelastic, and as the economic environment becomes more profitable. The model predictions are confirmed by recent field surveys thereby providing some grounds for cautious optimism about the future of Sahelian agriculture.

Evaluating and adapting new technologies in a high-risk agricultural system—Niger

Abstract This study modeled the introduction of new early cultivars of millet and cowpea, higher cowpea densities, and various fertilization strategies. Model results were then compared with farmer behavior before and after the availability of these new technologies. The model correctly identified the two new technologies being adopted by farmers. Then further runs of the adaptive model identified several research-extension strategies to increase the adoption of fertilization. Some recommendations to researchers and extension agents were made. The intraseasonal adaptive decision-making process of farmers was modeled with a one-year, discrete stochastic sequential programming whole-farm model.

Peasant farmer behavior and cereal technologies: Stochastic programming analysis in Niger

Peasant farmers in Sahelian West Africa adjust to rainfall uncertainties in the agricultural season by making decisions sequentially as a function of the evolving rainfall patterns. Understanding such flexibilities in farmer decision-making is central to technology introduction. This paper determines how sequential decision-making under weather uncertainty affects the adoption and farm-level effects of cereal technologies in Niger. The study also draws policy implications for a price floor to arrest the substantial fall in cereal prices in good rainfall years when farmers have more grains to sell. The methodology used is Discrete Stochastic Programming. This paper shows that the ability of peasant farmers to adapt cropping and resource-management strategies to the rainfall patterns is the basis for their survival in this highrisk environment. Model results show that by (a) carrying a portfolio mix of varieties of varying maturities, and (b) making sequential decisions based upon rainfall expectations, farmers can adapt to the production uncertainties. Breeding programs should therefore be diversified to develop not only early-maturing cultivars, but also improved intermediate and long-season varieties.

New Land is not enough: Agricultural performance of New Lands settlement in West Africa

Abstract For centuries onchocerciasis, or river blindness, has contributed to the underpopulation of fertile river basins in much of the West African savanna. For this reason, an 11 -country program initiated in 1974 to control river blindness disease was expected to increase total crop production and improve living standards. Farm management data from 15 sites show that despite the control programs success in opening up new land, the farmers moving back into these areas were successful in increasing and stabilizing their incomes at only five of the 15 sites. Two of the major factors that explained these low success rates were the highly negative policy environment and lack of appropriate technology and supports for intensive cereal production in the drier semi-arid basins.

Economics of erosion-control and seed-fertilizer technologies for hillside farming in Honduras

With population growth still at very high rates and large-scale commercial farmers and cattle ranchers owning much of the more fertile valley land, small-scale farmers are concentrated on increasingly marginal, steeply sloping hillsides in Central America. The continuing soil erosion and land degradation in these low-input staple crop production hillside farming systems lead many to be pessimistic about increasing the agricultural incomes of these farmers. However, this study shows that the appropriate combination of improved technologies and agricultural policy or alternative production diversification strategies can improve the incomes of small-scale hillside farmers in southern Honduras by over 50%. The technology components considered are stone walls and ditches combined with living tree barriers to prevent erosion of the hillsides, and a package of improved sorghum seed, seed treatment, and modest doses of nitrogenous fertilizer. A whole-farm mathematical programming framework is used to determine the potential farm-level income effects of the soil-conservation and seed-fertilizer technologies. The main conclusion is that erosion-control devices and yield-increasing crop varieties and fertilizer are an effective technology introduction strategy for the erosion-prone hillside landholdings found in many areas of Central America. If policy actions or diversification strategies for disposal of surplus grain are found which are effective in reducing the risk of low income from cereal price reductions in high-production years, adoption of the improved technologies is shown to be profitable for small-scale farmers. Another benefit not explicitly considered would be to slow the very rapid growth of urban poverty in these countries. Sensitivity analysis results indicated that neither risk aversion nor the increased availability of crop land or initial cash have any substantial effects on the predicted adoption level of the improved technologies, or on their income impacts for these farmers.

Cereal technology interventions for the west African semi-arid tropics

One of the regions of most concern in Sub-Saharan Africa is the geographical area of the West African semi-arid tropics (WASAT) where there has been little impact from the green revolution and most of the region suffers from inadequate and irregular rainfall and low fertility soils. Decreasing per-capita food production trends and 2-3% per-year population growth trends have convinced some to adopt a Malthusian perspective about the future of the WASAT. This paper evaluates the prospects of agricultural technologies and farm management practices that are currently proposed for the WASAT cereal farming system. The technologies are assessed with respect to their agronomic and economic feasibility, risk and their fit within the farming systems. They are ranked as to their feasibility of adoption by farmers in the short, intermediate and long run. The findings suggest that several agricultural technologies are feasible for use in the short run provided that they are used as a package. The complexity and initial high financial and human capital requirements, however, often prohibit farmers from adopting the total package simultaneously. A stepwise approach to adoption is difficult since separate adoption results in lower profitability and higher risk levels. Government policy intervention may be necessary to enable farmers to adopt single technologies en route to total package adoption.

Expected effects of devaluation on cereal production in the Sudanian Region of Mali

Abstract The Sahelian countries have been much more successful attaining higher yields of export crops, including cotton and peanuts, than with increasing yields of their cereals and other food crops. One principal explanation has been the poor economic and agricultural policy support historically given to food crops. Now this is being changed with structural adjustments, including the 1994 devaluation of the CFA. Intensive cereal production became more profitable with a lag after devaluation. In southern Mali, even highly risk-averse farmers will adopt intensive sorghum technologies, according to risk programming results. Credit can be generated internally for this activity by selling some of the livestock. Returns were very high for this intensification but its further expansion would require more internal liquidity or the expansion of credit in order to increase purchases of inorganic fertilizers.

Agricultural research and cereal technology introduction in Burkina Faso and Niger

Abstract This paper proposes a strategy of technology development for the semi-arid regions of two Sahelian countries. Improved agronomic practices, especially water conservation and increased soil fertility, are principal constraints in the semi-arid Sahel to increasing cereal yields. Previous concentration upon breeding rather than the dual constraints of water availability and soil fertility appears to be one explanation for the failure to date to develop new agricultural technologies in the Sahelian semi-arid region. Other requirements for these agronomic technologies are discussed and the interactions between the principal agroclimatic zones within the region are considered. Finally, the issue of the substitution between organic and inorganic fertilizers is evaluated with data on comparative costs.

Agricultural technology development and dissemination within a farming systems perspective

Abstract The aim of the paper is to give a current overview of farming systems research (FSR). The coverage of FSR topics is sufficiently in-depth to allow an understanding of FSR concepts and operational procedures. Initially, a description of the basic concepts of the farming systems research approach and a farming systems perspective are presented. The operational stages of conducting FSR are listed and discussed under the headings of:(1) Delineation of recommendation domains; (2) the descriptive and diagnostic stage; (3) the research design stage; (4) the on-farm testing and evaluation stage and (5) the dissemination and monitoring stage. The description and discussion of the farming systems approach is followed by a discussion on the related FSR topics of: (1) The differences between experimental station and on-farm trials; (2) the evaluation of on-farm technology performance and (3) the stepwise adoption process of farmers.

Returns From Research in Economies With Policy Distortions: Hybrid Sorghum in Sudan

Conventional estimates of the economic return to agricultural research use market prices for the values of products and inputs; on this basis, economic rates of return are typically well above the cost of capital, suggesting that more investment in research would be socially desirable. But these estimates may be incorrect if, as is often the case, market prices are distorted by market failures or government policies and hence do not reflect social values. This paper presents a simple, partial-equilibrium methodology with which to improve the measurement of social returns to research by taking account of multiple distortions in the market prices of products, inputs and foreign exchange. The method also takes account of variation in domestic and world prices, making a product tradable in some years and nontradable in others. The method is applied to the case of Hageen-Dura 1 (HD-1), Sub-Saharan Africas first commercially successful hybrid sorghum. HD-1 was released in the Sudan in 1983. From the start of research in 1979 to 1992, the HD-1 breeding program had an estimated IRR of 97% when all major policies in the sorghum market, the fertilizer market, and the exchange rate are taken into account. The high rate of return to HD-1 research was due to the programs low cost and rapid payoff, pointing to the potential value of small adaptive research programs, taking full advantage of foreign technology and genetic material to produce locally-appropriate crosses in a short period of time. Even in the highly distorted economies of Africa, such programs can yield very high payoffs.