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data/part_2/0011563506.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"166dcac2950009f2128bcb5d80310c61","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/89803345-bb0f-4974-987c-ef0d333435f2/retrieve","id":"-1720113216"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e03189e7-36c1-4c58-ab7b-4372bb0d8d02","pagecount":"45","content":"Plant technotogy research has contributed significantly la ¡n,reased production and productivity of vadous crops. This contributton is the result of the systematic and continuous effort of al! institutions ¡nvolved in the agricultural sector, seeking lo find the best aplions in both technology g~neration and transfer. in arder lo maintain the agronomlc, genetic. and morphologic characleristics of the new varieties released by rescarch.Among the various inputs included in the technology transfer process. seed represents the basic bridge established between farmers. on one side. and the benefits generated by research. on the other . This work may mean an increase from a few kilograms of basic seed to the production of varlous ton s of commercial seed. through a multiplication process of many generations. under special production norms different from those used in grain production for consumption.Ideally, the result of this process should be the supply of good quallty seed as an input in large. medium. and sma!! farming operations...However. seed supply is extremely heterogenous among large and medium agricultural entrepreneurs. In Latin America. utilization rates of improved seed {certLfied. fiscalized. and otherJ are stlll low. In conventional seed production and supply systems. in addition to what has been explained. the seed producer and marketing agent benefit from certification programs. fiscalization of the market, and the dynamism characteristic of the private sector.In contrast to the situation described aboye. are small farmers who to a great extent do not use improved seed.• Traditionally they have either produced their own planting material or obtained it rrom neighboring farmers or regions through mechanisms which many times do not involve cash payments, but rather the exchange of seed for other goods or services. Small farmers have been thusly characterized by various authors who. in general terms, provide similar information.Knowledge of the variables which describe the social, economic. and cultural conditions of these farmers is available. but little has been contributed in terms of designing strategies or alternatives to improve their seed production and supply .This paper presents the efforts carried out by the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) wlth the object of contributing 2.It facilitates CIAT's Seed Unit 's role in providing information and training to rural leaders. extensionists. and seed technologists .It serves as a conditionlng plant for small seed lots produced In the Seed Unit, under a quality control scheme.It serves as a protype and a centra l polnt for radiating technologies to small farmer organizations involved or interested in seed production.In addition to the aboye, this effort is unlque and important since CIAT is the only center in the CGIAR System havlng a Seed Unit within its structure, working with crops having partlcularly strong social characterlstics. such as beans and cassava.111. OBJECTIVES Provide trainin9 lo extensionists . field inspectors . and leaders of small farmers' organizations in seed production and marketing activities appropriatc for non-conventionul seed production and supply systems.Utilize the infrastructure for conditioning 5ma!!. basic seed lots.The Seed Unít, in addition lo having a physical infrastructure for seed technology training under conventional (entrepreneurial) models is al50 ¡nvolved in non-conventional activities .To improve and broaden this endeavor . a mini-seedhouse was constructed with special characteristics for developing alternative schemes . compatible with the s peci fic conditions of small farmers (Figure 1).T he objective of this simple seed conditioning infrclstructure goes beyond Its physical structure . Once constructed , it seeks to diffuse the principIes of non-conventional seed production and marketing systems . through the organization of sma11 farmers in associations and othe r community groups. generating new activities and sources of ¡ncome for the ru r a l communities. especially in regions and crops unattended by large seed enterprise5 .In addition to its function as a center for seed reception. drying. conditioning. stor age. and distribution . when in-place in a community. this mini-seedhouse serves as the prototype for the headquarters of an association or coop<!rative of small seed producers. It becomes a meeting place for discussing technical and socioeconomic problems. a p lace for training all human resources involved in this activity (extenslonists. rural leaders . producers. etc . ). and al50 the core of qua lity control for seed produced under this system.  1.The mini-seedhouse (Figure 2) has a 200-m 2 covel\"ed area , with 32m 2 fOI\" storage. an area for installing small-scale seed condition ing equipment, and an batch dryer with foul\" independent cells. The minjseedhouse also has two cement patios . each 100m 2 , fOI\" seed threshing , pl\"ecleaning, and dl\"ying activities. One of these patios 15 adapted so that a tal\"p can be used to cove r up the seed. mesh enclosul\"e Patio for threshing and el i.:::::::::::~:JIIIIII~~~~~~\"\"\",~R\",,ed up t ar ps  1).The operations carried out in the Small Farmer Mini-seedhouse are relaled lo typical postharvest activities. lt is worth specifylng that operations after harvesting cannot make IImiracles ll , They do nol improve the physiologic or genetic qua lit y . or the health status of the seed, even though they can in fact improve the total seed lot composition by removing undesirable material and preserving the quality recelved. thus minimizing deterioration during storage.There are a few important points to be held in mind durlng the preharvest phase. Harvest should be carried out as early as possible, removing the seed from the field and ptacing It in a fresh and ventilated area .Appropriate preharvest management increases the efficiency of postharvest activities--reducing production costs as wetl as achieving expected quallty standards. BUl, on the other hand. if preharvest management has been inadequate, it will be practicatly impossible to correct previous errors during the postharvest phase , leading to los ses both in quality and quantity and increasing production costs. The material received at the minj-seedhouse must be seed coming from those fietds which have been approved for secd production . Clean, d r y seed.In any o( these cases, the Inlernal Quality Control Activities Card must be filled out , the same that was codified and assigned lo each producer during the p r eharvest phase (Annex samples must be taken at random and these must be manually shelled and well homogenized. When the seed is received threshed or shelled.a representative sampling must a lso be taken. using probes or samp lers; if thls equlpment is not availab le. samp les must be taken by hand. T he total sum of all these samples must be approximately 2 to 6 kg. dependlng on the species . In mast cases, a very effective \"test\" is the apiojon of the persao in charge of receptlon .This persao must be familiar with his seed producers. the Iones, the neld, and the lot'5 history . Therefore. physical appearance scen through the \"eyell of the person in charge of the mini-seedhouse is indispensable.The health status of a seed lot can frequently be determined based on symptoms observed in the field . Varietal mixtures, contamlnation with weeds. and other characteristics of the lot must be continuously observed by a responsible persono These observatlons are valuable for taking decisions in the mini-seedhouse. Bearing in mind the need to assure qUillity . to reduce costs. and to integrate pre-and postharvest management. it i5 conveníent that respor,sibility for both field and plant supervision be given to the same person. This is a very practical and inexpensive approach to programming seed production , especially during the initial phase when amounts are smal!.Table 2 shows sorne operational alternatives and quality control tests. depending on the raw material received.The decislon to follow a specific seed conditioning flow is very important in achieving the desired quality levels . Selecting the most appropriate opllon wíll be dlfficult and erratio ir criteria based on simple evaluation tests are not adopted . Constant observation and the simple evaluations suggested enable the person in charge to monitor the rlow and take preven ti ve and corrective measures on time.To illustrate thls idea, Annex 3 shows il flowchart ror seed conditioning ilnd quality control. involving some possible variables and basic analyses. Normally. this 15 one of the operations that causes more mechanical damage to the seed, especially when moisture content is very hlgh or very low; the r e(ore , quick and easy molsture and mechanlcal damage tests must be conducted once operations have started , to determine damage and moisture levels and adjust the equipment or procedures according to needs.Most equipment available in the market had been designed to handle grains, and not necessarily seed. Therefore, when threshing is done mechanically, it is best to use rotary cylinders. adjusting the speed of rotation o( the shaft and the cavity opening; the moisture content of the seed to be threshed rnust also be known. Sorne options for equlpment and methods used are shown in Figures lI, 5, and 6. Hand shelling board.This equipment can be easily constructed using a solid table where metal1ic staples or bent nails are ad-¡usted . The capacity depends only on the number of persons that will be working at the same time. FIGURE 4. Threshing rack. This system. used throughout Central America, facllitates threshlng and causes minimum mechanical damage to seeds. Seeds loosened from the pods fall through a mesh (loor and thus do not receive con tinuous impacts.Threshing. frequently carried out by hltting the pi1e of harvested plants with a stick is also adequate. as long as there is enough plant malter lo serve as a IIcushlonll . The following pictures show sorne userul equipment used lo carry out this task (Figures 7, 8. 9. and 10). FIGURE 7. Wire mesh screen. Can be used as a scalper (to sepa rate conlaminanls having a greate r volume than that of the seed) or as a class;fier (to separa te contaminanls smaller than the seed) . The screen also serves to dry seed lots. by keeping them raised from the ground and permitting the flow of air .  Thls step 15 critical in the process o( obtaining and preserving seed qua lit y . The drying process must be performed as soon as possible afte,. lhreshing. particularly in seed 10t5 having high moislure content (greater than 15%) in arder lO guarantee safe storage. In a 5mall plant , this operation can be carried out using natural or artificial drying systems. Each system ¡neludes varlOU5 alternatives . as can be observed In Figures 1, . 12. and 13. Must be fabricated of a resistan! and water impermeable material to keep out the moisture always found under field conditions.  Seed should be removed frequently in natural drying .During the operation of any drying system, in addition lo ¡nitial samplings, samples must be taken during the intermedia te phases in arder lo decide on preventive or corrective measures when these are necessary.This guaranlees efficient and sure drying.When seed moisture is aboye 18% and relative humidity is below 75%.the air should nol be healed. When reldtive humidity is over 75%. air should be healed lo reduce relative humidity lo 75%. When seed has les s than 18% moisture content, air must have a relative humidity between SO and 60%.In case this is greater. air must be hcated without exceeding the 40°C limit.A simple piece of equipment to measure these environmental and seed parameters i5 the psyehrometer (Figure 14).Psychrometer. Simple instrument used to determine air tempera tu re and rel ative humidity.These fdctors are very important in declsions related to seed moisture content.Ouring this phase . I1seed separation principles l1 • broadly used in conventional conditioning s ystems (differences in thickness. width. length . welght. formo texture. etc.) are equally useful in nonconventional cases.The major difference is that In the latter case.the maehinery and equipment can be sma\", simple. and inexpensive (Figure 15). nificantly improve seed lot quality in a productlon system (Annex 3).In non-conventional seed production systems. prlmarlly when dealing with small-scale producUon, precísion classíficatíon can be performed through manual selection {Figure 16}.  or eaUon sacks; 10-20 liter jars; and plastic containers (Figure 18).Labeled bags. To package 5 and 10 kg of seed. Convenienl in market-Ing small amounts of seed.When seed has been packaged for sale/dlstribution. packages must be identlfled on the oulside with the required i nformation, by stamping directly on the container ar by adhering a label having at least the data presented in Annex 4. This data can be taken from the card explained in Annex 1, and is very necessary as a source of information for farmers purchasing the seed.Good storage does not improve the seed's physical . physiologic, or gene tic quality, or Its health status; it can only reduce the speed of delerioration. Even so, quality loss is inevitable In practical terms.Seed that has been properly dried, conditioned, and identified should be stored in a clean , fresh, ventilated warehouse, isolated from sources of humidity . Pires should be placeó over wooden platforms as shown in Figure 19. Wooden platforms . Essential in seeds .They prevent moisture (rom into the lower layer of seeds. help and fumigation of the stack. and cleaning between stacks.Each pile musl be identified with a tag in arder lo have visible and praCtical information available in the warehouse. fo r taking decisions during commercialization. The tag should be placed in the pite and have the required information. A sample lag is shown in Annex 5.The posslbllity of having one variety per pile shou ld be considered;this facilltales delivery and inventory management.10. BasJc Tests Normally, when considering carrying out tests in conventional seed production and supply systems. worries arise in terms of the high cost of laboratory equipment. in frastructure. human resources. etc.These conslderatlons ar e valid since the system requires these investments due to its profit-earn ing characteristics. to the ri gorous norms and standa rd s • and to the need that test results be precise and replicable. Tests In these cases are conducted under ideal conditions (controlled moisture and temperature)In modern germlnators.Equipment for the purity, moisture, germination, tetrazolium, and health tests, among others, are also modern and relatively expensivc.Under less conventionai seed production and supply situations, these conditions are normally not available; small seed farmers do not have the human , physical. or financia l resources to support a sophisticated assembly of equipment to altend their needs. However , certain key qualitative seed characteristics can be evaluated based on simple schemes .The baslc tests described he re are based on traditional principies , yet they require in many cases only the resources and materials available in a community of organized farmers . These tests are:a.Contrary to other tests which can be evaluated immediately , evaluation of the germination potential r equires more time.However, depending on the objective of the evaluation. a series of options can be considered--from complete germination tests to more simple and quick es tima tion s .To determine real germination , sand trays , r ol ls of special paper, or disposable paper towels or newspaper can be used. Instead of sand. a mixture of soi! and organic matter , or soil aione , is appropriate . The lalter would result in more variation than the sand test , but would also enable the evaluation of the seed under conditions similar to those encountered in the field by the farmer.In addition to the information on germlnation, evaluations in trays provide a very practical appreciation of seed vigor.Representative samples of the lols are required to oblain reliable results and 300 to ~OO seeds must be planted. Depending on the size of the paper. the trays, etc .. groups of 100 or 50 seeds can be planted. Figure 20 shows a sample of this test.In the absence of special chambers, in tropical regions, germination tests can be made taking advantage of the ambient temperature. In this case, depending on the amblent temperature, germinatlon percentage can be evaluated in the time period stipulated in Table 3.  When lime is urgenl. germination percentage can be estimated based on the lelrazolium or conductivity tests or using other methods. A method available to many farmers is lhe evaluation of physiologic germination. This method enables eva luation of lhe basic seed structures as soon as lhe primary roots have emerged.Depending on the species and the temperilture. this evaluation can be done 2 or 3 days after planting. In the meantime, portable electronic testers constitute a viable alternative for these production schemes. In spite of not having the precision of the oven melhod, these testers are easy to operate, inexpensive, and provide an imrnt!diate reading.This test identifies the type of contaminant, and therefore the type of equipment through which the seed lot must flow to separa te inert matter , weeds , and dlseased seed or seed of other varieties that may be mixed with the dcsired variety.This trlal must be carried out upon receiving the lot and at the end of the conditioning process. The first, beca use of the reasons already mentioned, and the lalter , to guarantee that the seed lot does not contain weeds or diseased seed. Furthermore, thls test is important before and after precleLlning and cleaning operations because it defines the rigor of the required separatlons, When possible. the final purity test must be sent to a laboratory accredited lo carry out this analysis. This Is the result to be used in the labels or packages for marketing the seed.Seeds with mechanical damage lose their viability quickly in the warehouse . giving rise to weak and abnormal seedlings. Therefore. care must be taken to not cause damage to the seed When the evaluation methodologies described aboye are correctly used. internal quality control can be established under the local conditions .As the volume of seeds and the clients l demands. and as the personnel acquires more experience. other more complex tests can be used; among these are the tetrazolium test , the phytosanitary analyses. the vigor test, the varietal identification test, etc. No.1 the organization has its own laboratory.28 Qualitative data must be recorded here and a1so on the seed package label. Sesls can be used and the data recorded ln the package itselfj yet a11 data on final qual1ty must be recorded in this cardo 29 Stacks must be organlzed in the warehouse in a numeric sequence and by variety, and they must have so identification record indicating the variety, the number of packages per lot, and on the reverse side, so indication of how the seed will be distributed.!he name of clients should be recorded in space (30).Record the name of the persones) who will purchase this particular lot.31 Data in each card (lot) will indicate those lots that require further analyses before marketing. A germination test should be run on those lots delayed for harvest, those that had a greater mechanical damage, etc., and final genninatian should be recorded as a guarantee far both seed conditioner and client. ","tokenCount":"3123"}

data/part_2/0016208399.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4aa8c89d5c9f5b92783b9f1847007182","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/300ee557-b0df-4094-9538-805e5eed6e24/retrieve","id":"-1443848467"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7a1d99f9-33ee-49db-99b3-c86cc1da2b85","pagecount":"42","content":"➢ When viability rates <85% (cultivated species) and <75% (wild species) ➢ When the remaining seed quantity is less than what is required for five sowings of a representative population of the accession (bottom threshold value: 1200 seeds) ➢ Newly introduced or collected material with low seed quantity or low germination.➢ If accessions are newly acquired (e.g. collecting mission)… dry, threshed and clean seeds needed. ➢ For accessions withdrawn from storage (Active collection)… ✓ Identify the candidate accessions that require regeneration (monitoring through database). ✓ Draw seed samples, keeping in mind the minimum sample size required for regeneration and the current level of germination. ✓ Ensure absolute accuracy in identifying accessions while drawing the seeds from the genebank, packaging, and labelling seed samples.➢ Specific pre-treatment may be necessary to improve seed germination, establishment and seed setting… ✓ Apply seed dressing (fungicides and insecticides) to reduce disease and insect damage.✓ For accessions with limited seeds (e.g. wild species), pre-germinate in controlled conditions and transplant the seedlings into pots with sterilized soil (grow them in a greenhouse).✓ Accessions with strong vernalization requirements may treated by artificial vernalization if field conditions not provide cool enough temperatures Effective population size (Ne ) is a key parameter that will have a bearing on the degree of genetic drift that is associated with the regeneration of the accession. ✓ Good drainage of the field (critical factor especially for lentil).✓ Keep in mind crop rotation (e.g. cereals, legumes, fallow)✓ For specific accessions need of artificially prepared soil mixtures (wild relatives grown in pots).➢ Field Layout ✓ Keep enough space between adjacent plots (avoiding possible mixtures)✓ Use single replicate trials and a local check variety at standard intervals (e.g. every 20 plot). Local check varieties allow relative characterization measurements with adjacent plots.✓ Ensure a stable water source for irrigation✓ Eliminate weed competition (combination of manual and mechanical weed removal, use of selective herbicides)❖ Keep in mind that… diverse genebank material may react very differently to herbicides than cultivated materials.✓ Preventive chemical applications to control diseases and pests.Roguing the off-types ✓ Only discarding plants that are known to be contaminants or volunteers. Bear in mind that landraces are populations (genetic variability within the accession)✓ Monitor for off-type plants several times throughout the growing season.For accessions that are prone to shattering (wild relatives)✓ Bag spikes (cereals) or whole plants (wild legumes) during ripening using perforated plastic or glassine bags.➢ Prepare cloth or plastic harvest bags. Use barcode labels to identify plots and accessions. ➢ Harvest at physiological maturity ➢ Uneven maturity in wild relatives may require repeated harvesting of individual accessions bonce individuals are at the optimum maturity stage. ➢ Dry plant material using ambient, non-heated air to a uniform moisture content (~12%). ➢ Thresh the seed using a stationary thresher ➢ Clean grain/seeds of straw, diseased seeds, broken seeds, weed seeds, soil, and debris using airblown seed cleaners and appropriate sieves ➢ Fumigate seed to prevent insect damage prior to cold storage (usually using phosphine) ➢ Dry the grains/seeds by placing in low humidity environment (at 15°C and 15% RH) for 6-8 weeks.❖ Cereal grains should reach an equilibrium moisture content of 5-8% ❖ Legume seeds should reach an equilibrium moisture content of 3-7% ➢ Record seeds weights and determine 1000 kernel weight (cereals) and 100 seeds weight (legumes). ","tokenCount":"550"}

data/part_2/0039823718.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"76b0807035047994a60b446596dfc070","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3d9d5bd7-9053-4da5-8121-7abe80a7bb89/retrieve","id":"1789893744"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"03a2154f-d958-41c2-a184-da483902308d","pagecount":"41","content":"The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works with partners worldwide to support the role livestock play in pathways out of poverty. ILRI research products help people in developing countries enhance their livestock-dependent livelihoods, health and environments through better livestock systems, health, productivity and marketing. ILRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium of 15 research centres working for a food-secure future. ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and other offices in southern and West Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia.Abstract Tables Table 1. Classification technique for different types of data  Like in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, most farmers in the Ethiopian highlands base their livelihood on unreliable rainfed agriculture. Climate variability as well as the lack of water management explains to a large extent the prevailing food insecurity and poverty (Hanjra and Gichuki 2008;de Fraiture et al. 2010). Consequently, improving rainwater productivity is an appealing solution to alleviate hunger in the region (Hanjra and Gichuki 2008;Hanjra et al. 2009).Integrated rainwater management is a recently developed concept that abandons the differentiation between irrigated and rainfed agriculture (Rockström et al. 2003;Humphreys et al. 2008;Rockström et al. 2010). It encompasses any bundle of practices, referred to as a strategy that aims at increasing rainwater productivity. These strategies enable actors to systematically map, capture, store and efficiently use runoff and surface water emerging from farms and watershed in a sustainable way for both productive and domestic purposes (Amede et al. 2011). Rainwater management strategies (RMS) include practices such as increasing soil water holding capacity, enhancing crop and livestock water productivity, improving efficiency of small-scale irrigation, efficient use of ground water wells, diversion, or water harvesting (Hanjra and Gichuki 2008;Johnston and McCartney 2010;Rockström et al. 2010).RMS are relatively low cost and can potentially be made available to many farmers and communities. Despite of all these benefits, adoption rates of RMS practices are low and disadoption is high. Indeed, up until today, RMS practices have been promoted regardless of site-specific biophysical characteristics and regardless of the socio-economic and institutional environment (Faures and Santini 2008). For a more successful promotion of RMS, a paradigm change towards promotion of location-specific interventions is needed (Faures and Santini 2008). Beyond biophysical suitability, successful implementation crucially depends on farmers' willingness to adopt a practice. Therefore, the socio-economic and institutional environment must be taken into account in a spatially explicit way. A first step towards the promotion of site-specific RMS requires an understanding of which sites present similar biophysical, socio-economic and institutional characteristics within a basin.The primary objective of this paper is, therefore, to develop a methodology that allows identifying locations within a landscape that have similar biophysical, infrastructure, socio-economics, and governance characteristics relevant to RMS. This methodology is applied to the Blue Nile Basin in the Ethiopian highlands. Furthermore, this paper aims at presenting the currently available spatial data for the study area. Based on these criteria, three study landscapes, differing in state of development, agro-ecology (reflecting water availability and different production potentials), important livelihood systems and opportunities for RMS, namely Jeldu, Diga and Fogera, were identified (Figure 1).In order to identify similar locations within the Blue Nile Basin, two types of similarity analysis can be performed as shown in Figure 2, i.e. an analysis of individual characteristics for which data are available and an analysis of a set of characteristics requiring an aggregation from individual characteristics. In a first step, potential drivers of successful adoption for RMS practices need to be identified. Beyond biophysical drivers that are relatively well understood, literature identifies human dimensions, namely socioeconomic and institutional environment as well as infrastructure as potential drivers for adoption of RMS (Baguma et al. 2010;de Fraiture et al. 2010). Therefore, individual characteristics can be classified into four categories: biophysical, infrastructure, socio-economic and institutional, reflecting different disciplines, environmental science, landscape planning, economics/sociology and policy, respectively. Institutional characteristics are difficult to measure in a spatially explicit way. However, governance, that is how institutions impact on any transaction (Williamson 2000), can be seen as measurable proxy for institutions in a socioeconomic context. This approach has been retained in this paper.Biophysical data and infrastructure data are usually collected at different spatial and temporal scale than socioeconomic and governance data. Also socio-economic data tend to adjust much faster to new events and trends than biophysical and infrastructure variables. Therefore, the data has been classified into land-based and nonland based variables, in order to acknowledge difference in scales and potential of quick adjustments.In order to aggregate these individual characteristics, a factor analysis (FA) is used as data reduction method. This approach allows to identify underlying structures, also referred to as unobserved structure and reduces the individual characteristics into a data driven number of factors. Given that land based and non-land based variables change at different time and spatial scales, a similar unobserved construct cannot be assumed for both types of variables. Therefore, FAs on land-based and on non-land based data are run separately.Geo-referenced data or proxy data, covering the whole Ethiopian side of the Nile Basin, need to be found for each potential driver of success. For the similarity analysis, the data for each characteristic, from now on referred to as variable, needs to be classified. Sites can then be said similar when they fall into the same class. For a relevant similarity analysis, the selection of the right classification technique is, therefore, crucial. Table 1 shows different classification techniques for different types of data. For some of the variables, classification is not an issue, as the data is collected in a finite numbers of categories. Classification becomes more difficult with data that has too many categories to be visualized or can take any value. In this case one can rely on expert knowledge to define the classes. When no expert knowledge is available then different classification techniques can be applied: equal interval, quantile and natural breaks. The equal interval cuts the distribution of the data at equal breaks and fails to reveal the distribution of the data. Quantile classification cuts the population in equal group size and, therefore, allows visualizing the distribution of the data. However, gaps between classes can be important when the data contains outliers. The Jenk's natural break technique is a data driven approach. It seeks to reduce the variance within a class and maximize the variance between the classes. This approach depends on the a priori defined number of classes, but when these are selected carefully this classification techniques identifies 'depressions' in the distribution of the data and groups together data with similar characteristics. It is, therefore, a promising technique for a similarity analysis. Similarity analysis based on a set of characteristics aims at identifying dimensions within which locations differ and calls for an aggregation of the various characteristics. But environmental and social processes in a landscape are complex and interlinked (Burel and Baudry 2004), and, therefore, the variables chosen for assessing these processes are likely to be correlated. FA is a tool that allows data reduction. It describes variability among observed variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. FA searches for such joint variations in response to unobserved latent variables, also referred to as an unobserved construct. The observed variables are modelled as linear combinations of the potential factors, plus 'error' terms. The information gained about the interdependencies between observed variables can be used later to reduce the set of variables in a dataset.Results from FA are: the factor scores, the transformed variable values and the loadings, the weight by which each standardized original variable should be multiplied to get the factor score. Usually the loadings are the result of a geometrical rotation to minimize the variability within the factor and maximize variability between factors.FA and principal component analysis (PCA) though related and often giving very similar results, are not the same. FA estimates how much of the variability is due to common unobserved construct. PCA does not assume any construct and consequently takes all variability of the variables into account. When the unexplained variability ('error') of all the variables is equal, FA is a particular case of PCA and both approaches yield to the same result. Beyond data reduction, FA has the advantage to identify an underlying structure, which is particularly interesting for identifying socio-economic dynamics.The application of FA to spatial data, raises the issue of the spatial scale at which the analysis is run. Whereas biophysical data are often detailed and available at high resolutions, socio-economic data is often available at administrative level. One strategy is to aggregate all the data to the smallest common spatial unit of the data. For Ethiopia, this implies the woreda level (districts) for which socio-economic data is available. As a consequence, a certain degree of spatial variability of biophysical variables is lost when aggregated to the woreda level. Standard deviation, maximum and minimum values can be presented as indicators for the lost variability.The FA on woreda level results in loadings defining each factor. These loadings can be used to predict the factor scores for each woreda, which can then be mapped. The natural break classification technique enables a data driven classification of locations that are similar.3 Results for individual characteristicsA comprehensive review of RMS in Ethiopia identifies a whole set of biophysical, infrastructure, socioeconomic and institutional characteristics as drivers of adoption of RMS (Merrey and Gebreselassie 2010). This list has been expanded with expert knowledge collected from ILRI and IWMI experts. Many geo-referenced variable or proxy variable for these drivers could be found. Table 2 shows the chosen variables as well as their source. In a rural area context, governance encompasses proxies related to property rights such as holding size, land fragmentation, land rented as well as proxy governmental intervention, in this case access for credit and advisory service.A number of characteristics were mentioned by experts for which no geo-referenced data could be found. These characteristics included: a detailed land cover map, areas under land certification, proximity to veterinary support. Maps of individual characteristics.Figure 3 shows rainfall and its coefficient of variation for the Blue Nile Basin. Locations with higher rainfall have the tendency to have less variable rainfall. Jeldu and Fogera have a similar rainfall patterns while Diga has slightly higher rainfall. All three study sites have the same rainfall variability.Source: Jones and Thornton (2000). Figure 4 shows rivers and wetlands in the basin. It shows that all three study sites are crossed or bordered at least by one perennial river. In addition the study site Fogera shores with Lake Tana. Furthermore, there are no wetlands in the chosen study sites.Topography in the Blue Nile Basin follows a gradient from the flat lowlands in the West to mountainous areas in the East as shown in Figure 5. A flat highland plateau crosses the basin from Lake Tana in the North to the South. Diga and Fogera have a similar elevation and slope, while Jeldu is slightly higher and hillier than the other two sites.Source: SRTM.  As shown in the left of Figure 6, the western Ethiopian highlands are dominated by Nitisols, the so called 'red tropical soil'. Its stable porous soil structure permits deep rooting of plant and makes it generally less prone to erosion. Internal water drainage, water holding capacity and workability are good. It is a soil that is moderately to highly productive under a wide range of crops (Driessen and Dudal 1991). The eastern part is dominated by Leptosols. These soils are relatively shallow and prone to erosion. Consequently, these soils are unattractive for agriculture and have a limited potential for tree production and extensive grazing (Driessen and Dudal 1991). On the highland plateau Vertisols can be found. Vertisols are heavy clay soils. They generally have a fine structure and poor internal drainage. Because of these characteristics, workability of the soil is low. Soil need to be well managed in order to be suitable for agriculture. Therefore, Vertisol plains lend themselves better to mechanized agriculture than for low technology agriculture. In contrast, for Vertisols on slopes, contour bunding improves agricultural productivity significantly. Also around Lake Tana extensive Luvisols can be found. These soils are fertile and suitable for a wide range of agricultural uses. The selected study sites are rather different in terms of soils. Jeldu consists mainly of fine and relatively well drained Leptosols and moderately fine and imperfectly drained Nitisols, while Diga is dominated by fine well drained Nitisols. Fogera is dominated by relatively well drained and fertile Luvisols and poorly drained Vertisols directly adjacent to Lake Tana. It is also worth mentioning that the FAO soil map has a low level of detail, and that soils are likely to be more diverse within the different sites.Source: FAO. Data behind the land degradation layer is the so called restrend maps from ISRIC (Bai et al. 2008). It makes use of the error between the observed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) with a predicted NDVI computed based on the NDVI correlation with rainfall. The analysis of the trend of the error, indicated locations where there is human induced land degradation. Human induced land degradation takes place almost in the whole basin, except for the flatter areas near to Lake Tana including Fogera as shown in Figure 7.Source: Bai et al. (2008). Annual mean, maximum and minimum temperature show approximately the same spatial pattern than elevation (Figure 8). All three study sites have similar annual temperature, while minimum and maximum temperatures do show differences with Jeldu being the coolest area, and Diga the warmest.Source: Worldclim. Agro-ecological zones map combines the patterns of rainfall and temperature (Figure 9). The humid highlands, such as Diga, have the longest growing period. Jeldu and Fogera are in the semi-arid areas and have a shorter length of growing period.Source: Jones and Thornton (2000). Malaria prevails mainly in the lowlands in the west as well as the in the valleys in the west (Figure 10). All study areas are only moderately affected by malaria. Diga being located in the lower and warmer locations has the highest probability of malaria.Source: Snow et al. (2005).Figure 10. Prevalence of malaria in the Blue Nile BasinMost of the roads link Addis Ababa to the Lake Tana region, as well as to the west (Figure 11). Fogera is the study site with the best market access, while Diga and Jeldu are less accessible. Nevertheless, this comparison should be taken with caution as new surface roads are being built at the time of this study making Jeldu more accessible already as well as Diga in the near future.Source: Schmidt and Kedir (2009). Figure 12 shows the school density (number of school/area). First of all, the density of primary schools is higher than the density of secondary schools. Also the east and the south have a higher school density than the west. Interestingly the density of schools does not seem to be correlated with literacy. The south seems to be more literate than the rest of the area. Jeldu and Fogera have a similar density of primary and secondary schools. Diga has a lowest density but nonetheless has the highest literacy ratio.Source: IFPRI REA.Figure 12. Primary (left) and secondary (middle) school density, and literacy ratio (right)Figure 13 suggests that the mixed crop-livestock system have higher livestock densities than the (agro-) pastoral areas within the Blue Nile Basin. All three study areas are mainly under mixed cropping and livestock keeping.Both Jeldu and Fogera are in the temperate/tropical highland agro-ecological zone (AEZ). Diga is located in the humid/subhumid AEZ.Sources: Jones and Thornton (2000) and FAO. The areas that are located near to Addis Ababa and along the Addis Ababa-Bahir Dar road seem to have the highest cattle density. From the three study landscapes Jeldu has the highest cattle densities. Around Lake Tana the livestock density is lower but still higher than in Diga woreda.Figure 14 shows the different yield (quintal per hectare) of the major crops, namely sorghum, barely, maize and teff. Sorghum is mainly grown in the dry areas, while maize is most productive in the humid areas grown in almost the whole area and as its highest yield in the higher elevation with medium rainfall. Barley is grown mainly in the eastern part of the basin, with the highest yields in the subhumid agro-ecological zone.Figure 15 suggests that for all major crops, the proportion sold on the market is higher in the temperate humid areas with longer growing period, where also yields are generally higher. In Fogera and Jeldu a relatively high proportion of wheat and barley is sold, while maize is not sold. Also teff is not sold in Fogera and Diga, an important share of all the cereals is sold on the market.Source: IFPRI REA.  Figure 16 shows that population density is highest around Lake Tana as well as on the highland plateau. Consequently Fogera is the most densely populated study site, followed by Jeldu and then Diga. The dry lowlands are the least populated areas. Also in terms of percentage of hired labour used, the Fogera study site differs from the two others, with more hired labour used in this woreda.Source: IFPRI REA.Figure 16. Population density in the Blue Nile BasinFigure 17 shows that female-headed households and small household size seem to be correlated, mainly in the lowlands and the mountainous areas. These are the less productive areas, where men migrate in the hope to find a job outside of their villages.Source: IFPRI REA. Figure 18 suggests the utilization of advice services (percent of households having used advise services) and credit services (percent of households that has a credit) show similar spatial patterns. Furthermore advice and credit services are mostly used in the highland plateau where crop yield is generally higher. Interestingly, these are not the locations that have the best market access, such as Fogera, where there is a low utilization of both advisory and credit services. In Diga there is a very low utilization of advisory services. Jeldu exhibits a slightly higher utilization of credit services than the other two study sites.Source: IFPRI REA. As shown in Figure 19, land fragmentation is high in locations where landholding is small (below one hectare). These areas also are location where population density is high and, therefore, land is scarce. In locations where land is scarce, also the share of rented land is higher. Consequently Fogera with the highest population density is most fragmented with generally small landholdings and a high share of rented land. Diga and Jeldu both have relatively bigger landholdings and are not so much fragmented.Source: IFPRI REA. Figure 20 shows that the lowlands in the west are the poorest, while the south is the richest. The areas with a high proportion of households solely dependent on agriculture show two different patterns. First the poorest households in the west do not have sufficient access to big markets and mainly depend on agriculture. In the humid highland, where the length of the growing season is longer, yields are good and the population solely dependent on agriculture are less poor. In the south, where there are more off-farm opportunities-probably also due to the proximity to Addis-and, therefore, dependency on agricultural activities is lower. The proportion of the population below the poverty line in this area is also lower.Source: CSI and IFPRI REA. 4 Results for the set of characteristicsIndividually assessed characteristics in the previous section have been introduced into a factor analysis. Time consistency needs to be considered, because the data used has been collected from various geo-databases, namely ILRI, IWMI, IFPRI and FAO. Socio-economic characteristics are typically changing faster than biophysical ones. It is, therefore, essential to only use data from similar years in order to avoid correlations that do not make sense. Therefore, in this report two different factor analyses were carried out; the first one on socio-economic and governance data, then a second on the rest of the variables. All the socio-economic data used was collected in 2005 for the Ethiopian Rural Economy Atlas (IFPRI 2006), ensuring time consistency in the identified non-land based factors. Land-based variables change less quickly and, therefore, time consistency between the different variables is less of an issue.A factor analysis has been run on biophysical and infrastructure and on socio-economic and institutional data separately. In order to identify the dimension of a factor and name it, two criteria have been used: a loading above 0.5 and at least two variables.Table 3 shows the four factors loadings for land-based variables, in bold the one used to identify the dimension captured by each factor. The factor topography identifies locations on low elevation, with high temperatures, without steep slopes and a high variability of rainfall. The factor school density encompasses the density of primary and secondary schools.The factor remoteness indicates location with low road densities and long travelling time to major cities. These are also the more hilly areas, as suggested by the importance of the slope variable. Finally the factor rainfall erosion encompasses rainfall, variation of rainfall and slope. A high factor indicates location with high rainfall, high variability of rainfall and important slopes. These are areas where rainfall is likely to provoke important erosion. On the other extreme a low factor indicates locations with low rainfall, with low variability in flat area. These are areas where rainfall is less likely to provoke erosion. An intermediary factor results from low rainfall with high variability or high rainfall with low variability in hilly area, which are areas in which rainfall will provoke moderate erosion.The factor analysis of socio-economic and governance variable resulted in five factors whose loadings are shown in Table 4. The first factor captures dependency on agricultural production. It suggests that smallholders with less than one hectare of land fragmented on different parcels depend on agriculture only and do not hire labour. The explanation of this correlation might be the result on long-term landscape dynamics. Locations in area with low off-farm opportunities, have resulted in more population staying in agriculture, and, therefore, over generations into smaller and more fragmented plots. The second factor captures demographic pressure and related processes.It suggests that locations where many people live above the poverty line (USD 2 a day), are densely populated.In these areas land is scarce resulting in a rental market for land, explaining the importance of the share of rented land in this factor. Note that these locations are also in biophysical terms the high potential areas for agriculture.The third factor captures the use of credit and advice services. The fourth factor captures small-sized femaleheaded households dimension related variables and indicates locations with female-headed households that have a small household size. Finally, the last factor captures off-farm income. These are locations where smallholders not solely depend on agriculture but have some off-farm income. This dimension also includes cattle population, suggesting that livestock is a form of investment when off-farm income is available.Each factor has been predicted for each woreda. The predicted factor does not have any meaning as such, but can be used to compare woredas among each other. In order to assess the spatial distribution of each factor, they have been mapped as shown in Figure 21. The Jenk's classification technique was used to define categories with which woredas are similar.Figure 21 shows the different spatial patterns of each of the previously identified factors. Topography factor (1.1) is mainly driven by elevation, slope and temperature. It allows classifying the area into the lowlands in the west, the midlands, and in the mountainous highlands. All three study areas lie within the midland. The access to education factor (1.2) shows that most of the basin has a poor access to education, with the exception of the area near to Addis Ababa, the area that borders the basin, which are the areas that have market proximity. Also in terms of education access all the three study sites have a similarly low access to education. The remoteness factor (1.3) shows that area around Lake Tana but also in the south have a good accessibility while the rest of the area especially in the lowlands and the very mountainous areas are remote. This factor should be taken with cautions as roads are being built and urbanization is growing. Although the map indicates Jeldu woreda as the least accessible study site, it is nowadays the most accessible of the three study sites because of the newly built road. The factor rainwater erosion potential (1.4) shows that mainly the humid highlands are prone to rainfall erosion. Fogera and Jeldu being located in a more humid zone than Diga also have a higher potential for rainfall erosion.The dependency of agriculture factor (2.1) shows that the central areas and areas near to Addis Ababa and Lake Tana depend less on agriculture than other areas. This can be explained by off-farm opportunities near to Addis Ababa, and the commercial farming and fishing around Lake Tana. In this perspective Fogera relies less on smallholder agriculture than the other two study sites. The factor about demographic pressure (2.2) shows that demography and its consequences on landholding and wealth is pretty similar across the basin with the exception of the lowlands where population density is low and smallholders poor. The advice and credit services factor (2.3) shows that credit and advice is mainly used in the eastern part of the basin, and very few of this services are available for the lowlands. All three study sites have a medium use of credit and advice services. The household composition factor (2.4) shows that the remote areas (lowlands and mountainous regions) have the highest amount of small-sized female-headed households. Interestingly, Fogera also has a high amount of small-sized female-headed household. The last factor (2.5) reflects off-farm income, while it is also related to livestock ownership. Locations close to Addis Ababa have the highest off-farm income and also the highest livestock ownership. All the three study sites have a similar off-farm income and livestock ownership.The classification and mapping of individual characteristic show the spatial variation of variables that have been identified as potentially important for RMS. Correlation between different variables can only be guessed. Factor analysis on the contrary is an exploratory data-driven approach that aggregates variables to form uncorrelated dimensions within which the variables vary in a similar way. It assumes an unobserved construct that generates the observed data. It allows describing different processes and consequently the interactions leading to the observed patterns. The combination of both the individual analysis and the factor analysis allows identifying areas with similar characteristics: the lowlands in the west are drought prone, have little population and are poor.The spatial patterns observed on the factor maps allow identifying locations that are similar. The lowlands in the east have their own patterns. Compared to other areas in the basin, the lowlands have a relatively low population pressure, and a relatively low use of credit and advice services. Nevertheless they share similar patterns in terms of access to school, as well as dependency on agriculture and remoteness than the majority of woredas within the basin. Off-farm income and female-headed households are factors which do not have uniform spatial patterns for the lowlands.The mountainous wet areas in the northwest have also their own patterns: remoteness, high agricultural dependency and small-sized female-headed households are all important. On the contrary, use of credit and advice services, access to schools, demographic pressure and off-farm opportunity are shared with the majority of other woredas.For rest of the Blue Nile Basin, each woreda has a specific combination of each factor, and, therefore, cannot be grouped into areas that are similar along several dimensions. However, the spatial patterns presented in Figure 21 shows for each dimension (factor) which areas are similar.The similarity analysis suggests that in general the three study sites are very similar. They mainly differ in terms of soil types, livestock density, population and household composition. Fogera is the most populated area with the most small-sized female-headed households. It has a medium livestock density and a soil that needs to be well managed to be productive. Jeldu is the most livestock dense area on the most erosion prone soils, while Diga is the least densely populated area (due to only recent in-migration) with the lowest livestock density. It is located on relatively fertile soil and has the least amount of small-sized female-headed households.In terms of available data, Jeldu and Fogera seem similar to each other when it comes to farming characteristics and infrastructure, such as length of growing period, density of schools, livestock holding or rainfall erosion potential. In contrast, Jeldu is much more similar to Diga in terms of socio-economic and institutional aspects, such as land fragmentation, wealth or use of credit and advice services.This important similarity between the different study sites is surprising. Four reasons can explain this similarity: i. factor analysis yields to wrong results because of missing variables, ii. the scale chosen does not capture a sufficient level of detail, iii. the level of aggregation chosen does not represent diversity correctly, iv. the study site selection was suboptimal in terms of variability.Firstly, in order to test the hypothesis of missing drivers, one can compare other studies that use more expert based knowledge to assess the human-nature interactions. Both farming-systems, which reflect how farmers makes use of their land, and land-use which reflects how the whole society makes use of its land, given the biophysical, socio-economic and institutional settings, can be used to assess variability. Figure 22 shows the farming systems as well as the land use map for the whole Blue Nile Basin. Based on these maps, all three study sites are surprisingly similar. In all three, single cereal production is observed, however, the major cereal varies: Diga is maize based, Jeldu and Fogera are teff based, while part of Jeldu is barley based. The land use map also suggests that both Jeldu and Fogera are mainly used for cultivation: Fogera is more intensely cultivated than Jeldu.Land use in Diga is slightly different and indicates crop plantation which refers to the mango plantation, which are usually intercropped with maize explaining the maize based farming-system. Both the land use map and the farming system map lead to a similar conclusion: Fogera and Jeldu seem to have similar patterns and Diga only slightly differs. Given that these two maps yield to similar conclusion than the factor analysis, omitted variables do not seem to be source of seemingly similar study site. Nonetheless this conclusion should be taken with caution, as both are based on relatively old sources (before 2000), and, therefore, certain patterns might have changed.Development in the Fogera plain has led to multiple cropping, including rice as a major crop, accompanied with supply chain management. State farms as suggested in Diga have been dissolved and land given to settlers. In addition given the high scale of the map, level of detail might be lost. Therefore, the maps in Figure 22 might not reflect the diversity and complexity of the current farming system and the resulting land use.Source: ENTRO. As such the similarity between the different study sites could be the result of the scale at which the similarity analysis has been run. The factor analysis has been run at basin scale making use of data at woreda level. The choice of this scale impacts our results in two ways: the extent of the data we use defines the heterogeneity that is introduced into the analysis and the resolution (woreda level) defines the level of detail by which this heterogeneity can be captured.Secondly, the Blue Nile Basin boundary has been used as extent of this study, including locations in very different agro-ecologies than the three study sites, thereby increasing the overall heterogeneity within the analysis. This might increase the range of the analysis and, therefore, seemingly reduce the heterogeneity with the agro-ecologies of interest. To test this hypothesis, a factor analysis has been performed on a subset of woredas that have similar agro-ecologies than the three study sites. Results on the subset show the same characteristics than the basin wide analysis. This suggests that the results are robust and are not dependent on the extent of the study.Thirdly, the resolution of the data was chosen at woreda level, the smallest level at which socio-economic data is available basin wide. Thus in order to model the basin extent, the heterogeneity within the woreda is lost. A good example of this phenomenon can be illustrated with the agricultural system map (Figure 22) that suggests that Fogera is a teff producing area, despite of the rice producing plain. This is the case since the plain is relatively small in terms of area compared to the rest of the woreda. There is, therefore, is a trade-off between the extent of the analysis and the level of heterogeneity that can be captured. For this reason, drivers to human-nature interaction may differ depending on the scale of the analysis (Cash 2006). Whereas at basin scale household and biophysical characteristics can only be taken into account on an aggregate level, human interactions, governance such as land redistribution or market orientation, location specific natural phenomena such as erosion or termites are lost. Therefore, when analysed at woreda, the three study sites might seem very similar despite of the fact that they are very different from each other. To assess this scale, different data is needed from the farm as well as community and kebele (municipality) level. A recent study identifies livelihoods zones in Ethiopia by integrating expert knowledge from community level (USAID and Government of Ethiopia, n.d.). These zones are shown in Figure 23 and represent areas within which households on average share a similar livelihoods pattern, i.e. they have the same set of food, cash income sources and the same markets. The three study sites are all part of very different livelihood zones. Consequently, when using smaller scales and a higher level of detail, the three study sites seem to be very different. In this perspective, local action research and base-line assessment in the three sites will be important in order to identify dimensions within which the study sites differ which cannot be captured by the currently available data.   patterns. This suggests that the scale at which the similarity analysis is run has important consequences and scale needs to be carefully chosen for scaling out rainwater management strategies.Finally, it could be noted that the site selection is suboptimal in terms of variability. Two hypotheses can be formulated to explain why these sites have been selected. Firstly, the selection was made by experts based on hydrological characteristics and the availability of partners to work. Experts might have looked at some of the characteristics separately without taking into account that many of these characteristics are correlated and that once this correlation is captured, for example, with a factor analysis, these sites are unexpectedly similar.Secondly, given the nature of the project focusing on action research, it might be that the availability of partners to work with is a criterion that has overweighed all the other criteria.Understanding the spatial heterogeneity of both biophysical and socio-economic dimensions is a first step towards targeting and out-scaling interventions. Indeed, a successful intervention in one location can be a bestbet intervention in a location with similar characteristics.This similarity analysis includes a multitude of possible drivers for adoption of any water related intervention.It does not consider that some of the interventions might be driven by different processes and, therefore, not all the variables used in this study might be relevant. Therefore, two major further steps are needed to develop an efficient tool for identifying best-bet interventions: i. creating intervention/practice specific maps taking cross-scale dynamics into account, and ii. including a feedback loop with impact assessments and develop recommendation domain maps.Firstly, the drivers of adoption and disadoption of rainwater management practices need to be understood. Feasibility maps that include socio-economic and institutional dimension indicate those locations where all drivers suggest a feasible location for adoption of a practice. Methods for aggregation of different drivers into a feasibility map include principal component analysis (PCA) and multi-criteria analysis (MCA).Clearly, the previously discussed cross-scale dynamics suggests that crucial drivers influencing farmers' decision-making might not be captured at woreda level and consequently not be taken into account when feasibility maps are built based on the data used in this similarity analysis only. In this perspective, expert knowledge about drivers identified at lower scale and up-scaling of farm household surveys are promising techniques to take dynamics from lower scales into account.Over the recent years, Ethiopia has been developing quickly, raising the issue whether data collected over the last decades is relevant for creating similarity maps for current analysis and targeting. Indeed new roads are being built and need to be remapped as soon as new road maps are finished. In addition, not only increasing urbanization creates new markets for agricultural products, also new export channels are developing. This suggests that market access should be redefined to reflect current economic situation and accessibility taking into account the different actors in the value chain. Consequently, the factor remoteness should be remapped and should be reviewed regularly. Due to the increasing opportunities due to urbanization, also the livelihoods of smallholders might have changed around the growing cities and the newly built roads. Therefore, the maps presented in this report still need to be validated and-where possible-updated with recent field data, 1 expert knowledge and action research. Only this will yield reliable maps indicating the current suitability.It would also be interesting to take a forward looking perspective. The inclusion of projections of population density, precipitation, food and feed demand, market access etc. could yield potential future feasibility maps. These would be of special interest for strategic long-term planning.After the development of feasibility maps, a second remaining step involves taking into account of potential impacts. Based on the identification of suitable locations for specific interventions, a number of plausible scenarios can be built. These are in turn investigated in terms of their environmental and livelihoods impacts.The combination of biophysical suitability, socio-economic adoption potential and expected impact then yields the final recommendation domains. Methods for aggregating and synthesising these different components remain a challenge yet to be addressed, but could be along the lines of earlier work by Omamo et al. (2006), Peden et al. (2006), Freeman et al. (2008) and Notenbaert et al. (2011).This report aimed at developing a methodology that allows identifying different dimensions in which locations within a landscape differ. It makes use of a time consistent factor analysis of spatial data at the scale of the smallest unit at which data is available (woreda). This approach has been applied to the Blue Nile Basin in the Ethiopian highlands. ","tokenCount":"6430"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9adf9cb70054f17a780b06e47cd2faa7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e77cdd8a-1803-4e8d-b2e1-b8954146cadb/retrieve","id":"1052522068"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"264e977a-aa48-4ea7-b72c-21dad8819d47","pagecount":"2","content":"Fig1. Average number (per field) of begomoviruses found infecting each collected sweetpotato sample in different regions of Africa.Virus infection, by a number of different types of viruses, is among the most important constraints of sweetpotato production globally and especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Among the more than 30 described viruses infecting sweetpotato, Sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus (SPCSV) and SPFMV are considered the most wide-spread and devastating, particularly when occurring in combination to cause the sweet potato virus disease (SPVD), which has been reported throughout SSA. A recent project determined the prevalence of different viruses and virus strains infecting sweetpotato and their distribution over the African continent, highlighting the common occurrence of begomoviruses in addition to SPFMV and SPCSV (Fig. 1). This information is essential to enable adequate control of the viruses in each region either through breeding for resistance to the appropriate viruses, production of disease-free or \"clean\" planting material tested for the appropriate viruses or cultural methods of preventing virus spread in the field. Diagnostic tests are not available for all viruses and currently available tests are either not sensitive enough to reliably detect viruses directly from sweetpotato, or require expensive laboratory equipment and a high level of experience. Thus, improved diagnostic methods are required.We would like to have appropriate diagnostic methods and protocols to detect the most important and prevalent viruses present in sweetpotato. The diagnostic methods developed should be easy to use, not too costly, highly sensitive and able to detect all important viruses, preferably simultaneously. These tools, once developed, can be used to guide breeding and other control strategies to target the appropriate viruses for each country or sub-region, and support phytosanitary processes to prevent the spread of viruses to new areas. We also want to determine the potential impact begomoviruses may have on sweetpotato yields; a study with these viruses has never been done before in the SSA context.Surveys for begomovirus detection and next generation sequencing were performed in sweetpotato growing regions of Kenya and will complement those performed previously in other African countries. Begomovirus yield trials will be performed at two locations in Kenya. We have been using a generic virus detection method developed at CIP called small RNA sequencing and assembly (sRSA) to determine all viruses infecting sweetpotato in SSA: the pan-African sweetpotato virome. We will apply the same method to samples currently collected from Kenya, which was not included previously. In parallel, we have been developing and testing two different diagnostic methods for detecting sweetpotato viruses: micro-arrays in a test tube (ClonDiag arrays) and an isothermal amplification method (LAMP). These two methods have different applications; ClonDiag is able to detect all viruses, but requires laboratory conditions, whereas LAMP detects only single viruses at a time but can be applied directly in the field.Virus collections were previously made from 13 countries across SSA and led to the identification of 3,193 viruses from 1,168 samples including the complete or near complete genomes of several new sweetpotato viruses that were previously unknown, or were only known by the symptoms they cause in the indicator plant I. setosa. This also revealed the underlying genetic variation of known viruses in distinct geographic regions of Africa, including new strains of Sweet potato mild mottle virus, SPCSV and Sweet potato chlorotic fleck virus.After analyzing available technologies at the beginning of the project, development of a sweet potato virus micro-array using the ClonDiag system was selected as the best option for a single generic test platform. Four successive iterations of a universal diagnostic sweetpotato virus array were developed and tested, each iteration improving on the previous version, but also adding new viruses (and variants) as they were discovered by sRSA. Currently the array has been tested in CIP-Lima, MARI and KEPHIS. The array will be validated between the laboratories in CIP-Lima and KEPHIS, Muguga using the virus collection set up at KEPHIS. A mobile phone app, programmed in HTML5 for cross platform functionality, was developed for analyzing results from the ClonDiag array.LAMP assays were also developed for the most common sweetpotato viruses, including SPFMV and SPCSV. LAMP has advantages for virus diagnosis in the field as it works at a single temperature. A simple extraction method for sweetpotato leaves was developed consisting of macerating leaves in an alkaline solution in a plastic bag and using the extract directly for the reaction. A field test was successful in detecting SPFMV within 30 minutes (Fig. 2 and 3). Currently we are focusing our efforts in developing an appropriate format to run and visualize results of LAMP tests under field conditions.  ","tokenCount":"759"}

data/part_2/0065659416.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f23c48c15c4eac1362e248d6937ce4d5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d14e24de-6ff7-45a8-8c0c-75dde0ce5cf3/retrieve","id":"-1799222881"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"52cbccaa-ae35-4de8-8c8f-16a44b109072","pagecount":"2","content":"Bugtok is an endemic and a widely distributed bacterial disease of cooking banana cultivars in the Philippines. Bugtok is a local term in the southern Philippines used to describe the infected fruit which are discolored and hard even when ripe. It was noted as a minor disorder more than 40 years ago, but was reported by Roperos in 1965 as a developing problem of importance. The disease has recently caused the virtual abandonment of plantations of Saba and Cardaba (ABB/BBB), two of the most popular cooking bananas in the country.Studies on the etiology of bugtok began in 1990. It is caused by Pseudomonas solanacearum E. F. Smith. The bacterium can be isolated from the milky substance that oozes from bracts detached from infected male inflorescences. It can also be isolated from droplets of bacterial ooze, which vary in color from white to yellow to reddish brown, that exude from cut peduncles held under moist conditions. The bacterium is a Gram-negative rod, aerobic, catalase positive, produces hydrogen sulphide from cysteine and elicits a hypersensitive response on White Burley tobacco. The colonies that develop after 72 hours incubation at 28°C on tetrazolium chloride agar medium are typical of P. solanacearum being 0.5 to 4.5 mm in diameter, irregular, convex and fluidal with or without a pink formazan center. The bugtok bacterium cannot be differentiated from the Moko disease (banana bacterial wilt) bacterium on cultural, morphological and biochemical characteristics nor by genetic analysis using RFLP-PCR techniques. Some isolates of bugtok easily cause wilt in tomatoes. Other isolates do not, although these isolates consistently cause wilt in artificially inoculated banana plantlets. The most discernible symptom of the disease is the discoloration of the fruit pulp which is most intense at the core. In fruit with a slight infection, the discolored parts are interspersed with soft fruit pulp. All fruits within a bunch can be discolored in severe infections, but the distribution of discolored fruits within a bunch is random in plants which are less severely infected.Unlike Moko disease, bugtok infected plants appear outwardly normal to the untrained eye. The leaves remain green and fruit seems to develop normally. However, the bracts of the male inflorescence, if left in the fruit bunch, fail to dehisce. This gives the male inflorescence a dry and loose appearance. This character is the only external symptom that can differentiate healthy from infected plants. Internally, brown vascular streaks can be observed in the fruit peduncle, the fruit stem and the pseudostem.Browning is less intense at the base of the pseudostem but discoloration sometimes extends to the corm of the plant.There is convincing evidence that infection occurs via the inflorescence, and that bugtok disease is transmitted by insects, probably thrips. Bagging the young inflorescence as it emerges from the crown produces bugtok-free fruit, an indication that insect vectors play a role in the spread of the disease. Sucker transmission is unlikely since planting material collected from highly affected mats growing in bugtok-free areas produce healthy fruit.Bugtok is very common in backyards where Saba and Cardaba are planted. However, the following cultivars planted at the Davao National Crops Research and Development Center were also affected: Mundo, Turangkog, Paa Dalaga, Biguihan, Inabaniko and Java (ABB/BBB genome); Gubao, Katsila, Pelipita, Maduranga, (ABB genome) and Giant Kalapua (ABBB genome). This indicates that cultivars possessing the 'B' or Musa balbisiana genome are susceptible to bugtok.Bugtok can be controlled by bagging the inflorescence at the bending stage just after emergence. The bagging material can be a polyethylene bag, muslin cloth, or a fine nylon mesh bag. Bags can be removed after all the fruits have set if followed by removal of the male inflorescence. This practice should also include mat and field sanitation, and removal of old, dead leaves. Injecting the male inflorescence with insecticide, as practised by commercial plantation to control thrips, was not as effective as bagging.There is very little information on the pathogenic relationship of the bugtok and Moko bacteria and on the survival/persistence of the bugtok bacterium in the soil or on plant debris. Also, the insects that transmit bugtok have not been identified. More work needs to be undertaken to resolve these issues and also which cultivars are susceptible and resistant to bugtok.The Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), the University of Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB) and INIBAP are key partners and investigations on bugtok continue in the Philippines.Fruit showing discoloration of the pulp due to bugtok (below).","tokenCount":"736"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"789b75cf5f6990f5adfbfa1441ea2b3b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/60c3391f-61ba-45fe-95d1-f6a26252f189/content","id":"1913633737"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a240fbf6-849d-4eee-b670-495cc5134cc4","pagecount":"58","content":"Aprovechamos este espacio para reconocer el esfuerzo de todas las personas que aportaron algo a este manual. Al personal de las Universidades Autónoma del Estado de México y Antonio Narro por ayudar en la edición de los textos y la compilación de los datos durante su estancia en el CIMMYT o por medio de algún proyecto. Asimismo, los compiladores y editores agradecen la valiosa colaboración de sus colegas Miguel Bojorges, Dionicio Zavala, Jorge González y Roberto Aguilar, técnicos del laboratorio de calidad nutricional de maíz.Con sede en México, el Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT) es un organismo sin fines de lucro que se dedica a la investigación agrícola y la capacitación. El Centro trabaja para reducir la pobreza y el hambre mediante el aumento sustentable de la productividad del maíz y del trigo en el mundo en desarrollo. El CIMMYT cuenta con el banco de semillas de maíz y trigo más grande del mundo y es conocido en particular por haber iniciado la Revolución Verde que salvó millones de vidas en Asia, hecho que motivó que el Dr. Norman Borlaug, del CIMMYT, recibiera el Premio Nobel de la Paz. El CIMMYT es miembro del Consorcio del CGIAR y recibe fondos de gobiernos nacionales, fundaciones, bancos de desarrollo y otras instituciones públicas y privadas.© Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT) 2012. Todos los derechos reservados. Las designaciones empleadas en la presentación de los materiales incluidos en esta publicación de ninguna manera expresan la opinión del CIMMYT o de sus patrocinadores respecto al estado legal de cualquier país, territorio, ciudad o zona, o de las autoridades de éstos, o respecto a la delimitación de sus fronteras. Las opiniones expresadas son las del (los) autor(es) y no necesariamente representan las del CIMMYT ni las de nuestros aliados. El CIMMYT autoriza el uso razonable de este material, siempre y cuando se cite la fuente.Los análisis químicos y bioquímicos de semillas y tejido vegetal son esenciales para distintos tipos de programas fitogenéticos que se dedican a mejorar el maíz en sus aspectos industriales, nutricionales, fisiológicos y de patología vegetal.El Laboratorio de Calidad Nutricional de Maíz y Análisis de Tejido Vegetal del CIMMYT se dedica a desarrollar y/o adoptar metodologías adecuadas, económicas y rápidas para poder proveer datos precisos que permitan a los investigadores tomar decisiones en el campo en cuanto a las mejoras nutricionales del maíz.Entre las técnicas que actualmente utilizamos para establecer la plataforma de análisis químicos y bioquímicos están las técnicas químicas con reacciones colorimétricas y de espectroscopía, como la de reflectancia en el infrarrojo cercano (NIRS) y la de emisión óptica por plasma acoplado inductivamente.Las metodologías de laboratorio se agrupan de la manera siguiente:1. Métodos para cuantificar: a) Triptófano b) Lisina c) Proteína Sobre todo en maíz de alta calidad proteínica (QPM) 2. Determinación de provitamina A mediante la cuantificación de carotenoides por Cromatografía de Líquidos de Alta Resolución (HPLC).3. El análisis de micronutrimentos (hierro, zinc y aluminio) mediante el espectroscopio de emisión óptica por plasma acoplado inductivamente (ICP-OES). En las metodologías aquí descritas se utilizan reactivos químicos que deben ser manipulados con responsabilidad y precaución, y que requieren el uso de equipo de protección personal adecuado.Siguiendo las buenas prácticas de laboratorio, el mínimo equipo de protección que debe portarse consta de bata, guantes y lentes de seguridad. Es muy importante utilizar una campana de extracción durante la preparación de algunos reactivos que son volátiles, tóxicos o corrosivos; en caso de no contar con una campana, utilizar un respirador.Asimismo, se recomienda al personal leer con mucha atención las hojas de seguridad (MSDS, por sus siglas en inglés) que proporcionan los proveedores de reactivos, ya que de esta manera podrán hacer un uso correcto de los productos, almacenar apropiadamente los químicos y seguir los procedimientos pertinentes, en caso de que llegara a ocurrir algún accidente.Las muestras que se utilicen deberán ser representativas del área y del objetivo del estudio, así como del material que se evaluará o analizará (por ejemplo, variedades de maíz de polinización abierta vs. líneas puras). La composición química de los materiales varía según su etapa de crecimiento o su desarrollo, o ambos. Otros factores que causan variaciones son las condiciones ambientales, la etapa fisiológica y el segmento de la planta que se toma como muestra. Por tanto, es recomendable seleccionar con mucho cuidado las muestras del material, guiándose por el diseño experimental y teniendo en mente el propósito del análisis. Cuando el objetivo sea, por ejemplo, evaluar semillas de maíz, se recomienda no utilizar los granos de los extremos (punta y base) de la mazorca.Cuando se trata de analizar microelementos como hierro y zinc, es importante poner especial cuidado durante el muestreo en campo (Stangoulis, J. y Sision, C., 2008) y tener en cuenta las siguientes recomendaciones:1. Asegúrese de que el grupo de trabajo esté consciente de que existe el riesgo de que los materiales se contaminen. 2. Coseche cuando el grano haya alcanzado la madurez fisiológica, pero no deshoje las mazorcas. 3. Ponga las mazorcas (sin quitar las hojas) en una bolsa limpia y evite todo contacto con el suelo, hasta que se asegure de que el área está limpia. 4. Deshoje manualmente las mazorcas. Recuerde que quien recolecte las muestras no deberá usar joyería ni cualquier otro accesorio que pudiera ser fuente de contaminación por metales. 5. Coloque las mazorcas en un recipiente limpio (por ejemplo, en una bolsa tejida de plástico[arpilla] limpia y destinada solo para este propósito). 6. Colóquelas en bandejas de secado limpias (p.ej., plástico limpio) y séquelas a 40 °C durante 5 días en una estufa no contaminante; también puede secarlas al sol, sin quitarles las hojas (sobre una superficie limpia) y deshojarlas después. 7. Con las manos limpias, desgrane las semillas y deposítelas en bolsas de plástico limpias o en sobres de papel, y mézclelas perfectamente. 8. Para obtener una muestra representativa, distribuya de manera uniforme los granos en una superficie limpia, presiónelos para formar una capa y extiéndalos hasta formar un círculo (Figura 1). 9. Muélalos finamente (las partículas deben pasar por una malla tamiz 30) en un molino analítico no contaminante (por ejemplo, molino de bola Retsch con recipientes de teflón y bolas de zirconio).Tome una submuestra para el análisis. Tenga mucho cuidado al colocar cada muestra en un sobre de papel o tubo de plástico nuevo, limpio y etiquetado.Figura 1. Ilustración del cuarteo de granos para obtener una muestra representativa.El tejido vegetal debe lavarse en el campo al momento de recolectar las plantas. De no ser esto posible, deberá mantenerse en ambiente frío y húmedo para que permanezca turgente hasta que se pueda lavar en el laboratorio. El lavado debe hacerse antes de iniciar el secado.Dado que la actividad metabólica altera la composición del tejido vegetal, la muestra deberá conservarse fría, congelada o como materia seca para mantener al mínimo la actividad metabólica.Secar el tejido vegetal en una estufa de circulación forzada, libre de polvo, a una temperatura de 80 °C, para eliminar la humedad pero cuidando de no provocar una descomposición térmica considerable. Si el tejido se seca a temperaturas de menos de 80 °C puede quedar algo de humedad, pero secarlo a una temperatura más elevada podría ocasionar descomposición térmica.Cuando los análisis se hacen en el laboratorio, se recomienda moler mecánicamente el tejido vegetal seco para que la composición de la muestra sea más uniforme.Triturar primero los granos completos en un molino Wiley con puntos de contacto de acero inoxidable (las partículas deben pasar por una malla de acero inoxidable de 2 mm de diámetro); posteriormente utilizar un molino Tecator Cyclotec con malla de acero inoxidable (con orificios de 0.5 mm de diámetro).La homogeneidad de la muestra es una condición fundamental para obtener datos confiables en los análisis químicos o en los análisis no destructivos. Asimismo, el tamaño de las partículas es sumamente importante si los análisis se hacen con la técnica de NIRS (espectroscopía de reflectancia en el infrarrojo cercano, por sus siglas en inglés).Depositar el polvo de las muestras en frascos de vidrio, bolsas de papel o polietileno, cerrarlos muy bien, etiquetarlos con la descripción exacta de su contenido (según sea la característica que se vaya a analizar) y almacenarlos.Si las semillas de trigo o maíz que serán analizadas han sido tratadas con algún producto químico o conservador, proceder de la siguiente manera:• Lavar la semilla con agua de la llave, luego con agua destilada y por último con agua desionizada. Usar equipo de protección personal en caso de que los productos que vayan a lavarse sean tóxicos. • Colocar las semillas lavadas en bandejas de plástico; asegurarse de que tengan el número de identificación de laboratorio correspondiente y dejarlas secar a temperatura ambiente durante 24 horas. • Pesar las muestras secas y meterlas en sobres de papel de color amarillo. Asignarles el número de laboratorio correspondiente.• Para la separación del endospermo, remojar las semillas de 20 a 30 minutos en agua destilada. Quitar el pericarpio y eliminar el germen, con ayuda de unas pinzas y un bisturí. • Dejar que el endospermo se seque a temperatura ambiente durante la noche.El método químico de referencia es el 08-01 1995 de la AACC para la cuantificación de cenizas totales, que se utiliza también para la determinación de cenizas en granos de maíz. En el laboratorio podemos generar una curva de calibración, utilizando un espectrofotómetro de reflectancia, que nos permite determinar el contenido de cenizas en hojas de maíz.Cuadro 1. Materiales y reactivos que se utilizan en la cuantificación de cenizas.Cloruro de calcio CaCl 2 (en trozos) Usar como agente desecante.Usar un pirómetro para medir la temperatura.Crisoles para determinación de cenizas De platino o silicio, de preferencia. Utilizar guantes de asbesto al sacar los crisoles de la mufla.Verificar frecuentemente el agente desecante.Muestreo y molienda 1. Tomar al azar de 20 a 30 semillas como muestra representativa del material. 2. Asegurarse de que todas las semillas de la muestra tengan un contenido de humedad similar.3. Moler finamente cada muestra.1. Secar la muestra durante 24 horas a 80 °C. 2. Etiquetar los crisoles para determinación de cenizas de acuerdo con el número de laboratorio.3. Colocar los crisoles en la mufla durante 1 hora a 600 °C. 4. Enfriar la muestra y los crisoles en un desecador. 5. Pesar los crisoles y anotar su peso. 6. Pesar 2 g de la muestra. 7. Mantener los crisoles con la muestra en una mufla eléctrica a 600 °C de 6 a 8 horas. 8. Sacar los crisoles de la mufla y dejarlos enfriar en un desecador hasta que estén a temperatura ambiente. Pesar el residuo y registrar el dato.peso del residuo % cenizas = ------------------x 100 peso de la muestra Cuadro 2. Soluciones a problemas comunes en la determinación de cenizas.Problema Solución Se detecta aumento de humedad durante el registro del Secar y pesar por lotes. Usar varios desecadores. peso seco de la harina y/o cuando se pesan las cenizas.Color oscuro o pardo de las cenizas.Asegurarse de que el incremento de temperatura haya sido gradual.El método químico de referencia es el AACC 30-25, 1995.Cuadro 3. Materiales y reactivos que se utilizan en la cuantificación de grasa cruda.Éter de petróleo Sigma-Aldrich Cat. 184519 Utilizar respirador, debido a que se trata de CAS 8032-32-4 un solvente altamente volátil.Desengrasador continuo Tipo Goldfisch Verificar que el agua del sistema de enfriamiento esté limpia y a temperatura baja.Pinzas para mufla Limpias y libres de fuentes de contaminación.Limpiar perfectamente con aire.Muestreo y molienda 1. Tomar al azar de 20 a 30 semillas como muestra representativa del material. 2. Asegurarse de que todas las semillas de la muestra tengan un contenido de humedad similar.3. Moler finamente cada muestra.4. Determinar el peso seco/constante de los vasos. 5. Pesar 2 g de harina deshidratada y colocarla en el interior del cartucho (dedal) de celulosa de extracción (peso seco de la muestra). 6. Encender la bomba y conectarla al sistema de refrigeración. Asegurarse de que la circulación de agua fría es constante. 7. Precalentar los calentadores de 8 a 10 minutos. 8. Seleccionar el nivel de calentamiento indicado (normalmente nivel 5). 9. Colocar los dedales en sus correspondientes tubos condensadores. 10. Acoplar los tubos condensadores en el sistema de recirculación/reflujo. 11. Agregar de 25 a 35 mL de éter de petróleo (solvente) a cada vaso. 12. Fijar los vasos en el sistema, asegurándose de que estén correctamente acoplados. 13. Asegurarse de que todos los vasos estén correctamente instalados y de que no hay no fugas de solvente. 14. Desbloquear los calentadores (parrillas) y empujar hacia arriba hasta que toquen la base de los vasos. 15. Mantener el material en reflujo durante 6 horas. 16. Al terminar de hacer la extracción, separar las parrillas y colocar los cubrecalentadores. 17. Recuperar el solvente (con los tubos de recuperación apropiados). 18. Secar el extracto colocando el vaso inclinado en el portavasos. Después de que se evapore la mayor parte del solvente, mantener el vaso en la estufa de secado durante una hora a 130 °C. 19. Pesar los vasos con la muestra (peso del extracto etéreo). Cuadro 4. Soluciones a problemas comunes en la determinación de grasa cruda.Pérdida o evaporación de solvente al inicio de la extracción.• Revisar que los empaques estén bien colocados.• Verificar que los vasos estén en buenas condiciones (que no tengan cuarteaduras ni imperfecciones).La ebullición/burbujeo no es homogéneo en todos los vasos.Revisar que las parrillas estén en óptimas condiciones.Dificultad para limpiar los vasos. Evitar que el secado del extracto etéreo se prolongue por más de una hora.Variación/inestabilidad cuando se pesan los vasos que Asegurarse de que los vasos ya estén a temperatura contienen el extracto etéreo.ambiente.Como referencia se usa el Método Industrial #334-74, 1977 desarrollado para el Autoanalizador Technicon II (Technicon Autoanalyzer II).La determinación de nitrógeno se basa en un método colorimétrico en el cual se forma un compuesto de color verde esmeralda por la reacción del salicilato y del hipoclorito con el amoníaco.El Espectrofotómetro de Reflectancia en el Infrarrojo Cercano (NIRS) cuenta con una curva de calibración para la determinación de nitrógeno en tejido vegetal molido de trigo y en harina de maíz.Cuadro 5. Materiales y reactivos que se utilizan en la determinación de nitrógeno. Digestión de la muestra 1. Pesar 40 mg de la muestra molida. Incluir dos muestras testigo. 2. Colocar la muestra en el fondo de un tubo de digestión de 75 mL.3. Incluir uno o dos tubos con blancos (vacíos, sin muestra) por cada digestión. 4. Agregar a cada tubo 2 g de la mezcla catalítica y 2.5 mL de H 2 SO 4 concentrado por las paredes de los tubos. Dejar reposar hasta que cese la reacción. 5. Digerir a 380 °C durante 90 minutos en un digestor precalentado, en la campana de extracción.6. Sacar la rejilla de tubos del bloque de digestión; dejarlos enfriar a temperatura ambiente y luego agregar 75 mL de agua destilada para evitar formación de cristales. Asegúrese de que la solución de digestión esté totalmente clara. 7. Cerrar bien los tubos con una tapa de hule (goma) y mezclar su contenido invirtiéndolos varias veces. 8. Transferir 2 mL de la solución a los frascos del Analizador Technicon y colocar las muestras en el Autoanalizador. 9. Establecer la línea base ajustando, mediante la bomba, el flujo de cada uno de los cuatro reactivos: las mezclas de reactivos 1, 3, 4 y el hipoclorito de sodio. 10. Ajustar el graficador a 0% utilizando el blanco de digestión. 11. Correr los cuatro tubos con los blancos de digestión y verificar que la línea base indique 0%. 12. Correr cuatro tubos con la muestra estándar de 20 μg/mL y poner el pico a 70% en el graficador. 13. Correr las muestras testigo y las muestras que se van a analizar.1. Preparar una solución de sulfato de amonio 100 μg/mL en agua destilada. 2. Cada vez que se analicen muestras, preparar una dilución para obtener una concentración de 20 μg/mL de sulfato de amonio con la solución blanco de la digestión.Recomendaciones especiales: a) Puede utilizar jabón para lavar los tubos de digestión, pero debe eliminar todos los residuos con agua desionizada. b) Si fuera necesario, las muestras digeridas se pueden almacenar a temperatura ambiente, protegidas del aire, durante un máximo de 7 días antes de analizarlas. Sin embargo, es mejor analizar las muestras digeridas lo antes posible. c) Los frascos del Technicon deben estar limpios. Lavarlos tres o cuatro veces solo con agua deionizada. No utilizar ningún tipo de jabón. d) Siempre se incluyen por lo menos dos testigos (normal y QPM) en cada juego de 34 muestras que se analiza. e) Calibrar el Technicon cada vez que se hagan análisis.20 μg N 2 /mL corresponde al 70 % en la gráfica Donde:1 % en la gráfica = 0.2857 μg N/mL en la digestión. μg N/mL en la digestión = % de lectura en la gráfica x 0.2857 μg N 2 /mL o μg N 2 en 75 mL en la digestión = % de lectura en la gráfica x 0.2857 μg N 2 /mL x 75 20 μg N/mL Factor de cálculo = - ------------------------x volumen de digestión x 100% divisiones de la gráfica x 1,000 ---------------------peso de la muestra (mg)La cantidad de proteína se puede estimar a partir del valor de nitrógeno; en el caso de maíz, se estima como sigue:% proteína = % de nitrógeno x 6.25 (factor de conversión para el maíz) Cuadro 6. Soluciones a problemas comunes en la determinación de nitrógeno.La línea base es demasiado alta o variable • Compruebe que todos los reactivos estén siendo bombeados en el sistema.• Si se preparó un reactivo nuevo, asegúrese de haber seguido el procedimiento correcto. • Prepare nuevos reactivos.Cambios en los valores de las muestras de verificación• Pese las muestras correctamente.• Asegurarse de que las muestras fueron digeridas por completo.• Asegúrese de que la mezcla de reactivos 3 no se haya oxidado.• Si está oxidada, prepare una nueva.• Verifique la calidad de los reactivos.• Prepare reactivos nuevos.La solución de la digestión no es clara • Asegúrese de que tanto la muestra como la mezcla catalizadora se encuentren en el fondo del tubo. • Agregue el ácido sulfúrico, con cuidado haciendo que resbale suavemente por la pared del tubo.Manchas negras/amarillas en la solución de la digestión • Revise la temperatura del bloque de digestión.• Vea que los pozos del bloque de digestión estén limpios.• Aumente 20 minutos al tiempo de digestión. Muestreo y molienda 1. Tomar al azar de 20 a 30 semillas como muestra representativa del material.2. Moler finamente cada muestra; el tamaño de partícula deberá ser igual o menor a 0.5 mm.3. Colocar cada muestra en un cartucho de papel filtro comercial (tamaño: 10 x 2 cm, aproximadamente). 4. Desengrasar las muestras durante seis horas, con aproximadamente 300 mL de hexano por matraz balón, en un extractor continuo tipo Soxhlet. 5. Secar las muestras al aire y asegurarse que todo el hexano se ha evaporado.6. Pesar 30 mg de harina desengrasada, de cada muestra, en un tubo Eppendorf de 1.5 mL. Se recomienda hacer una repetición técnica por muestra. 7. Agregar 1.125 mL de solución de papaína. 8. Siempre incluir por lo menos 2 blancos, 4 testigos (con una concentración conocida de triptófano:2 QPM y 2 normales) y la curva de calibración (ver los detalles más adelante). 9. Cierre los tubos. 10. Agitar vigorosamente las muestras en el vórtex y colocarlas en una estufa a 65 °C durante 16 horas (toda la noche). Agitarlas dos veces más, una hora después de colocarlas en la estufa y una hora antes de que termine el período de incubación (16 horas). Asegúrese de que no haya evaporación durante la incubación. 11. Sacar los tubos de la estufa y dejarlos enfriar a temperatura ambiente. 12. Agitar los tubos en el vórtex justo antes de centrifugarlos a 3,600 g durante 10 min. Asegurarse de que el sobrenadante no contenga partículas de las muestras; en caso de que las tenga, volver a centrifugar los tubos.13. Con mucho cuidado, transferir 50 μL de hidrolizado (sobrenadante) a un tubo de vidrio. 14. Agregar 150 μL del reactivo E (reactivo colorimétrico). 15. En el vórtex, agitar vigorosamente cada muestra de 3 a 5 segundos. 16. Incubar los tubos en la estufa a 64 °C por 30 minutos para que se desarrolle el color. 17. Sacar los tubos de la estufa y dejarlos enfriar a temperatura ambiente. 18. Leer la absorbancia a 560 nm en un espectrofotómetro de placas.Es importante desengrasar la harina de maíz para mejorar la precisión y la reproducibilidad de los resultados. Cuando no se desengrasan las muestras, se detecta, en promedio, un 0.8% menos de triptófano con este protocolo. b) Después de centrifugar las muestras (paso 12), asegurarse de que no haya partículas adheridas a la pared del tubo o flotando en el sobrenadante. Si hay partículas adheridas, agitar la muestra una vez más en el vórtex y centrifugar por 15 minutos. c) Como en todos los métodos analíticos, esta reacción es muy sensible a la precisión del pipeteo.Asegúrese de que las pipetas o los dispensadores estén calibrados correctamente. d) Incluya siempre una curva estándar por cada juego de muestras analizadas en un día. e) Siempre medir el blanco del mismo lote de papaína. La papaína es una proteína que contiene grandes cantidades de triptófano (cada molécula de papaína contiene 7 unidades de triptófano).Es necesario restar esta cantidad al hacer los cálculos correspondientes a cada muestra.Preparar una solución concentrada de 100 μg/mL de triptófano en acetato de sodio 0.1 M con pH 7 (preparar cada semana y almacenar a 4 °C).En tubos falcón de 15 mL, preparar diariamente diluciones de 0, 10, 15, 20, 25 y 30 μg/mL (en acetato de sodio 0.1 M con pH 7). Agitar muy bien en el vórtex antes de usarlas.Producir una reacción colorimétrica (pasos 13 a 18) utilizando 1 mL de las diluciones.Cuadro 8. Preparación de la curva estándar de triptófano. Curva estándar de triptófano (curva de calibración) Desarrollar una curva de calibración utilizando cantidades conocidas de triptófano, desde 0 hasta 30 μg/mL. Graficar las lecturas de absorbancia a 560 nm como una función de la concentración y calcular la pendiente (m) de la curva estándar. Nótese que con la pendiente se usa la unidad DO*mL/μg.La cantidad de triptófano en cada muestra se estima utilizando la siguiente ecuación: --------------x -------------------x 100% pendiente peso de muestra Ejemplo:Sin embargo, esta cantidad incluye el triptófano presente en la muestra, más el presente en la papaína. Para calcular el contenido de triptófano en el material biológico (polvo de grano desengrasado), reste el valor de la papaína.Entonces, el porcentaje de triptófano deberá calcularse a partir del valor corregido de absorción.% Trp = DO 560 nm corregida x factor Donde:DO 560 nm corregida = DO 560nm muestra -DO 560nm promedio de los blancos de papaínaNótese que:1.3 mL ---------x 100 = 0.00375 80,000 μg En general, una muestra con más de 0.070% de triptófano en grano completo es considerada QPM. No obstante, esta condición depende también del contenido de proteína y, por lo tanto, del valor del índice de calidad (% Trp/proteína).No hay desarrollo de color en la reacción. 1 . Probar otro lote del reactivo colorimétrico. Cambios de valor en la DO de la curva estándar de triptófano.2. Verifique la calidad de la curva estándar de triptófano.3. Asegúrese de que el ácido sulfúrico es 30 N. 4. Compruebe la calidad de todos los reactivos. Prepare reactivos nuevos. 5. Asegúrese de que se está usando la cantidad correcta de cada reactivo.La DO del blanco de papaína es demasiado alta.1. Asegúrese de que se está usando la cantidad correcta de papaína.2. Usar otro lote de papaína.La DO del blanco de papaína es demasiado baja. 1. Asegurarse de que se está usando la cantidad correcta de papaína.2. Usar otro lote de papaína.Valores bajos para las muestras testigo. 1. Compruebe que las muestras han sido desengrasadas debidamente (se recomiendan 6 horas de desengrasado utilizando hexano). 2. Asegúrese de que la digestión de las muestras fue correcta. 3. Observe que al terminar la digestión no queden partículas en la pared del tubo. (Si esto ocurre, agite la muestra en el vórtex y centrifúguela de nuevo por15 minutos). 4. Verifique la temperatura (64 °C) y el tiempo de incubación (16 horas). 5. Verifique la calidad y cantidad de los reactivos. 6. Asegúrese de que la solución concentrada de triptófano sea homogénea antes de hacer las diluciones para la curva estándar de triptófano. 7. Mezclar bien la solución concentrada de triptófano antes de hacer las diluciones. 8. Preparar más solución concentrada de triptófano.Las mediciones de DO entre repeticiones varían demasiado.1. Asegurarse de que las muestras se han molido correcta y finamente. 2. Verificar la precisión con que se pesaron las muestras.3. Compruebe que las repeticiones sean analizadas de la misma manera, utilizando el mismo lote de reactivos. 4. Observe que las muestras estén a temperatura ambiente antes de hacer la lectura. 5. Calibrar el espectrofotómetro a \"cero\" y asegurarse de que se mantenga estable antes de hacer las lecturas de las muestras.La papaína no se disuelve. 1. Verifique que la solución de acetato esté a temperatura ambiente.El procedimiento colorimétrico para la cuantificación de lisina se divide en dos etapas. La primera consiste en la protección del grupo α−amino de la cadena de lisina por reacción con el cobre, el cual también bloquea el grupo amino de los péptidos de bajo peso molecular presentes en el hidrolizado. La segunda etapa consiste en la reacción del 2-cloro-3,5-dinitropiridina con el grupo γ −amino de la cadena de lisina protegida, que forma un compuesto coloreado de lisina γ -dinitropiridil que se determina espectroscópicamente a 390 nm.Cuadro 10. Reactivos que se utilizan en la determinación de lisina. diluciones para la curva estándar. • Para la solución de L-lisina, disolver 62.5 mg en 25 mL de solución amortiguadora de carbonatos 0.05 M con pH 9.0.10. Cerrar los tubos. Agitar las muestras en el vórtex y colocarlas en la estufa a 64 °C durante 16 horas (toda la noche). Si fuera posible, agítelas dos veces más, una hora después de colocarlas en la estufa y una hora antes de que termine el período de incubación (16 horas). Asegurarse de que no haya evaporación durante la incubación. 11. Retirar los tubos de la estufa y dejarlos enfriar a temperatura ambiente. 12. Agitar los tubos en el vórtex justo antes de centrifugarlos a 2,500 rpm durante 5 minutos.Asegurarse que el sobrenadante no contenga partículas de las muestras; en caso de que las tenga, volver a centrifugar los tubos.13. Transferir 1 mL a un tubo de centrífuga y agregar 0.5 mL de la solución amortiguadora de carbonatos y 0.5 mL de la suspensión de fosfato de cobre. 14. Agitar manualmente durante 5 minutos y centrifugar a 2,000 rpm durante 5 min. 15. Transferir 1 mL del sobrenadante a un tubo nuevo. 16. Agregar 0.1 mL del reactivo 2-cloro-3,5-dinitropiridina y agitar en el vórtex. 17. Mantener los tubos a temperatura ambiente y protegidos de la luz durante 2 horas; agitar cada 30 minutos. 18. Agregar 5 mL de HCl 1.2 N en cada tubo y agitar en el vórtex. 19. Agregar 5 mL de acetato de etilo. 20. Cerrar los tubos y mezclar la solución, invirtiéndolos 10 veces. 21. Retirar la fase superior con una jeringa conectada a un tubo de polietileno. Repetir dos veces más los pasos 20 a 22. 22. Leer la absorbancia a 390 nm en un espectrofotómetro.1. Preparar una solución concentrada de lisina a 2500 μg/mL en una solución amortiguadora de carbonatos. 2. En tubos falcón de 15 mL, preparar diluciones de 0, 250, 500, 750 y 1,000 μg/mL (diluir en solución amortiguadora de carbonatos 0.05 M, con pH 9). Agitar muy bien las diluciones en el vórtex antes de utilizarlas. 3. En tubos falcón nuevos de 15 mL, preparar concentraciones de lisina a partir de la primera solución concentrada. Para las nuevas concentraciones, transferir 1 mL de las soluciones a cada tubo y agregar 4 mL de solución de 5 mg/mL de papaína. Agitarlas muy bien en el vórtex antes de usarlas.Cuadro 12. Preparación de la curva estándar de lisina. 4. Preparar la reacción colorimétrica (pasos 13 a 22) con 1 mL de las diluciones para desarrollar la curva estándar. Usar la mezcla de aminoácidos para diluir.Cuadro 13. Reacción colorimétrica para la determinación de lisina. La cantidad de lisina en cada muestra se estima utilizando la siguiente ecuación: -----------x ------------------x 100 pendiente peso de muestra Ejemplo:0.25 5 mL % lisina (μg/μg) = - -------------x ---------x   ---------x 100 = 0.00516 100,000 μgPara la preparación de la muestra (muestreo, molienda y desengrasado) se utiliza el procedimiento descrito en los pasos 1 a 6 (con tubos falcón o Eppendorf), pero a partir de la digestión se hacen algunas modificaciones.5. Para cada muestra, pesar 30 mg de harina desengrasada en un tubo Eppendorf de 2 mL. 6. Agregar 1.55 mL de la solución de papaína 4 mg/mL. 7. Siempre incluir al menos 2 blancos, 4 testigos (de concentración conocida de lisina: 2 QPM, 2 normal). 8. Cerrar los tubos y asegurarse de que no haya evaporación durante la incubación. 9. Agitar las muestras en el vórtex y colocarlas en la estufa a 64 °C por 16 horas (toda la noche).Agitarlas dos veces más, una hora después de colocarlas en la estufa y una hora antes de que termine el período de incubación (16 horas). 10. Saque los tubos de la estufa y déjelos enfriar a temperatura ambiente. 11. Agitar los tubos en el vórtex justo antes de centrifugarlos a 14,000 rpm durante 5 minutos.Asegurarse de que el sobrenadante no contenga partículas de las muestras; en caso de que las tenga, volver a centrifugar los tubos.12. Transferir 500 μL a un tubo Eppendorf de 1.5 mL; agregar 250 μL de la solución amortiguadora de carbonatos y 250 μL de la suspensión de fosfato de cobre. 13. Agitar manualmente durante 5 minutos y centrifugar a 3,600 rpm durante 5 minutos. 14. Transferir 125 μL del sobrenadante a un tubo nuevo. 15. Agregar 12.5 μL del reactivo 2-cloro-3,5-dinitropiridina y agitar en el vórtex. 16. Mantener los tubos a temperatura ambiente y protegidos de la luz durante 2 horas; agitarlos cada 30 minutos. 17. Agregar 625 μL de HCl 1.2 N en cada tubo y agitar en el vórtex. 18. Agregar 650 μL de acetato de etilo. 19. Cierre los tubos y mezcle la solución, invirtiéndolos 10 veces. 20. Retirar la fase superior con una pipeta Pasteur. Repita dos veces los pasos 20 a 22. 21. Centrifugar los tubos a 3,600 rpm durante 5 minutos y eliminar el sobrenadante con una pipeta Pasteur. 22. Mantener abiertos los tubos durante 10 minutos bajo la campana de extracción. 23. En una microplaca de 96 pozos, colocar 200 μL de cada muestra por duplicado. 24. Leer la absorbancia a 390 nm en el lector de microplacas.1. Preparar una solución concentrada de lisina a 1000 μg/mL en una solución amortiguadora de carbonatos. 2. En tubos Eppendorf de 15 mL, preparar diluciones de 0, 50, 100, 150 y 200 μg/mL (diluir en solución amortiguadora de carbonatos 0.05 M con pH 9). Agitar muy bien en el vórtex antes de usarlas.3. Para desarrollar la curva estándar (pasos 14 a 24), utilizar 500 μL de las diluciones de lisina, 250 μL de la solución amortiguadora de carbonatos 0.05 M con pH 9.0 (que contiene la mezcla de aminoácidos) y 250 μL de la suspensión de cobre.La cantidad de lisina en cada muestra se estima utilizando la siguiente ecuación: --------------x ------------------x 100% pendiente peso de muestra Ejemplo:0.170 1.55 mL % Lys (μg/μg de muestra) = - -----------x -----------x  Sin embargo, esta cantidad incluye la lisina de la muestra más la que está presente en la papaína. Para calcular el contenido de lisina en el material biológico (polvo de grano desengrasado), reste el valor de la papaína.Por tanto, el porcentaje de lisina debe calcularse a partir del valor corregido de absorción.% Lis = DO 390nm corregida x factor Donde:DO 390nm corregida = DO 390nm muestra -DO 390nm promedio de los blancos de papaína.Nótese que:1.55 mL ---------x 100 = 0.00516 30,000 μgLa prueba Folin-Ciocalteu (F-C) se basa en la transferencia de electrones en un medio alcalino, desde los compuestos fenólicos hacia los complejos del ácido fosfomolíbdico/fosfotungsténico, los cuales se determinan espectroscópicamente a 765 nm. Esta prueba se realiza en tubos de microcentrífuga y las mediciones se hacen con lectores de placas de 96 pozos.Cuadro 15. Reactivos que se utilizan en la determinación de fenoles. Muestreo y molienda 1. Tomar al azar de 20 a 30 semillas como muestra representativa del material. 2. Asegurarse de que todas las semillas de la muestra tengan un contenido de humedad similar.3. Moler finamente cada muestra; el tamaño de partícula deberá ser igual o menor a 0.5 mm. No guarde la harina de las muestras por más de una semana. Extracción de fenoles libres o solubles 5. Pesar 20 mg de harina de la muestra en un tubo Eppendorf. 6. Agregar 1.3 mL de metanol al 50%. 7. Cerrar los tubos y asegurarse de que no haya evaporación durante la extracción. 8. Agitar las muestras en el vórtex y luego colocarlas en un termomezclador para microtubos a 65 °C, a 900 rpm, durante 30 minutos. 9. Sacar los tubos del termomezclador y dejarlos enfriar a temperatura ambiente. 10. Centrifugar los tubos durante 5 minutos a 14,000 rpm. Asegurarse de que el sobrenadante no contenga partículas de las muestras; en caso de que las tenga, volver a centrifugar los tubos. 11. Producir la reacción colorimétrica. Extracción de fenoles totales 12. Para cada muestra, pesar 20 mg en un tubo Eppendorf. 13. Agregar 1.3 mL de ácido clorhídrico 1.2 M en metanol. 14. Cerrar los tubos y asegurarse de que no haya evaporación durante la extracción. 15. Agitar las muestras en el vórtex y colocarlas en un termomezclador para microtubos a 42 °C y 1,100 rpm durante 30 minutos. 16. Saque los tubos del termomezclador; déjelos enfriar a temperatura ambiente y protéjalos de la luz. 17. Agitar y centrifugar los tubos durante 5 minutos a 14,000 rpm. Asegurarse de que el sobrenadante no contenga partículas de las muestras; en caso de que las tenga, volver a centrifugar los tubos. 18. Tomar 500 μL del sobrenadante y transferirlo a otro tubo Eppendorf. 19. Evaporar a sequedad y resuspender el precipitado resultante en 1.3 mL de metanol al 50%. 20. Agitar en el vórtex y producir la reacción colorimétrica.21. Tomar 50 μL del sobrenadante y, con mucho cuidado, transferirlo a los pozos de la microplaca. 22. Agregar 40 μL del reactivo Folin-Ciocalteu al 25%. Agregue el reactivo antes que el álcali para evitar la oxidación de fenoles causada por el aire. 23. Dejar que se produzca la reacción durante 6 minutos. 24. Agregar lentamente 110 μL del Na 2 CO 3 400 mM. 25. Cubrir la microplaca con cinta adhesiva de aluminio para evitar salpicaduras de la muestra. 26. En el vórtex, agitar la microplaca a 800 rpm durante 10 segundos. 27. Incube la microplaca a 42 °C durante 9 minutos para que se desarrolle el color. 28. Retire la microplaca de la incubadora y déjela enfriar a temperatura ambiente (aproximadamente 30 minutos); protéjala de la luz directa. 29. Leer la absorbancia a 765 nm en un espectrofotómetro.1. Preparar una solución concentrada de 100 μg/mL de ácido gálico en metanol al 50% (preparar cada semana y almacenar a 4 °C). 2. En tubos falcón de 15 mL, preparar diariamente diluciones a 0, 10, 15, 20, 25 y 30 μg/mL (en metanol al 50 %). Agitar muy bien en el vórtex antes de usarlas. 3. Producir la reacción colorimétrica (pasos 21 a 29) utilizando 1 mL de estas diluciones. Desarrollar una curva de calibración utilizando cantidades conocidas de ácido gálico, desde 0 hasta 30 mg/mL. Graficar las lecturas de la absorbancia a 765 nm como una función de la concentración y calcular la pendiente de la curva estándar. Nótese que con la pendiente se usa la unidad DO * mL/μg.La cantidad de ácido gálico para cada muestra se calcula mediante la ecuación siguiente:pendiente peso de muestra Ejemplo: Sin embargo, esta cantidad incluye la absorbancia presente en la placa y en el metanol. Para calcular el contenido de ácido gálico en el material biológico (harina), reste el valor de la absorbancia de la placa y del metanol.% ácido gálico = DO 765nm corregido x factor 0.345 1.3 mL % (ácido gálico (μg/μg) = - -----------x -----------x   ---------pendiente Nótese que:1.3 -------x 100 = 0.0065 20,000volumen evaporado % ácido gálico = - -----------x ----------------------x 100 x FD pendiente peso de la muestra Ejemplo:1.3 mL 0.225 0.5 mL % ácido gálico (μg/μg) = - -----------x -----------x  Sin embargo, esta cantidad incluye la absorbancia de la placa y del metanol. Para calcular el contenido de ácido gálico del material biológico (polvo de grano), reste el valor de la absorbancia de la placa y del metanol.% ácido gálico = DO 765 nm corregido x factor Donde: DO = 765 nm corregido =DO 765nm muestra -DO 765nm promedio de los blancos de metanolNótese que:1.3 mL ------0.5 ------x 100 x 2.6 = 0.0338 20,000 Cuadro 17. Soluciones a problemas comunes en la determinación de fenoles.No hay desarrollo de color en la reacción Probar con otro lote de reactivos colorimétricos.Cambios en los valores de la curva del factor/mediciones 1. Verificar la calidad de la curva estándar del ácido gálico. DO de la curva estándar de ácido gálico 2. Asegurarse de que el carbonato de sodio es 400 mM. 3. Verificar la calidad de todos los reactivos. Preparar nuevos. 4 . Asegurarse de que todas las cantidades de reactivos han sido medidas con precisión.El valor DO del metanol 50% o del blanco es Verificar que la concentración de carbonato de sodio sea la correcta. demasiado alto Valores bajos para las muestras de control 1. Asegurarse de que la extracción de las muestras sea correcta: a) Asegurarse de que no haya partículas en la pared del tubo después de la extracción de las muestras. Si esto ocurre, agitar la muestra y centrifugar una vez más durante 5 min. b) Verificar que la extracción se efectuó a 65 °C y 900 rpm para fenoles libres y/o a 42 °C y 1100 rpm para fenoles totales. 2. Verificar la calidad y cantidad de los reactivos que se utilizan. 3. Verificar la calidad de la curva estándar de ácido gálico. 4. Verificar que la solución concentrada de ácido gálico esté bien disuelta antes de hacer las diluciones. 5. Preparar una nueva solución concentrada de ácido gálico.Las mediciones de la DO entre repeticiones varían 1. Verificar la precisión con que se pesaron las muestras. demasiado 2. Asegurarse de que las muestras estén a temperatura ambiente antes de hacer la lectura.El espectrofotómetro de Reflectancia en el Infrarrojo Cercano (NIRS) cuenta con una curva de calibración para la determinación de azúcares en tejido molido de trigo. Como referencia se utiliza el método de la antrona, que se describe a continuación:El método de la antrona se basa en la reacción que produce este compuesto (9,10-dihidro-9-oxoantraceno) cuando se combina con la conformación furfural de los carbohidratos (los carbohidratos se someten a un tratamiento con ácido sulfúrico concentrado) para colorear un hemiacetal, que se determina espectroscópicamente a 630 nm.Cuadro 18. Reactivos que se utilizan en la determinación de azúcares solubles. • Agitarla muy bien en el vórtex antes de • Solución concentrada de• Disolver 25 mg de sacarosa en 250 mL preparar las diluciones para la sacarosa (30 μg/mL) de agua desionizada. curva estándar. • En un matraz aforado de 100 mL, diluir 30 mL de la solución concentrada de 100 μg/mL con agua desionizada.Muestreo y molienda 1. Tomar al azar una muestra representativa del material. 2. Asegurarse de que todas las semillas de la muestra tengan un contenido de humedad similar.3. Moler finamente cada muestra. Secado 4. Secar las muestras durante 4 horas a 60 °C.5. Por cada muestra, pesar por duplicado, en tubos falcón de 15 mL, 20 mg de la muestra deshidratada. 6. Añadir 4 mL de agua desionizada a los tubos, cerrarlos de inmediato y agitarlos en el vórtex. 7. Colocar la gradilla con los tubos de las muestras en baño María a 70 °C durante 45 min. 8. En el vórtex, agitar muy bien los tubos cada 15 minutos. 9. Después de la incubación, colocar los tubos en hielo. 10. Centrifugar durante 10 minutos a 3,000 rpm. 11. Usar el sobrenadante para hacer las diluciones necesarias, dependiendo del material que se vaya a analizar:• Para trigo, en una relación 1:200, por ejemplo, se recomienda preparar primero una dilución 1:20 y luego, a partir de ésta, preparar otra dilución 1:10. Con esto se evita la preparación de volúmenes pequeños y se reduce la probabilidad de error. Ejemplo: En una relación 1:20 se toman 250 μL del sobrenadante en 4.75 mL de agua desionizada y después se realiza la dilución 1:10. En este caso se toman 500 μL del sobrenadante en 4.5 mL de agua desionizada.12. Tomar 2.5 mL de la dilución y transferirla con cuidado a otro tubo falcón, que deberá ponerse en agua fría desde antes. 13. Agregar poco a poco 5 mL de la solución de antrona a cada tubo. Mantener en movimiento el tubo sumergido en agua con hielo. 14. Agitar muy bien cada uno de los tubos en el vórtex. 15. Cerrar los tubos y colocarlos en baño María a ebullición durante 7.5 minutos. 16. Sacar los tubos del baño María y dejarlos enfriar a temperatura ambiente. 17. Leer la absorbancia a 630 nm en un espectrofotómetro.Para el escalamiento en microplacas se preparan las siguientes diluciones:• Trigo: 1:50 (100 μL del sobrenadante en 4.9 mL de agua desionizada).Reactivo Paso Tubos de 15 mL Microplaca Hidrolizado Reacción colorimétrica 2.5 mL 50 μL Reactivo colorimétrico Reacción colorimétrica 5.0 mL 100 μL a) Cada muestra deberá analizarse por triplicado en la microplaca (tres pozos). Mantener las microplacas de 96 pozos sobre hielo durante 10 minutos. b) Agregar la solución de antrona con una pipeta digital multicanal. Agregarla con mucho cuidado para que se transfieran los 100 μL de reactivo a cada pozo. c) Cubrir la placa con cinta adhesiva de aluminio y agitarla con mucho cuidado en el vórtex hasta que la solución en cada pozo sea homogénea. d) Para muestras de trigo, incubar las placas a 100 °C durante 10 min. e) Enfriar las placas en el congelador durante 10 minutos antes de hacer la lectura a 630 nm en un lector de microplacas.1. Con agua desionizada, preparar una solución concentrada de 100 μg/mL de sacarosa; secar antes la sacarosa. 2. En tubos falcón de 15 mL, preparar diariamente diluciones de 0, 10, 15, 20, 25 y 30 μg/mL (en agua desionizada). Agitar muy bien en el vórtex antes de usarlas. 3. Producir la reacción colorimétrica (pasos 12 a 17) utilizando 2.5 mL de las diluciones. 4. Incluir siempre una curva estándar por duplicado por cada grupo de muestras que se analicen en el día. Curva estándar para microplaca 5. Preparar una solución concentrada de 100 μg/mL y 30 μg/mL de sacarosa puesta a secar previamente. 6. En tubos falcón de 15 mL, preparar diariamente diluciones de 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 40 y 60 μg/mL.Agitar muy bien en el vórtex antes de usarlas. 7. Producir la reacción colorimétrica (pasos 12 a 17) utilizando 50 μL de las diluciones. 8. Incluir siempre una curva estándar por duplicado para cada grupo de muestras analizadas en el día. Cuadro 21. Preparación de la curva estándar de azúcares solubles en microplaca. Curva de calibración Desarrollar una curva de calibración utilizando cantidades conocidas de sacarosa, desde 0 a 30 μg/mL (0 a 60 μg/mL en microplaca). Graficar las lecturas de absorbancia a 630 nm como función de la cantidad de sacarosa en μg/mL y calcular la pendiente de la curva estándar. Nótese que con la pendiente se usa la unidad DO/ μg.La cantidad de sacarosa en cada muestra se estima utilizando la siguiente ecuación: -----------x -----------------x 100 pendiente peso de la muestra Ejemplo: Muestra de maíz en microplaca. ------------x -----------x   ---------pendiente Cuadro 22. Solución a problemas comunes en la determinación de azúcares solubles.No hay desarrollo de color en la reacción. 1. Probar otro lote de reactivos colorimétricos. Cambios en los valores de la curva del 2. Verificar la calidad de la curva de sacarosa. factor/mediciones de la DO de la curva de sacarosa.3. Verificar la calidad del ácido sulfúrico. 4. Verificar la calidad de todos los reactivos. Preparar nuevos. 5. Asegurarse de que todas las cantidades de reactivos han sido medidas con precisión.La DO del blanco de antrona es muy alta 6. Asegurarse de que al preparar el reactivo de antrona se utilizó ácido (el valor debe ser de entre 0.045-0.06).sulfúrico no oxidado. 7. Preparar otro reactivo colorimétrico. 8. Preparar el reactivo de antrona con otro lote de ácido sulfúrico.Valores bajos para las muestras testigo. 9. Verificar que la extracción de las muestras sea correcta: a) Asegurarse de que no haya partículas en las paredes del tubo después de la extracción.Si esto ocurre, agitar la muestra en el vórtex y centrifugar una vez más durante10 minutos. b) Verificar que la extracción se haya efectuado a 60-70 ºC. c) Verificar la calidad y cantidad de los reactivos utilizados. 10. Verificar la calidad de la curva de sacarosa: a) Asegurarse de que la solución concentrada de sacarosa esté bien disuelta antes de hacer las diluciones. 11. Verificar la calidad y precisión de las diluciones.Las mediciones de la DO entre repeticiones 12. Asegurarse de que todas las cantidades de reactivos han sido medidas varían demasiado. con precisión. 13. Verificar que las muestras hayan sido enfriadas antes de hacer las lecturas. 14. Verificar que el pipeteo se haga correctamente.Para la preparación del estándar interno, hacer lo siguiente:1. Preparar una solución de butilhidroxitolueno (BHT) al 0.005% en metanol. 2. Pesar 1 mg de apocaroteno y colocarlo en un tubo de vidrio de 15 mL. 3. Adicionar al apocaroteno 10 mL de la solución preparada en el paso 1. 4. Agitar vigorosamente en el vórtex. 5. Tomar 1 mL de la solución y diluirla en 15 mL con BHT al 0.005% en metanol. 6. Tomar la lectura en el espectro a una longitud de onda de 450 nm, en una celda estándar de cuarzo de 1 cm. 7. La respuesta del apocaroteno que se espera obtener corresponde a un valor igual o mayor que 0.80 de absorbancia.Luteína, zeaxantina, β-criptoxantina, β-caroteno, cada uno resuspendido en 5mL de isopropanol.Se realiza una purificación de los estándares:1. Se toman aproximadamente 500 μl de la solución estándar y se vacía en un tubo limpio. 2. Agregar 1 mL de agua, 3 mL de metanol y 3 mL de hexano y luego agitar en el vórtex.3. Dejar reposar la mezcla unos minutos para que se formen dos capas y a continuación tome la parte superior y colóquela en un tubo limpio. 4. Dependiendo de la intensidad del color de la solución del estándar, realizar las extracciones que sean necesarias. 5. Para las siguientes extracciones siga los pasos 2 y 3, pero solo agregue 3 mL de hexano y luego agítelo en el vórtex. 6. Una vez que concluye el paso anterior, evapore la solución en el Speed Vac aproximadamente 40 min, o el tiempo que sea necesario. 7. Resuspender con 500 μl de una mezcla de metanol: 1,2-dicloroetano (50:50). 8. Inyectar en el UPLC: para luteína y zeaxantina deberá aplicarse el método de análisis de muestras (se usa el gradiente); para β-criptoxantina y β-caroteno utilizar una mezcla de metanol/MTBE (57:43). En ambos casos deberá equilibrarse el sistema cromatográfico con la fase móvil de trabajo. Ver Notas 1 y 2. 9. Realizar una inyección para determinar el tiempo de retención y la altura que representa el pico del estándar. 10. Después de identificar el pico, realizar varias inyecciones con un volumen de inyección de 20 μl; con ayuda de la línea de salida del detector recolectar en viales el solvente, en el tiempo de retención que mostró el estándar. La purificación de los estándares se realiza para cada uno de los estándares, se sugiere realizar un solo estándar a la vez. Una vez concluida la purificación, verificar en el espectrofotómetro cuál es la absorbancia presente y registrar el valor.Nota 1: Para inyectar la curva en el sistema HPLC se utiliza el método de análisis de muestras (se usa el gradiente); realizar inyecciones de 10, 25, 50, 75, 90 μl por duplicado.Nota 2: Para inyectar la curva en el sistema UPLC se utiliza el método de análisis de muestras (se usa el gradiente); realizar inyecciones de 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 μl por duplicado.1. Determinar espectroscópicamente la concentración de los estándares basados en su coeficiente de extinción (E1%) y la máxima longitud de onda (450 nm) del carotenoide. En una celda estándar de cuarzo de 1 cm, los E1% son:β-caroteno: 2592 β-criptoxantina 2386 Zeaxantina: 2348 Luteína: 2550Concentración del estándar (ng/μl) = absorbancia x 10 000 + E1% 2. Generar una curva estándar que incluya el área del pico del carotenoide del maíz. Usar una regresión lineal para obtener una ecuación que convierta el área del pico en una cantidad de carotenoides.Ejemplo de cómo hacer los cálculos para la curva en los sistemas cromatográficos Alliance 2695 y UPLC:Obtener el valor g/100 mL de acuerdo con la siguiente fórmula:ABS STD ---------= g/100 mL E1%Transformar el valor obtenido en ng/L con la siguiente fórmula:(g/100 mL) (10 10 ) = ng/L Sustituyendo valores:1.148 --------= 0.00048113998 g/100 mL 2.386 (0.00048113998) (10 10 ) = 4811399.8 ng/L Después de calcular el valor en ng/L de cada uno de los volúmenes y para cada uno de los estándares inyectados se pueden graficar los ng/L obtenidos vs el área; mediante una regresión lineal se obtiene una curva estándar que sirve para calcular la cantidad de carotenos que están presentes en la muestra.(Volumen inyectado) (ng/L) (10 -6 ) = ng Ejemplo:(10 μL) (4811399.8 ng/L) (10 El Sistema Acquity UPLC consta de varios módulos: Binary Solvent Manager, Sample Manager, horno para columnas de 30 cm y Detector de diodos (PDA).Sistema de bombeo Flujo: 0.3 mL/min. Tiempo de corrida: 10 minutos. Sistema de Bombeo: Gradiente Fase móvil A: : Acetato de amonio 10 mM en una mezcla de agua/isopropanol (90:10). Fase móvil B: Acetonitrilo/isopropanol (90:10). Cuadro 24. Soluciones a problemas comunes en la determinación de carotenoides.Se observa variación en la coloración después • Verificar que se está agregando el volumen correcto. de agregar KOH.• Calibrar la pipeta.Variación en los volúmenes de las soluciones • Verificar que los tapones y empaques de los tubos estén bien colocados para evitar durante la extracción.pérdidas por evaporación.Evaporación incompleta o nula.• Programar períodos cortos (de pocos minutos) hasta completar todo el proceso.• Evitar evaporación con el uso de muestras muy frías (recién sacadas del refrigerador).• Verificar que el empaque de la tapa de la cámara de evaporación está colocado correctamente.Presencia de película blanca semitransparente.• La película se genera cuando se agrega agua a las fracciones de hexano.• Evitar que la película pase a la solución que se va a evaporar, porque ensucia la columna y esto a la vez ocasiona que la presión del sistema aumente. • Asegurarse de que al concluir la centrifugación no se haya formado película. Si esto ocurre, centrifugar una vez más.Presencia de líquido en los tubos después • Asegurarse de que no se transfirió agua junto con el hexano. de la evaporación.Presencia de polvo amarillo en la tapa y el• Revisar que el empaque esté colocado correctamente y que la bomba se encuentre empaque de la cámara de evaporación. funcionando adecuadamente.Presencia de burbujas en el cromatógrafo.• Verificar que los solventes se degasifican correctamente.• Purgar el UPLC.• Verificar que los filtros de las líneas de solvente se encuentren completamente sumergidos y no haya presencia de burbujas en dicha línea; de ser así, volver a purgar el UPLC.Turbidez al resuspender la solución evaporada.• Evitar que pase agua al transferir el hexano.• Asegurarse de que no pasen partículas de harina durante la extracción.• Asegurarse de que la película blanca que se forma cuando se agrega agua al hexano no pase a la solución.Ruido en los cromatogramas o no hay picos.• Verificar que el vial tenga suficiente volumen de la muestra.• Verificar que no se haya evaporado la muestra dentro del vial.• Verificar que durante las inyecciones no hayan variado las condiciones ambientales del área de trabajo.Presión alta constantemente y aumento gradual • Lavar la columna con agua y solvente orgánico sin sales al finalizar los analisis. de presión en la HPLC, o ambos.• Si aun después de lavar la columna la presión no disminuye, cambiar la pre-columna, el filtro de solvente y el filtro en línea.Burbujas en el cromatógrafo.• Verificar que los solventes se hayan degasificado y filtrado correctamente.• Purgar las líneas del HPLC.• Verificar que los filtros de las líneas de solvente estén completamente sumergidos y que no haya burbujas en las líneas. Si esto ocurre, purgar las líneas del HPLC nuevamente.Con este procedimiento se lleva a cabo la determinación de Al, Fe y Zn en grano y tejido vegetal de maíz y de trigo por medio de digestión con una mezcla de ácidos nítrico y perclórico, así como análisis posterior con ICP-OES (plasma acoplado inductivamente a un espectroscopio de emisión óptica).Acondicionamiento del área de trabajo y materiales utilizados en el análisis 1. Limpiar perfectamente la campana de extracción antes de cada predigestión.2. Verificar que los digestores estén calibrados.3. El lugar donde se coloque el ICP-OES debe estar perfectamente limpio y cerrado para evitar contaminación aérea. 4. El material que se utilice en este proceso deberá ser exclusivo para ICP. 5. Todo el material que vaya a utilizarse debe ser previamente inspeccionado para asegurarse de que no son una fuente de contaminación.Molienda y secado de la muestra 6. Moler las muestras en un molino de bolas con recipientes de óxido de zirconio para evitar contaminación. Incluir siempre muestras testigo. Cuando se analicen granos de trigo no es necesario molerlos. 7. Transferir la harina a tubos de plástico limpios, que deberán inspeccionarse previamente para asegurarse de que no son fuente de contaminación. 8. Secar las muestras a 70 °C durante 24 horas en una estufa, debidamente acondicionada, para evitar contaminación.Pesado y digestión 9. Colocar las muestras en un desecador y dejarlas enfriar a temperatura ambiente. 10. Pesar 600 mg de cada testigo y de cada muestra y colocarlos en los tubos de digestión. Los tubos deberán rotularse previamente. 11. Mantener los tubos cubiertos todo el tiempo con película plástica (Kleen Pack) antes de añadirles el ácido para la digestión, con el fin de que no se contaminen. 12. Colocar el grupo de tubos en el interior de la campana de extracción y agregarles 10 mL de la mezcla de ácidos nítrico y perclórico. Se recomienda usar dispensadores especiales para ácidos. 13. Dejar los tubos en la campana de extracción toda la noche (12-14 horas) para una predigestión en frío. 14. Después de la predigestión, en el vórtex, agitar los tubos para asegurarse de que la muestra se mezcle completamente con el ácido. 15. Colocar los tubos en los bloques de aluminio del digestor a temperatura ambiente y llevar a cabo la digestión ácida con el programa de digestión. 16. El intervalo de temperatura que se utilice dependerá del peso y del tipo de muestra.Normalmente, se aplica el régimen de temperaturas siguiente:Cuadro 26. Programa de digestión que se utiliza en la determinación de Al, Fe y Zn, dependiendo del tipo de material. 19. Cubrirlos con película plástica (Kleenpack) y dejarlos toda la noche en un lugar a temperatura constante (20-22 °C). 20. Al día siguiente, con ayuda de una pipeta aforar a 20 mL con ácido nítrico. 21. Mezclar muy bien las muestras diluidas. (Asegurarse de que el líquido se agite desde la base del tubo). 22. Transferir las soluciones a tubos de plástico de 50 mL, los cuales se rotulan con los mismos datos de la muestra y se almacenan a temperatura ambiente hasta que se analicen. Se pueden utilizar tubos de cualquier volumen, siempre y cuando éste sea de 30 mL en adelante, y después de haber verificado que no son fuente de contaminación.23. Marcar tubos falcón de 15 mL de la misma manera que se hizo con los de 50 mL y añadirles 10 mL de las diluciones de cada muestra. 24. Inyectar las soluciones en el ICP-OES. 25. Las soluciones se analizan y se reportan como se indica a continuación.Curva de calibración Desarrollar una curva de calibración utilizando cantidades conocidas de cada elemento analizado, en un intervalo de 0 a 3 mg/L. Dado que cuando la digestión concluye queda un sobrante de ácido perclórico de aproximadamente 1 mL al que hay que agregar 20 mL de ácido nítrico al 1%, la curva estándar deberá desarrollarse con una matriz igual a la de las muestras (5% de HClO 4 y HNO 3 al 1%). En el Cuadro 27 se indica cómo preparar 100 mL para cada punto de la curva. • Homogeneizar y aforar a 100 mL con HNO 3 al 1%.• Este es un paso crítico en el análisis porque, quien lo realice, deberá asegurarse de que la curva estándar se genere correctamente. Se recomienda verificar que las pipetas estén calibradas correctamente antes de usarlas.El ICP-OES genera valores en mg/L de la concentración de cada muestra. Los valores se exportan a una hoja de cálculo y ahí se procesan de la manera siguiente:1. Se determina la concentración de la muestra inyectada.Concentración final en la muestra (mg/L) = Concentración según resultados del equipo (mg/L) -Concentración del blanco (mg/L) 2. Se calcula la concentración de cada elemento por kilogramo de muestra.concentración final de la muestra (mg/L) x dilución (mL) x 1000 Concentración (mg/Kg de muestra) = - -------------------------------------------------------peso de la muestra (mg)Cuadro 28. Soluciones a problemas comunes en la determinación de Al, Fe y Zn.Color amarillo de la solución al final de la digestión • La digestión no ha llegado a su término. Dejarla 5 minutos más será suficiente.Cristales de perclorato en la dilución después • Colocar los tubos en los bloques de digestión a 50 °C de 2 a 5 minutos para que se de la digestión disuelvan los cristales de perclorato. • Los cristales de perclorato deberán disolverse cuando la solución esta tibia.• Consultar el manual del equipo.1. Preparar una solución concentrada de 100 μg/mL de cloruro de pelargodinina en TFA al 1%.2. Preparar diariamente diluciones de 0, 1, 3, 5, 10 y 15 μg/mL (en TFA al 1%) en tubos de vidrio de 5 mL.3. Agitarlas adecuadamente en el vórtex antes de usarlas.Cuadro 30. Preparación de la curva estándar de antocianinas. Desarrollar una curva de calibración usando cantidades conocidas de pelargodinina, en un intervalo de 0 a 15 μg/mL. Graficar las lecturas de la absorbancia a 520 nm en función de la concentración y calcular la pendiente de la curva estándar. Nótese que con la pendiente se usa la unidad DO*mL/μg.La cantidad de pelargodinina en cada muestra se estima utilizando la siguiente ecuación: DO520nm volumen de la hidrólisis % Pel (μg/μg) = - -------------x ------------------------x   -------------x ---------------x  Sin embargo, esta cantidad incluye la absorbancia de la placa y del metanol. Para calcular el contenido de pelargodinina en el material biológico (la harina), reste el valor de la absorbancia de la placa y el metanol (blancos).% pel = DO 520 nm corregida x Factor Donde:DO 520 nm corregida = DO 520nm muestra -DO 520nm promedio de los blancos 0.0065 Factor = --------pendienteNótese que:1.3 mL Factor = -------x 100 = 0.0065 20,000En la determinación de almidón megazyme se utiliza una digestión enzimática para extraer el polímero. En el presente protocolo, la hidrólisis de almidón se lleva a cabo en dos etapas. En la primera, el almidón es parcialmente hidrolizado y totalmente solubilizado; en la segunda, la mayoría de las dextrinas del almidón son hidrolizadas a glucosa por la amiloglucosidasa. La glucosa, entonces, se cuantifica colorimétricamente con el reactivo de antrona.Cuadro 31. Reactivos que se utilizan en la determinación de almidón. Recomendaciones para el reactivo de antrona a) El ácido sulfúrico deberá ser de grado analítico y almacenarse en la oscuridad. b) El reactivo antrona deberá transferirse a un tubo tipo falcón. El tubo deberá cubrirse con papel aluminio y conservarse a 4 °C en refrigeración. c) Las medidas de seguridad para la preparación de antrona incluyen el uso de ropa protectora, guantes y una campana de extracción.El almidón, que es el componente principal de los granos maduros de maíz, está formado por dos macromoléculas de diferente estructura: la amilosa -un polímero lineal de glucosas unidas por enlaces glucosídicos α(14)-glucosídico, y ocasionalmente por medio de enlaces glucosídicos α(16)-y amilopectina -un polímero altamente ramificado.La amilosa en presencia de una solución de Lugol (triyoduro) forma un complejo de color azul con λ max a 620 nm. Este protocolo propone utilizar la reacción de yoduro para cuantificar el contenido de amilosa en almidón de maíz, en una longitud de onda de 620 nm.Cuadro 34. Reactivos que se utilizan en la determinación de amilosa. • Asegurarse de que todo el yodo se haya disuelto antes de transferir la mezcla a un matraz volumétrico de 100 mL. • Agregar agua desionizada para completar el volumen y homogenizar la solución.Estándar de Amilosa de papa • Pesar 100 mg de amilosa en un matraz volumétrico • Preparar cada semana y amilosa 1 mg/mL tipo III. Cat. de 100 mL. almacenar a 4 ºC. Sigma No. A0512-5G• Agregar 1 mL de etanol al 95 % y tratar de que se deslice por las paredes del matraz. • Agregar 9 mL de hidróxido de sodio 1 M y dejar reposar la mezcla de 20 a 24 h a temperatura ambiente. • Al día siguiente ajustar el volumen a 100 mL con agua desionizada y agitar vigorosamente.Toma de muestras y molienda 1. Tomar al azar de 20 a 30 semillas como muestra representativa del material. 2. Asegurarse de que todas las semillas de la muestra tengan un contenido de humedad similar.3. Si las semillas han sido tratadas, lavarlas intensamente con agua de la llave y luego enjuagarlas con agua destilada. Dejar que se sequen. 4. Moler finamente cada muestra. Si es posible, usar un molino ciclónico de 0.5 mm.1. Transferir cada muestra a un cartucho de papel filtro comercial (por ejemplo, de 10 x 11 cm). 2. Desgrasar las muestras con aproximadamente 300 mL de hexano por matraz balón, en un extractor continuo de tipo Soxhlet, durante 6 horas. 3. Secar las muestras al aire y asegurarse de que todo el hexano se ha evaporado.4. Pesar 20 mg de cada muestra de polvo desengrasado en un tubo Corning de 50 mL. 5. Siempre incluir dos tubos con los estándares de amilosa. 6. Agregar 0.2 mL de etanol al 95 % y tratar de que se deslice por las paredes del tubo. 7. Agregar 1.8 mL de hidróxido de sodio 1 M y dejar reposar a temperatura ambiente de 20 a 24 h (no agitar el tubo). 8. Al día siguiente, ajustar el volumen a 20 mL con agua desionizada (18 mL) y agitar con fuerza el tubo. Nota: Dejar reposar y continuar con la reacción colorimétrica hasta que disminuya la cantidad de espuma que se formó.9. Tomar 1 mL de solución y transferirla a un tubo Corning de 50 mL. 10. Agregar 2 mL de ácido acético 1 M y agitar con fuerza. 11. Después, agregar 0.4 mL de solución de Lugol y ajustar el volumen a 20 mL (18.4 mL de agua desionizada). Agitar la mezcla y dejar que se desarrolle color por 20 minutos (proteger la mezcla de los tubos de luz). 12. Pipetear 200 μL tanto de la solución de la curva estándar como de cada muestra y transferir el producto a una placa de 96 pozos. Haga una lectura a 620 nm en un espectrofotómetro. Nota: No agitar las muestras antes de transferirlas a la placa para no alterar los resultados.1. Preparar una solución concentrada de 1 mg/mL de amilosa en agua desionizada (almacene a 4 °C).2. En tubos de 50 mL, preparar diariamente diluciones 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6. 0.8 y 1 g de amilosa, con un volumen final de 20 mL. Agítelas en el vórtex antes de usarlas. 3. Preparar la reacción colorimétrica (pasos 13 a16) utilizando 200 μL de las diluciones. 4. Siempre incluir una curva estándar por duplicado por cada grupo de las muestras analizadas en un día.Cuadro 35. Preparación de la curva estándar de amilosa. Curva estándar de amilosa (curva de calibración) Desarrollar una curva de calibración con cantidades conocidas de amilosa, de 0 a 1 mg. Graficar las lecturas de absorbancia a 620 nm como una función de la cantidad y calcular la pendiente de la curva estándar.Intervalo de lecturas esperado en concentraciones estándar.3. Determinación de triptófano con ácido glioxílico (lectura en microplacas). No mayor de 3.5 Ti (indicador de contaminación)No mayor de 0.4 c) Especificaciones para el análisis de micronutrientes en hoja de maíz. Recomendaciones: a. Antes de considerar estos intervalos deberá tenerse en cuenta el tipo de muestra, el experimento y la etapa de crecimiento de la planta de la cual proviene la muestra. b. El contenido de almidón y de aceite no pueden ser analizados en harina debido a la oxidación.","tokenCount":"10843"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1d886c804c6d4e7c2274f314746f9504","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/20bab928-7998-4576-b9e6-760fa8c5b8c0/retrieve","id":"-1113137011"},"keywords":["CHIRPS-v2","climate change adaptation","farmer perceptions","rainfall cessation","rainfall onset"],"sieverID":"3c085fcc-0228-467e-8c99-40e4d10c7c5c","pagecount":"20","content":"Rainfall onset and cessation date greatly influence cropping calendar decisions in rain-fed agricultural systems. This paper examined trends of onsets, cessation, and the length of growing season over Northern Ghana using CHIRPS-v2, gauge, and farmers' perceptions data between 1981 and 2019. Results from CHIRPS-v2 revealed that the three seasonal rainfall indices have substantial latitudinal variability. Significant late and early onsets were observed at the West and East of 1.5 • W longitude, respectively. Significant late cessations and longer growing periods occurred across Northern Ghana. The ability of farmers' perceptions and CHIRPS-v2 to capture rainfall onsets are time and location-dependent. A total of 71% of farmers rely on traditional knowledge to forecast rainfall onsets. Adaptation measures applied were not always consistent with the rainfall seasonality. More investment in modern climate information services is required to complement the existing local knowledge of forecasting rainfall seasonality.Global ecosystems are experiencing changes in rainfall amount, intensity, and temporal distributions [1] that poses a great challenge to agricultural production [2][3][4]. Trends of rainfall amount are widely documented [5,6] but shifts in rainfall seasonality (onset and cessation) have received less attention although it determines timing of cropping calendar activities. The temporal variability of rainfall is a critical determinant of timing of cropping calendar in rain-fed farming systems and is defined by three indices i.e., the onset, cessation dates, and the length of the season. The onset and cessation dates are the day of the year when rainfall starts and ends. The difference between the onset and cessation dates is the length of the growing season. There are several methods for determining the onset and cessation dates of rainfall that are applicable at different agro-ecological zones and intended uses [7][8][9][10]. Ref. [10] developed a new method that is generally applicable for estimating the onset and cessation dates across Africa continent though the study applied low resolution gridded data (approximately 110 Km). Many studies determine rainfall onsets and cessation from gauge data, e.g., [11,12] in northern Ghana. Recent advances focus on the application of gridded satellite rainfall estimates for spatial determination of onsets and cessations [10,13]. Ref. [10] mapped the timing of onset and cessation of rainfall over Africa using gridded data at 110 Km resolution and reported inconsistent deviations over West Africa when ERA-Interim and ARC-v2 data was applied. Similarly, Ref.[14] evaluated the skill of onset forecasts for West Africa. Again, Ref. [13] demonstrated that daily climatology from CHIRPS-v2 data could forecast rainfall onset and cessation of rainfall with a bias of less than 7 days in large parts of Eastern Africa.Agricultural production in the West Africa region is predominantly rain-fed. The region is also highly vulnerable to climate change and variability due to rampant poverty, rapidly increasing population, and low levels of technological development [15]. The increasing variability of rainfall amount and seasonality destabilizes the fragile ecosystem and threatens food production and livelihoods. Likewise, the variability of rainfall amount in northern Ghana has attracted more attention compared to seasonal distribution [5,6,16]. Moreover, there is no consensus in the literature on the three rainfall seasonality indices i.e., the onset, cessation, and length of growing period (LGP) in northern Ghana, although these are crucial determinants for cropping season activities. The LGP in northern Ghana is highly variable due to inconsistencies of rainfall onset and cessation dates Refs. [11,17]. For instance, Ref. [12] reported early-onset dates of the rain season ranging between −0.3 to −0.5 days/year (earlier onset of 7.5-12.5 days) between 1986-2010 in Tamale and Wa in northern Ghana. However, Ref. [18] reported a significant delay of up to 0.88 days/year in the Volta basin located in northern Ghana, which translates to late onset by 35 days over 40 years. Similarly, Ref. [11] reported a significant variability of onset and cessation of rainfall over a band of 2-8 years over different agro-ecological zones in Ghana. Recent studies using gauge observations have demonstrated that late onset or early cessation of rains and a high frequency of dry spells within the growing season in northern Ghana cause a significant decline in crop yields [19,20]. The variability of onset and mid-season breaks in the rain makes the agricultural calendar unpredictable and complicates decisions on sowing time, crop choice, and variety [17,21]. Erratic and delayed rainfall onset pose a severe challenge to food production and food security [11]. Lack of synergy between rainfall onsets and agronomic decisions such as sowing date is one of the main factors causing low maize production in Northern Ghana [20]. False starts of rains [22] have become more regular in northern Ghana and induce farmers to plough and plant without sufficient follow-up wet days to sustain the growth of crops [23]. Accurate prediction of the onset, cessation, and length of rainy days dates is essential for synchronized timing of cropping calendar activities. Precise information on the onset and cessation of seasonal rain can reduce the risks and costs of re-sowing seeds due to the season's false onset [24]. The late onset of rains provides the first outlook of a rainy season and is a reliable early warning of food insecurity several months before harvesting [25]. A ten-day delay of onset of the rainy season makes drought conditions more likely. Early identification and warning of drought conditions can inform preparedness of interventions to save lives and livelihoods.Inadequate weather observation networks hamper timely and accurate rainfall forecasts that can guide farmers on cropping calendar decisions [26]. The observation gauge network in Ghana is characterized by low density, skewed distribution, short-term records, and significant data gaps [6,26,27]. The information generated from a few gauge stations with long-term data is applied to generate agro-advisories over a large area beyond the (>50 Km 2 ) recommended by World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Most gauge networks are in the main urban centers, resulting in inadequate coverage in rural areas where agricultural activities take place [26]. Satellite-derived rainfall can complement the sparse gauge network to produce spatially explicit layers representing the onset, cessation, and length of the rain season [10,13,28]. In this manner, the big data generated from remote sensing platforms is applied to identify hotspots where agricultural production experiences a high risk of climate change and variability. Identifying locations that are more vulnerable to shifts in seasonal calendars associated with climate change and variability is essential to guide the evidence-based targeting of appropriate climate-smart technologies [17].Farmer perceptions on changing rainfall patterns determine annual cropping decisions. If farmers' perceptions agree with the trends recorded by the observation network, it means more awareness of prevalent trends and a higher likelihood of applying appropriate adaptive measures [28,29]. Proper knowledge of local trends of rainfall seasonality is required to guide the implementation of appropriate adaptation measures that reduce the negative effects of climate change. Ref. [30] showed that adaptation measures implemented without considering local climate reality led to maladaptive outcomes that exacerbated the vulnerability to climate change and variability in northern Ghana. Integrating knowledge from meteorological observations with local perceptions is essential for developing locally relevant and sustainable adaptation strategies. Several studies reported agreement between farmer perceptions of rainfall trends with observation data [29,31]. However, other studies reported deviation between farmers' perceptions of climate change compared to observation networks [32,33]. Therefore, evaluating the seasonal trends of rainfall from farmers' perception, observation network, and satellite time series can reduce uncertainties on climatic trends.This study uses daily rainfall data from satellites to map the spatial variations of the onset, cessation, and length of the rain season in Ghana for 39 years (1981-2019). We validated the three indices generated from the satellite with rain gauge data. We examined the long-term trends of the three indices for almost four decades. Moreover, survey data are used to explore the farmer's perceptions of changes on the three seasonal indices and their coping strategies. The specific objectives of this study are to; (1) generate maps of the onset, cessation, and LGP from daily rainfall from satellite and gauge networks over 39 years in northern Ghana, (2) map the variability and trends of the onset, cessation, and LGP over 39 years, (3) validate the three indices with gauge networks, (4) examine the methods farmers apply to forecast the onset of rainy seasons and (5) examine the crop management practices applied by farmers as adaptation to the observed trends of the three seasonal indices in northern Ghana.The study area covers three administrative regions in northern Ghana, namely the Upper East (UER), Upper West (UWR), and Northern (NR) regions (Figure 1). Ghana lies in the tropics and is characterized by a tropical monsoonal climate system with two dominant seasons (wet and dry) [11]. Rainfall is controlled by the West African Monsoon (WAM) and convective activities due to the movements of the Inter-tropical Discontinuity (ITD) [11]. The ITD oscillates from South to North and retreats to the South annually. The three regions in Northern Ghana experience a unimodal rainfall pattern between May and September ranging between 500 mm and 1200 mm [5,34]. The LGP ranges from 140 to 240 days and increases in a North to South and East to West gradient [11].The Climate Hazards Center InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS-v2) has four decades of quasi-global rainfall data set [35]. Data records start from 1981 to near-present with an area coverage between 50 • S-50 • N. CHIRPS-v2 incorporates 0.05o resolution satellite imagery with in-situ station data to create a gridded rainfall time series for trend analysis and seasonal drought monitoring [35]. CHIRPS-v2 uses the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis version 7 (TMPA-v7) to calibrate global Cold Cloud Duration (CCD) rainfall estimates. Validation studies over the region have shown that the CHIRPS-v2 dataset correlated well with gauge observations, especially on monthly to seasonal scales [6,36,37]. Additionally, CHIRPS V2 have exhibited a good skill at representing these rainfall indices as well as rainfall extremes compared to other globally available data sets such as, GPCC, TRMM 3B42 and CMORPH. This is because CHIRPS blends thermal infrared and passive microwave tend to perform better than IR-only or PM-only products [36,37]. For this analysis, the daily rainfall of CHIRPS-v2 at a spatial resolution of 0.05 • × 0.05 • was used. Rain gauge data for six available stations located in UER (Garu and Zuarungu), UWR (Wa and Babile), NR (Bole and Tamale) from 1981 through 2016 were obtained from Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet). A survey was conducted in December 2020 to elicit farmers' perception of the trends of the three rainfall indices, their impacts on cropping calendar activities, and the adaptation measures implemented to adapt to the changes (Table 1). A total of 400 farmers were interviewed in the UER (94), UWR (146), and NR (160). The average age of respondents was 50 years. The farmers were selected using a stratified random sample from a list of members involved in the ongoing Africa research in sustainable intensification for the next generation (Africa RISING; https://africa-rising.net/, accessed on 20th August 2021) program. Farmer responses were conducted using a structured interview and recorded with tablets using the KoboCollect toolbox. Farmers reported the onset dates in weekly intervals (the week of the specific month) because they could not recall the precise dates.  The methods presented below aim at computing the three seasonal rainfall indices i.e., onset and cessation of rains and the LGP from gauge, satellite and farmers perceptions. The rainfall onset and cessation dates were determined using the percentage mean cumulative rainfall amount (PMCR; [11]). Daily rainfall fields for all grids over northern Ghana from 1981 to 2019 were extracted from the CHIRPS-v2 gridded rainfall data. The percentage mean annual rainfall for 5-day intervals was calculated for all grids. This was followed by accumulating the percentages of the 5-day periods. When the cumulative percentages are plotted against time through the year, the first point of maximum positive curvature of the graph corresponds to rainfall onset, and the last point of maximum negative curvature corresponds to the rainfall cessation. The points of maximum curvatures corresponding to the onset and cessation of rainfall are respectively 7-8% and over 90% of the annual rainfall (Figure A1). The length of the growing season is then the difference of the onset and cessation dates of rainfall (Equation ( 1)).where LGP is the length of the growing period, RC is the rainfall cessation, RO is the rainfall onset. The time series rasters of the three seasonal rainfall indices (onset, cessation, LGP) were applied to test null hypothesis (no trend) from the entire time series data. The trends of the three seasonal rainfall indices were determined using Theil Sen's slope estimator ( [38]; Equation ( 2)). There are several methods for testing the significance of climatic trends such as the Mann-Kendall test [39,40], Spearman's rho test [41,42] and graphical method [43].Existence of serial autocorrelation and ties in time series of climate data influence the magnitude of variance of the test statistic [44]. We plotted the autocorrelation function (ACF) to check if the time series of the three rainfall indices had serial dependency. Since the dataset did not show significant serial-dependence (Figure A2), the significance of the trends was then tested using Mann-Kendall test [39] at a significant value of 0.05 (Equations ( 3)-( 5)). The ability of the CHIRPS-v2 satellite data to capture the onset and cessation dates in the UER, UWR, and NR was assessed using data from six-gauge stations (Figure 1). A point to grid approach was applied, whereby rainfall for the six-gauge stations was extracted and matched with geolocated satellite data. Where a particular station's data were missing, nearby station's data were used to gap-fill. This is because stations that are close to each other, not greater than 4 Km apart, have been revealed to have similar rainfall patterns. After that, the onsets, cessations, and LGP for both gauge and satellite at these stations were computed and compared. To validate the indices' captured by satellite data in the UER, UWR, and NR, the index's average for the two stations that fell in each region was computed for gauge and satellite and compared.where Q is a Theil Sen's slope estimator. Y i are Y i the values at times i and i, where i is greater than i, and n is all data pairs for which i is greater than i.andZ MK is the MK test statistic, S is the number of positive differences minus the number of negative differences, and VAR(S) is the variance of S. The satellite's performance against the gauge station data were assessed using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r), the Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE), and the bias. The Pearson correlation coefficient (r) measures the linear relationship between the satellite and the gauge estimates and ranges between −1 to +1 (Equation ( 6)). RMSE is the mean deviation of the estimates from the observations (Equation ( 7)). Bias estimates the extent to which the satellite under or overestimates the gauge observations (Equation ( 8)). The Rainfall seasonal indices and their trends were generated using shell script and Python packages.where S is satellite (CHIRPs) data, G is the gauge data.4.1. Satellite-Derived Seasonal Rainfall Indices (Onsets, Cessations, and Length of Growing Period (LGP)Figures 1-4 show maps of the three seasonal rainfall indices representing the onset, cessation, and the LGP, respectively, derived from the CHIRPS-v2 data. Only maps for 2000 to 2019 seasons are shown for illustration purposes but a summary for all the years is shown in Figure A3. The rainy season's onset showed a progression along the south-west to northeast direction, with rains starting earlier in the former (Figure 2). Exceptionally early onsets were recorded in northern Ghana in 2013 that can potentially disorient farmers given it rained at the time that farmers usually prepare their fields. Figure 2 shows cases in 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2018 where early rainfall onsets (mid-March) were observed in the NR. In 2007, and 2014 seasons we observed an early onset of rain (21st March to 15th April) covering the entire region. However, the UWR experienced more instances of the early start of rainfall than the UER. Moreover, the NR has shown the earliest onset among the three regions. The transition agro-ecological zone in the NR showed the early start of rainfall (21st March) compared to areas located closer to the UER and UWR. This could also be due to the CHIRPS-v2 poor strength along the zonal boundaries, as reported in [36], which could lead to false onsets at these locations. On average, rainfall onsets occurred between 28th April to 25th May in the UER, 10th April-15th May in the UWR, and 21st March to 25th April in the NR except for exceptional seasons. Generally, the results revealed that the region's rainfall indices have substantial latitudinal variability, with early onsets (21st March-15th April) south of 10oN latitude and late onsets (15th April-25th May) at the north of 10 • N latitude.    The CHIRPS-v2 data revealed earlier, and late onsets date over the West and East of 1.5 • W longitude, respectively (Figure 5a). The observed trends of rainfall onset dates confirm and contradict recent studies in the same region. For example, [12] reported earlier onset dates of the rain season in Tamale and Wa gauge stations between 1986-2010, ranging from −0.3 to −0.5 days/year 7.5 to 12.5 days earlier in the 25 years period. However, Ref. [18] reported a significant delay of onset dates up-to 0.8 days/year in the Volta basin in Ghana (35 days delay in 40 years). Ref. [17] reported a 16-day delay of rainfall onset in the UER, although they monitored a shorter period (1997-2014) with very coarse resolution gridded data (110 Km). Rainfall showed late-cessation dates over most parts of Northern Ghana (Figure 5b). Similarly, longer LGP were observed East of 1.5 • W longitude of northern Ghana due to late cessation of rains (Figure 5a,c). The contrasting trends of onset and cessation dates reported in different studies could result from different datasets, the temporal span and the methods applied in the analysis. Nevertheless, several studies have demonstrated the accuracy of the PMCR method that we applied [10,11]. However, one weakness of the method is that it mostly does not take into consideration false onsets. Moreover, a weakness identified with the CHIRPS-v2 data was that it tends to be biased towards capturing false onsets near boundaries of the study area. This section assessed the CHIRPS-v2 satellite data's ability to capture the three seasonal rainfall indices (onset, cessation and LGP) in the UER, UWR, and NR of Northern Ghana. Figure 6 represents the variability values of the rainfall indices from satellite and gauge data at the six stations from 1981 to 2016 in, UER (Garu and Zuarungu), and UWR (Wa and Babile), and NR (Bole and Tamale). The rainfall onsets as captured by gauge occurred between 80-140 days, while the onsets captured by satellite occurred between 80-135 days in the six stations, except for exceptionally early onsets observed at some locations. It is observed that satellite data generally captured the earliest onsets in UWR (Wa) compared to gauge. Specifically, Bole showed the earliest onset recorded on 58 days for gauge and 78 days for satellite. Exceptionally early onsets were also observed at some locations as shown by outliers (in black circles). The gauge data showed that rainfall cessation dates generally occurred between 255-305 days compared to between 255-295 days from the CHIRPS-v2 except for exceptional early (late) cessations at Tamale (Wa) (Figure 6). Early cessation of rainfall was observed at the Garu and Zuarungu stations located in the Upper East region. The LGP at the location of all stations from the gauge and CHIRPS-v2 data ranged between 105-205 days and 130-205 days, respectively. The shortest LGP observed from gauge was 105 days at the Zuarungu station. On average, CHIRPS-v2 captured longer LGP compared to gauge at Babile, Garu and Zuarungu stations. Generally, CHIRPS-v2 consistently returned early (late) onset (cessation) dates across the six stations. The onset dates derived from CHIRPS-v2 had less temporal variability compared to the gauge. The cessations date had less variability over time compared to the onset dates. CHIRPS-v2 returned longer LGP as a consequent of early-onset and late-onset dates than the gauge stations.The statistical performance of the satellite in capturing the rainfall indices at the stations (Bole, Babile, Garu, Tamale, Zuarungu, and Wa) is presented in Figure 7. CHIRPS-v2 showed an average performance for the rainfall onsets compared to the gauge at the two stations located at the UER and the Wa and Tamale stations with r values between 0.4 and 0.60. However, a very poor correspondence (r < 0.22) was observed for the Babile and Bole stations located at the UWR and NR, respectively. The rainfall onsets' bias values range from −15 to +6 days at the six stations. Generally, the onset days are under-estimated (earlier onset dates) in all stations except in the Tamale station, where onsets were slightly over-estimated (delayed onset dates) by six days. The Root means square error values of onsets at the stations were in the range of 0.09-0.25. The Bole station in the Northern region recorded the highest value (RMSE = 0.25) while the least was observed in Wa located in the Upper West region. In general, for rainfall cessations, CHIRPS-v2 showed a good agreement with gauge (0.4-0.74) except in the Wa station where a weak correlation coefficient (r = 0.12) was recorded. The bias values are in the range of 4-9 days, indicating a late estimate of rainfall cessations dates. The minimal RMSE values (0.03-0.05) observed in all stations reveal that CHIRPS-v2 data generally captured the rainfall cessations. The correlation coefficients of LGP between gauge and CHIRPS-v2 at the stations were in the range of 0.4-0.53 except in the Bole station. The low correlation in Bole (r = 0.04) could be because this station had more than 20% of missing data that was gap-filled. CHIRPS-v2 produced longer LGP in all but Tamale station, where the estimate was shorter by 4 days than the gauge. The RMSE for the LGP from CHIRPS-v2 at all the stations ranges from 0.1-0.18. CHIRPS-v2 in the Wa and Tamale stations recorded the lowest RMSE value of 0.1.  In contrast, relatively high RMSE values (0.14-0.18) were observed in the remaining stations. Although CHIRPS-v2 showed good skill in capturing the rainfall indices over the study region, high biases were detected in some cases. According to [26], the skill of CHIRPS rainfall estimates has high spatial variability due to the influence of climate, topography, and seasonal rainfall patterns. CHIRPS-v2 is known to overestimate and under-estimate low and high-intensity rains in this region, respectively [6]. The inherent systematic biases in CHIRPS-v2 emanates from low density and decreasing Global Telecommunication System (GTS) data over time, leading to insufficient representation of rainfall [26,27,36]. The systematic bias has significant implications for agricultural production, considering that crops' success or failure is more dependent on accurate estimating of onsets and cessations of rains. The accuracy of estimating the three rainfall indices can be improved by applying robust method for correcting systematic biases in CHIRPS-v2 data such as the bias correction and spatial disaggregation (BCSD; [45]) or the Bayesian bias correction method [46].Figure 8 represents the temporal trends of rainfall onset, cessation, and length of the growing period during 1981-2016 derived from gauge and CHIRPS-v2 dataset in the UWR (Wa), UER (Zuarungu), and NR (Tamale). At Zuarungu station, there was a fair agreement (r > 0.4) between gauge and satellite for all rainfall indices, and the RMSE was relatively low (RMSE < 0.19; Figure 8a,d,g). Both the gauge and satellite captured the decreasing trend of rainfall onsets and increasing cessations and LGP in Zuarungu, although with differing slopes. At Wa station, the rainfall onset dates derived from CHIRPS-v2 data showed a good correlation with gauge (r = 0.57), but the direction and magnitude of slopes differed substantially (Figure 8b). At Tamale station, the satellite agreed better with the gauge for the rainfall cessation (r = 0.74, Figure 8f), followed by LGP (r = 0.53; Figure 8i), and lastly, the onsets (r = 0.4, Figure 8c). Moreover, both satellite and gauge showed earlier onset dates but late or longer cessation and LGP in Tamale. The observed trends of rainfall onset contrast and confirms some findings in [12], who reported earlier onset dates of 7.5 days in Tamale and Wa. Our results reveal early (late) onsets dates of 8 days in Tamale (Wa) as captured by CHIRPS-v2 from 1981 to 2016. Therefore, our results agree with [12] at Tamale but contrast at Wa station. Over 95% of the UWR and UER region farmers reported late-onset dates of the rainy season (Figure 9a). However, responses were more divergent in the NR, where 76% and 16% of farmers reported early and late-onset dates, respectively. A total of 248 (62%) and 134 (33%) of farmers reported late and early onset of the rains, respectively (Figure 9b). In contrast, over 80% of farmers in UWR and UER reported early cessation of rainfall (Figure 9c). Farmers' experiences on the cessation of rains in NR were split between early (49%), late (41%), and no change (11%). The regional aggregates showed that a total of 288 (72%) and 86 (22%) farmers reported early and late cessation of rain, respectively (Figure 9d). The late onset and early cessation of rains in the UWR and UER imply the shortening of the growing season, but the NR status is divergent.Table 2 shows a comparison of the trends of onset and cessation dates of rainfall from the gauge and satellite at representative stations in Figure 5 and the aggregated farmers perceptions per region (Figure 9a-c). The farmer perceptions relatively matched the long time series of the gauge and satellites because the household survey elicited farmer perceptions of the trends of onset and cessation dates by comparing the last growing season (2020) with the situation over three decades ago. However, the farmer perceptions were aggregated per region and not necessary at the location of the station, a fact that may reduce the precision. Table 2 shows an agreement between the observation network and farmer perceptions in Tamale station. However, most farmers in UER perceived late onset and early cessation dates of rainfall which completely differed from observation network. Likewise, the satellite and farmer perceptions on onset dates differed from gauge in Wa station although the cessation dates were converging. Therefore, the agreement between gauge, satellite, and farmer perceptions had wide spatial-temporal variability. Our results agree with [33] that farmers' perceptions can vary with location, which decreases their spatial reliability compared to observation networks. Similarly, Refs. [33,47] observed that farmers' perceptions of climate change in northern Ghana deviated from the meteorological records. One possible explanation of the deviations of farmer perceptions and the gauge observations could be their failure to differentiate between climate variability and change [29]. Climate variability has weakened farmers' altitude on traditional forecasting methods and has become more open to scientific measurements. Farmers' perceptions are shaped mainly by short-term variability of climate parameters and the frequency of extreme events than slow long-term changes in the average conditions [29]. Farmers are more perceptive of changes in temperature than rainfall, and their perceptions depend on location, age, and indigenous knowledge [29,33]. In areas that experience land degradation and climate change, farmers' perceptions can confound changes in rainfall seasonality with changes in soil fertility [31].Table 2. Summary of the trends of onset and cessation dates of rainfall from the gauge and satellite at representative stations from Figure 5 and the aggregated farmer's perceptions per region obtained from Figure 9a-c. Over 68% of farmers across all regions replanted the main crop seeds at least once in the last five seasons (Figure 3g,h). This reflects the high frequency of false onsets of the rains in the previous five cropping seasons. Replanting increases the cost of seeds, therefore reducing profitability. Studies had indicated that farmers planted up-to seven times after repeated crop failures during drought seasons in Burkina Faso [48]. Repeated replanting is done late in the growing season, making crops flower after a shortened vegetative period that eventually reduces the crop yield. Evidently, 79% of farmers identified the timing of the onset of rains as a crucial determinant of the crop yield (Figure 9e,f). Results showed that only 29% of farmers rely on data from meteorological agencies to forecast the start of the season (Figure 10a). The use of meteorological agency data was lowest in UWR. Most farmers (>70%) rely on traditional methods to forecast the onset of the rainy season, such as a change in temperature, the pattern of clouds, vegetation phenology, movement pattern of insects/birds, and wind direction (Figure 10a). The traditional knowledge of forecasting rainfall onsets is easy to use and affordable to local farmers, but they are becoming less reliable due to increasing climate variability [48]. The traditional methods are available to different socio-economic and demographic groups over space and time, e.g., herders are more likely to observe movement and nesting of birds in the bush. At the same time, rural women are more likely to note the change of water levels or behavior of insects at water sources where they fetch water [48]. Similarly, Ref. [29] observed that farmers in Ethiopian highlands rarely used scientific climate information despite being in the frontline of implementing the adaptation measures. Our research highlights the need to invest in modern climate services such as the automated gauge network within the farming communities in northern Ghana to complement the existing local knowledge of forecasting the onset of rainy seasons. This will support the provision of tailored weather information services to farmers. Farmers in the study area are willing to pay for climate information disseminated through mobile services [49]. Moreover, by integrating the scientific and traditional methods, our study improves the understanding of the current climate knowledge systems that can help to enhance the modern observation networks in a culturally and locally relevant manner. Our study helps to enhance the observation network by identifying the degree and locations where the satellite estimates mimic the gauge data. The accuracy assessment is important considering that the satellite data are increasingly relied upon for agro-advisory due to the prevalent sparse gauge network in this region. The traditional forecasting methods observe the changes in temperature, wind and clouds that are integral variables of interest to modern meteorology. Therefore, as suggested by [48], scientific meteorologists could build on local understanding between temperature and seasonal rainfall to explore technical aspects of scientific forecasts based, for example, on sea surface temperature. The results further points to the uncertainties arising from relying solely on traditional methods and existing daily satellite rainfall estimates. Figure 10b shows the crop management practices applied by farmers to adapt to shifts of onset and cessation dates of rainfall in the three regions. The early maturing cultivars, early planting, drought-tolerant cultivars and replanting emerged the most common but with different intensities across the three regions (Figure 10b). Planting early maturing cultivars is a strategy to cope with shortened LGP. Early planting enables crops to take advantage of every drop of soil moisture at the onset of season. The UER and eastern NR experienced longer LGP resulting from early-onset and late-cessation dates, therefore, planting early and medium-late maturing varieties are viable adaptation measures in that part. However, in the UER fewer farmers applied early planting (49) compared to early maturing varieties (81) reflecting adaptations that are mis-aligned to local reality. However, the situation was the opposite in the NR. Therefore, adaptation measures were not always consistent with the rainfall seasonality. Similarly, Ref. [30] noted the blanket recommendations policies on the adoption of early maturing crop varieties where seasons are becoming longer in northern Ghana led to maladaptation outcomes that increased vulnerability to climate change and variability. Farmers in UER respond to delayed onset and shortening of LGP by spreading out the sowing of crops across the first three months of the season through a wait-and-see or delay strategy [17,24]. They sow the drought-tolerant crops (sorghum and millet) in April to take advantage of early rains. Farmer's shift sowing of drought-sensitive crops (maize, rice, and groundnut) from May to June or July to reduce the risk of exposure to early season drought. However, this can increase the risk of exposure to the late-season dry spell since these crops mature after 3-6 months. In addition to, the timing of rainfall seasons, selecting appropriate adaptation measures needs to consider the significant spatial-temporal trends of rainfall amount and temperature reported in northern Ghana [5,6].Spatio-temporal variability of rainfall seasonality in northern Ghana, poses a challenge to food security and other socio-economic activities. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the variability and trends of three rainfall indices (rainfall onsets, cessations, and length of the growing period) using the spatially high-resolution CHIRPS-v2 daily rainfall series for the period of 39 years (1981-2019) over Northern Ghana. The study further assesses the satellite and farmers' perceptions of the start of the rainfall season over three Northern regions (Upper East, Upper West, and Northern) using gauge data obtained from the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) during 2020. Our findings show that the region's rainfall indices have substantial latitudinal variability, with late onsets at the North of 10 • N latitude and early onsets south of 10 • N latitude annually. Conversely, early (short) cessions (LGP) are seen to occur at the South of 10oN latitude, while late (long) cessions (LGP) are observed at the North of 10oN latitude. On average, CHIRPS-v2 captured rainfall onsets between 21st March and 25th May, rainfall cessations, 17th September to 10th November, and the LGP is usually between 120-210 days annually in Northern Ghana. Significant late cessations and longer LGP were observed over most parts of Northern Ghana. CHIRPS-v2 data revealed slightly, but significant late, and early onsets date at the West and East of 1.5 • W longitude, respectively. Our findings indicated a trend towards late-cessation dates in most parts of the region. CHIRPS-v2 was biased towards capturing early onsets and late onsets, resulting in a relatively longer LPG. CHIRPS-v2 agreed better with observation for the rainfall cessation, followed by LGP, and lastly, the onsets. The satellite-generated rainfall onset dates agreed better with the gauge at Wa and Bole stations. In contrast, farmers' perceptions were more accurate than satellite stations in the Tamale station. Therefore, farmers' perceptions and CHIRPS-v2 to accurately estimate rainfall onsets are time and location-dependent. Approximately 29% of farmers rely on meteorological agencies' data to forecast the rainfall season's start, while the remainder depends on traditional knowledge. Adaptation measures were not always consistent with the rainfall seasonality. CHIRPS-v2 has inherent systematic biases that could come from low density and decreasing gauge observations over time in Ghana, leading to insufficient representation of rainfall indices. CHIRPS-v2 data were biased towards capturing false onsets near boundaries that have significant implications for agricultural production, considering that crops' success or failure is more dependent on accurate estimating of onsets. Thus, the study recommends the correction of systematic biases in CHIRPS-v2 to improve agro-advisories on the timing of seasonal calendar activities. Moreover, our study highlights the need to invest in modern climate information services such as the automated gauge network to complement the existing local knowledge of forecasting the rainfall seasonality in in northern Ghana. ","tokenCount":"5843"}

data/part_2/0103747810.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ccc1523f04e81cfccb89d5a34242636b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/63481356-c37f-40b7-8670-0bb8c009b3f6/retrieve","id":"1033970113"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e352265a-c010-4f26-a67e-dba57ea5dcf6","pagecount":"6","content":"trabajando en Nicaragua desde hace más de 42 años, desarrollando programas y proyectos en favor de los más pobres, buscando mejorar sus condiciones de vida. Para implementar sus intervenciones, CRS cuenta con una red de Socios locales con muchas experiencias y vínculos con los actores locales y organizaciones de las familias participantes en los proyectos.El trabajo de CRS se dirige a personas de escasos recursos, ubicadas en zonas marginales de alto riesgo, principalmente, en el Norte de Nicaragua. Para el desarrollo de actividades, CRS cuenta con mecanismos de co-ejecución con organizaciones locales como Cáritas de Matagalpa, Cáritas de Jinotega y Cáritas de Estela como socios preferenciales y con otras organizaciones como la Fundación de Investigación y Desarrollo Rural (FIDER) y la Asociación de Desarrollo Agrícola Comunal (ADDAC). CRS y sus Socios promueven la vinculación de los pequeños productores a los mercados formales como un medio para aumentar los ingresos y mejorar sus condiciones de vida, En el año 2002,Cambios Significativos en el CampoEste documento contiene una descripción resumida de la participación de CRS en la Alianza de Aprendizaje de Centroamérica, el proceso que se desarrolló en esta primera fase de funcionamiento y los principales resultados alcanzados, así como las lecciones aprendidas, las limitantes y las dificultades enfrentadas durante estos cuatro años.Las reflexiones que se presentan en el siguiente documento giran en torno al siguiente eje de sistematización: La Alianza de Aprendizaje ha innovado al conectar diferentes tipos de actores para potenciar el trabajo que vienen adelantando en el tema de Desarrollo Empresarial Rural.Cuando se inició con la Alianza de Aprendizaje, en el 2002, CRS había desarrollado una importante experiencia en la ejecución de proyectos agrícolas con pequeños y medianos productores en el manejo de tecnologías para producción orgánica y convencional, manejo integrado de plagas (MIP) y de cuencas. Algunas iniciativas se implementaron bajo contrato con clientes en los mercados formales, principalmente con productos para la exportación.Para ese momento, los productores y productoras participantes en los proyectos con demanda en el mercado ya estaban organizados en grupos preempresariales, sin documentos que los acreditaran como una organización legalmente constituida, pero finalmente, eran grupos funcionales. CRS jugó un papel activo acompañando estos procesos y sirviendo como garante para el cumplimiento de los acuerdos entre los clientes y los grupos de productores participantes de estas iniciativas.En este entonces, para proveer algunos servicios, se firmaban convenios triangulados entre los compradores, los proveedores de créditos y los socios locales de CRS para el acompañamiento con asistencia técnica subsidiada por medio de los proyectos; esto les daba cierta confianza tanto a los productores, como a los proveedores de créditos y a los compradores para la implementación de estas iniciativas en los mercados formales a nivel nacional y para la exportación.En términos de relaciones, además de las organizaciones locales de desarrollo, (socios locales), con CRS colaboraban varias instituciones, entre las de investigación se puede mencionar el Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA) principalmente en la introducción y validación de tecnologías, apoyo a la comercialización, exportaciones, contactos de negocios internacionales, entre otros temas; aunque esta relación era muy puntual.Con la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN) CRS se relacionaba para promover el uso de controladores biológicos, tecnología de alimentos y otros; con la Universidad Nacional Agraria (UNA) trabajaba en el Manejo de cuencas y de suelos, pasantías de estudiantes, estudios de casos, entre otros.Por su parte, la Universidad Estatal de Michigan (MSU-PFID), brindaba financiamiento para la construcción de infraestructura para el acopio y procesamiento de productos, y daba apoyo con fondos para el fortalecimiento de las cooperativas, la identificación de compradores y el manejo de las exportaciones.Por Si bien el listado es considerable, en general había una débil organización de los productores (as), una desarticulación de las cadenas productivas, una oferta de servicios de desarrollo empresarial (financieros y no financieros) muy puntual, y muy pocos vínculos entre productores y el sector privado. De igual forma, las relaciones de CRS con otras organizaciones eran para temas muy puntuales, con limitado intercambio de información y poca discusión sobre temas de interés común.Esta situación sumada a los cambios de enfoque de trabajo de donantes de CRS, que orientaron sus fondos de cooperación para la implementación de actividades de desarrollo económico, se dio un contexto propicio a la generación de iniciativas dirigidas a vincular pequeños productores con los mercados formales tanto a nivel Nacional como para la exportación. Este escenario propició la participación de CRS en la Alianza de Aprendizaje.Así mismo, la entrada en vigencia del tratado de libre comercio entre Estados Unidos y Nicaragua despertó el interés del sector privado por vincularse con pequeños productores para acceder a la oferta de sus productos y aprovechar la demanda creciente de los mercados, pero también para ofertar servicios financieros y no financieros demandados por estos procesos. Así mismo, creció el interés de los pequeños productores por organizarse para aprovechar las nuevas oportunidades de mercado y optar a mejores espacios para negociar sus productos.Durante el proceso de intervención se fueron experimentando cambios muy importantes en distintos momentos entre los miembros de la Alianza. En la etapa inicial del trabajo, por ejemplo, había muchas limitaciones para compartir la información entre las organizaciones miembros, porque de cierto modo, los resultados alcanzados por cada organización le daban un posicionamiento frente a donantes y porque no existía la confianza para una comunicación horizontal más abierta.No obstante, a medida que fue avanzando el proceso se fueron fortaleciendo las relaciones de confianza y colaboración entre los miembros de la Alianza. Esto fue reforzado de alguna manera con un mayor involucramiento de los tomadores de decisiones de las organizaciones y una mayor participación de los equipos técnicos, pasando a un compromiso más institucional debido, entre otras cosas, a la evidencia de los resultados que el proceso estaba generando como son:• La incorporación del enfoque de desarrollo empresarial a la estrategia de trabajo de CRS y sus Socios. • La organización de 15 cooperativas de base con su personería jurídica actualizada y 2 organizaciones de segundo grado con 1.200 productores (as) como socios y pre-socios. Todas cuentan con oficinas en sus sedes. • La organización de servicios de desarrollo empresarial con la apertura de un centro de negocios, a través del cual se ofrecen servicios de comercialización a los productores, información de precios de los principales productos de la zona, asesoría administrativa -financiera, apoyo para la formulación de planes de negocio, organización de rondas de negocios con compradores, administración de contratos, compra de facturas, venta de insumos, entre otros.Para la implementación de los planes de trabajo de la Alianza, tanto a nivel Regional como a nivel Nacional, se organizaron diferentes espacios de diálogo e intercambio como las reuniones anuales de planificación, evaluación y seguimiento a nivel regional, los talleres, las reuniones a nivel de País, la página Web de Alianzas, el correo electrónico y otros.Durante esta fase fue clave el intercambio de información y conocimientos entre los diferentes miembros de la Alianza, reforzando el proceso de desarrollo de conocimientos. El liderazgo del CIAT fue muy importante para los resultados alcanzados por la Alianza en esta fase, puesto que facilitó metodologías y herramientas a través de talleres de capacitación, visitas de intercambio de experiencias, documentos sobre temas de desarrollo empresarial, el acompañamiento en campo, la realización de estudios de cadenas y la sistematización de experiencias exitosas, entre otros. En este sentido, los temas de capacitación más relevantes durante el proceso para promover el desarrollo empresarial rural fueron: la formación de grupos de interés, cadenas de valor, identificación de oportunidades de mercados y la sistematización de experiencias.Los resultados generados durante el proceso desarrollado por CRS y que fueron mencionados en los párrafos anteriores han incidido para que el tema de desarrollo empresarial fuese incorporado de manera más decidida en las estrategias de desarrollo de CRS y sus socios locales; así mismo, se ha manifestado mucho interés y participación por parte de las organizaciones de productores.Otro elemento importante a mencionar es el creciente interés del sector privado sobre el tema de desarrollo empresarial, cada día son más las empresas que muestran su intención de vincularse con las organizaciones de productores para establecer alianzas estratégicas, hacer negocios de mediano y largo plazo, proveer servicios de desarrollo empresarial y hasta de co-inversión para el desarrollo de actividades de manera sostenida.Actualmente, CRS ha ampliado las relaciones de colaboración para promover el proceso de desarrollo empresarial rural con organizaciones como Así mismo, como parte del proceso de desarrollo empresarial que han promovido CRS y sus socios locales durante esta primera fase de la alianza, se han organizado cooperativas de base y organizaciones de segundo grado con aproximadamente unos 1200 productores (as) como socios y pre-socios.Por la intervención de CRS y sus socios locales, también se cuenta con un centro de negocios que presta servicios de desarrollo empresarial (comercialización, información de precios de los principales productos, asesoría administrativafinanciera, formulación de planes de negocio, rondas de negocios con compradores, administración de contratos, compra de facturas, entre otros.)Actualmente, se cuenta con infraestructura para acopio y procesamiento de productos, lo que ha permitido a los pequeños productores alcanzar cierto nivel de economía de escala, despertando el interés de otras organizaciones por el tema de desarrollo empresarial rural, visto como una oportunidad para ofrecer servicios financieros, vender insumos y otras actividades que demanda el proceso. Otro cambio importante es el reconocimiento de las organizaciones de los productores por parte de los clientes, quienes han manifestado su interés por la firma de contratos de comercialización con estas organizaciones.CRS además ha incorporado el enfoque de desarrollo empresarial como parte de su estrategia para la reducción de la pobreza. En este sentido, este año inició un 6 proyecto de cadenas de valor en la zona norte de Nicaragua, ejecutado por un consorcio liderado por CRS y en el que participan 21 organizaciones (4 organizaciones de cooperación internacional, 9 ONG`s Nacionales, 7 Asociaciones de productores, 1 empresa privada), 85 cooperativas de base con aproximadamente unos 3,850 asociados. Con la ejecución de este proyecto se están apoyando 5.400 productores (as) con el objetivo de que aumenten sus ingresos, logren un crecimiento de las ventas por medio de una mayor vinculación con los mercados a nivel nacional, regional e internacional y que generen empleo a nivel comunitario.Algunos aprendizajes que ha dejado este proceso son:• Cuando se inicia un proceso como este, es muy importante tomar en cuenta que, para que se generen cambios significativos, se requiere que desde el inicio participen los tomadores de decisiones y el personal clave que va a estar involucrado en la ejecución e implementación de las intervenciones, ya que esto asegura un mayor respaldo y compromiso institucional de parte del organismo para la implementación del proceso. • Por otro lado, los ciclos de aprendizaje deberían organizarse alternando la capacitación con el acompañamiento en campo por parte del organismo facilitador para la puesta en práctica de los conocimientos adquiridos, y no como se desarrolló en la primera fase de la Alianza, en la que pasaron dos años o más con talleres de capacitación y fue hasta en el tercer año que se inició el acompañamiento en campo. • Así mismo, es clave que se tomen en cuenta los tiempos para la implementación de los procesos, ya que en muchos casos, estos procesos son promovidos desde proyectos, los que en su mayoría, tienen tiempos cortos para su ejecución y recursos económicos limitados. Éstas son limitantes que condicionan los resultados alcanzados atribuibles al proceso.","tokenCount":"1897"}

data/part_2/0108122833.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"20fe6383a8331f524c0ba427d69509f6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/048fbebe-0cea-412f-82e7-ad05cc3e56c5/retrieve","id":"-810079612"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0a53f975-2f79-4c73-b6f2-98bb48ea4cef","pagecount":"1","content":"Study area: Marsabit County is located in the Northern part Kenya (Fig. 1).• Syndromes reported in the field included foot and mouth lesions, diarrhea, pneumonia and a few sudden death events. Suspected conditions associated with the syndromes included Peste des Petits ruminants in sheep and goats, pneumonia, and Foot and Mouth Disease in cattle among others• Trends captured in Figures 1 and 2 identify months when morbidity cases rose beyond the expected levels. These were in the wet periods (data not shown) suggesting that syndromic surveillance can be used to identify meteorological variables that increase disease risk• Table 1 shows observations reported from the slaughter houses across the county. Most of the cases reported in cattle were fasciolosis and pneumonia while in sheep and goats, pneumonia was the main post mortem finding reported. Cysts are very few but there is need to do lab analysis to characterize them to gauge their zoonotic importanceThe syndromic surveillance is the most appropriate system for early detection and response to livestock diseases in Marsabit County• Infectious diseases cause substantial losses on livestock production and trade, particularly in pastoral areas where livestock husbandry is the main socioeconomic activity. Some of these diseases are zoonotic and hence their occurrence have additional consequences on human health and wellbeing.• Surveillance data should inform intervention measures but sometimes the long turn-around time used for processing some of these data limit their timeliness and utility. Syndromic surveillance systems are therefore being used more for early detection and response since they can identify clusters of cases before definitive diagnoses can be made.• We implemented an electronic syndromic surveillance system in Marsabit County, Kenya as part of the animal health and production interventions in the area.Boku Bodha 1* , Halima Katelo 2 , Stephen Basele 2 , Absolomon Kihara 3 , Simon Chuchu 3 , Henry Kiara 3 , George Wamwere-Njoroge ","tokenCount":"309"}

data/part_2/0133748201.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f09c12ff9eaec2c7c06d68125099ad4f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/94c59446-c2c6-41fb-b902-c40ea85b0fdc/retrieve","id":"1121756312"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c89455ef-53bb-45f2-9555-665de1a7bb5b","pagecount":"224","content":"Part I INTRODUCTION 1 The Role of Research in Development 1.1 Views on institutional change Views on policy research and implementation 5.7 Coda : t I J iii s '. \" )T -c 11 Agricultural and Food Policies 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Policy research in the CGIAR system 11.3 Contributions 11.4 Coda Part IV ISSUES 12 Plant Germplasm and Breeding 12.1 iV 17 Agricultural Mechanization 17 .l 'I revolution\" when semi-dwarf wheat and rice varieties, developed by the first .A case can be made that research should not focus exclusively on food crops.The principle of division of labor and mutually beneficial trade applies as much to agriculture as to anything else, and it may make sense for farmers in many poor regions to specialize in commercial crops rather than in food production so as to maximize their incomes as well as the chances of feeding the entire population in the region on an economical basis.The role of internat ional centers, vis-a-vis national centers in research on commercial crops, needs to be worked out in order to meet the needs of poor farmers bearing in mind the crops they are best suited to produce.Finally, it cannot be overstated that the work of the centers is of benefit not just to the developing countries.It is an aspect of the growing interdependence of all nations that anything which contributes to the wellbeing of large numbers of people anywhere tends also to benefit the rest of the world. This is perhaps more true of scientific and technological progress than .anything else.Frank Press Chairman, Advisory Committee It was decided to conduct case studies in as many developing countries as practical to ascertain information bearing on the first issue.Those case studies, plus whatever other sources of data or information could be obtained, were to be the basis for judgements on the second issue.It was further decided to conduct a series of studies of particular issues on which the centers might have been expected to make an impact. The general stance taken in the study is sketched in section 1.5.6. The complexity of the centers obliges a broad approach to an assessment of their impact and the range of issues addressed in this' report is a reflection of this obligation. The demand for imported feed grains 1.4.5The influence of economic policy technological change that permit farmers to produce at lower unit costs so that food prices have been held down. Yet, with real costs declining, incentives have been great enough to drive agricultural growth at a faster.rate than demand, notwithstanding declines in product prices.In the absence of technological changeP discrimination against the agricultural sector led to stagnation of food production and increasing food prices, the latter driven by population growth rates of three percent and greater.Appropriate investment in infrastructures and human capital has led to technological change that in turn has provided one means of escaping this trap.1.1.2Policies that have discriminated against agriculture are now seen to be at the heart of many of the economic crises facing poor countries, leading to slow growth in non-farm employment, compounded by migration to urban areas.At the same time the agricultural sector lacks investment, has stagnant productivity, and a weak system of research and extension. The increased and changing demand for food from urban areas combined with slow growth in domestic output has increased the demand for food imports and subsidies.These place added demands on scarce supplies of foreign exchange and on government budgets, adding further to the disequilibria in both the internal and external accounts. Thus, the ramifications of poor agricultural y performance become widespread, serious, and self-reinforcing.i-CH 1: 8/l 3/85 Q 4The converse holds where a productive and growing agriculture has favorable effects through the linkages with the rest of the economy. When agricultural growth is based simply on using greater quantities of traditional inputs (land and labor) little surplus is generated to improve incomes of rural people or to be transferred to the non-farm sector.Similarly, little surplus is generated by reorganizing existing resources within farms or comnit ies . Only if the constraints to growth are relieved by new factors of higher inherent productivity can agriculture become a major source of growth in a modernizing economy.A growing agriculture provides the food necessary to support higher employment in the non-farm sector.Furthermore, it provides additional rural employment directly by expanding output.Even more important, however, is the indirect employment effect of the consumption expenditures arising from new income streams. Much of that expenditure is directed toward labor-intensive, local goods and services.The increased employment of low-income laborers raises the demand for food, as they spend a large share of additional earnings on food. A self-sustaining cycle of economic growth becomes possible. The crucial element, however, is technological change which releases agriculture from its existing constraints and generates new income streams.In such a process, the contribution of land and physical labor will decline in importance.Investments to enhance the quality of physical and human capital, together with technological change, become key elements in determining the rate and path of agricultural growth. Nations face complex and difficult choices on the thorny path of the development process.Increasingly, they have seen \"top-down\" \"packaged\" methods fail, and many are tending towards more broadly-based participatory approaches to involve more9 CH 1: 8/13/85 especially the less well off, of their people in the process. International assistance too has often been \"top-down\" , and it is in this changing and difficult environment that the international agricultural research centers must seek to make their contribution to the development process. This record of production of major food crops enabled the developing countries to keep narrowly ahead of population growth so that, in global terms, per capita production increased slightly.With generally declining population growth rates, and increasing attention to agriculture, there are good prospects that food production will continue to exceed population growth in developing countries as a whole.CH 1: 8/13/85 600.Figure 1.1 Averuge annual food production in all developitig countries, 1961TO 1983. 1961-65 , lzzi 1970-74 Ezi 1979-83 Yllllon tonnorThis general picture hides a good deal of regional heterogeneity that is illustrated in Table 1. 1. Between 1961-65 and1979-83 cereal production increased at between 1.5 and 4.6 percent annually across the major developing' regions, with the slowest rate in Africa and the fastest in China. Root and tuber production increased at between 1.0 and 5.7 percent annually, with the slowest growth rate in Latin American and the fastest in India.The other major commodities have an equally mixed picture but the African record in food legumes (2.7 percent annually1 is notable.The six geographic areas for which data are shown in Table 1.1 are roughly comparable in the area devoted to cereals , each having from 50 to 100 mill ion ha. Yields range widely around the recent average of 1.9 t/ha, however, from a low of 0.85 t/ha in Africa to a high of 3.2 t/ha in China. In most cases* the regions that had rapid growth of output did so mainly because of increases in yields.Even more striking than the rise in production is the rise in consumption and the concomitant increase in food imports. Developing countries, especially those with rapidly growing populations, continue to become increasingly dependent on imported food. The goal of self-sufficiency in food so widely promulgated in the 1970s will prove increasingly elusive for many countries. In fact, there has been an extraordinary growth in food exports from industrial to developing nations.Countries with rapid growth in urban populations fueled by migration from stagnant agriculture have had the most marked rise in imports. Inevitably, food imports by much of the developing world must continue to rise over the foreseeable fiture. Scarcity of foreign exchange to finance these imports means that much of the developing world will continue to face obligations to increase food production.CH 1:8/13/85 6a   This issues is returned to in section 7.3.2.The products of research may, furthermore, be relevant for improving yield stability and for allowing more intensive production by shortening the growing season. They may also help to extend the domain of the crop to areas ;previously unsuited because of diseases or growing conditions. In such cases, ayield per hectare will not necessarily rise, despite the successful generation 4and diffusion of new technology. '.These conceptual points are intended to emphasize the difference between As with all forms of investment, the fact that the returns to current expenditures accrue some time in the future tends to make research an uncertain venture.It is impossible to foresee with certainty what those future returns will be, or even to be sure that they will eventuate. The inherent riskiness also means that some projects will appear as failures or, at best, partial successes9 while others, with equal prior prospects, will . p staple comodities would not appear so favorable to research.Knowing that the returns to selected projects have been high is perhapsreassuring, but it does not explain why the returns have been so variable, nor how the return should be partitioned between research investment at home and that undertaken elsewhere. Even more tantalizing has been the failure to explain the apparent persistent underinvestment in research.If the rates of return exceed the opportunity cost of capital by five or even ten times, increased investment and a falling rate of return over time could be anticipated.In fact, the recent increases in research expenditures in developing nations may be viewed partly as a response to the reported high rates of return (such as summarized in Figure 1.3).If soI it may be that future realized returns will be lower than for some of the earlier investments.Such would be the case if there were diminishing marginal The second argument for publicly supporting research is that, because many countries protect their domestic markets from imports, the benefits generally flow from the agricultural sector to consumers in the form of lower food prices.In the case of countries where food prices are determined in the world market, it may be in the interest of producers to support research because they gain any benefit of lowered costs.It is also in their interests to prevent export of the research findings that may have generated such benefits.However, knowledge is difficult to monopolize and, if it lowers costs in one country, it will probably do so elsewhere, thereby reducing costs .generally.and eventually also world prices.A third argument is that there is a synergistic effect between education and research that benefits society in general, and therefore public univer- scarcely at all in Peru. Table 1.2 shows the pattern of yield changes in some important crops in the countries in which Country Case Studies were launched.In Africa, rice yields were stagnant except in Cameroon and Nigeria,   1969-71 1979-81 1969-71 1979-81 1969-71 1979-81 1969-71 1979  CH 1:8/13/85 productivity of existing land in order to produce more food, adding to the impetus for investment in research.The economic gain that a particular group expects to derive from new technologies is a key factor in explaining the demand for change. The particular structure of production and the nature and importance of the commodity will determine how these demands are actually transformed into the supply of new technologies and institutions.As wheat and rice were so important in the diets of so many people in developing countries, national research efforts were initially concentrated on them; furthermore, they were the first crops for which a formal international research system was evolved. Because the more important food crops were   forces that generate the demand for and supply of new technologies, they will be more productive and less prone to rejection as \"foreign transplants\".Efforts by centers that are not in harmony with those forces will fail as surely as those that ignore the ecological or economic circumstances. As Chambers ( 1985 1 persuasively argues V effective harmony can be pursued most expeditiously by agricultural researchers, both national and international, \"putting the last first\", that is by developing structures and working styles through which research workers can learn from , and address the most pressing needs of, the resource-poor farmers of developing countries.-i .a..CH 1:8/13/8: were 2.4 percent of production in the developing countries, about 9 Mt of basic staples; by the end of the 1970s this had risen to seven percent, which was over 35 Mt, and today it is almost 10 percent.In aggregate, the spread of new technology has raised production, but the growth of consumption has been even faster.Imports as a share of consumption and in absolute terms are higher now than two decades ago.The aggregate pattern conceals marked regional differences, however; in Asia, absolute imports of basic food stuffs have declined slightly, and in lower S. America (Argentina, Uruguay and Chile) net exports continued .to rise.The biggest increase of imports came in N. Africa and W. Asia. This region, which includes several oil-exporting countries, accounts for over one half of -i the increase in developing country imports.Likewise, Central America, the Caribbean and upper S. America had a substantial rise in food imports. The smallest absolute increase came from Sub-Saharan Africa. This is of note, as popular cortxnent has focused extensively on the high food imports dependency of this region. Furthermore, its dependency is also the lowest terms. The ratio in basic food imports to total consumption the period 1978-80. This ratio is 10, 20 and 25 percent for in relative was computed for Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and upper S. America, and N. Africa and W. Asia, respectively.While it is true that imports by Sub-Saharan Africa have continued to rise in the 198Os, these rankings remain unaltered.The pattern of wheat trade has changed over the past two decades. as is shown in Table 1.5. With the spread of semi-dwarf varieties, the level and share of wheat imports into tropical countries and by the Middle East and N.Africa now account for 60 percent of total developing country wheat imports.--0'CH 1:8/3/85 new varieties, a slower growth of domestic output would have caused internal prices to rise, and substantial imports may well have been needed to hold down prices.Second, the prevalence of new national independence has altered the nature of the internal political forces which, when combined with structural changes in the economy and greater urbanization, has increased the demand for food. Again, in the absence of sufficient growth of domestic output, imports have assumed increasing. importance. :Third, the rise in imports is a logical consequence of the continued long-term decline in world prices for some commodities. These prices have been influenced by technological change, by domestic policies and by internat ional arrangements. For example, W. Europe.'s high protection of domestic agriculture increases the supply of poultry meat and dairy products on world markets, and provides developing countries with the opportunity to acquire additional food at lower real costs.Long-term changes in relative prices alter the trading opportunities as s:l is illustrated by the case of rice and wheat. About 1920, the world prices per ton for rice and wheat were approximately the same. By the 1960s. rice prices were double those of wheat. Today, they are roughly three times as high, although some of this \"advantage\" for -wheat is lost when account is taken of further processing cost. Shifts in both the demand and supply explain this widening gap. Wheat output has grown more rapidly than rice over the past four decades, increasing the supply of wheat relative to rice. At the same time, population and income effects have increased the demand for rice relative to wheat in the rice areas of the world. China has, with due CH ,l : 8/3/85 regard to domestic costs of transporting grains, regularly engaged in foodgrain arbitrage , exporting rice and importing relatively inexpensive wheat. Other countries, not traditional wheat producers, have also increased their imports of wheat relative to rice. While urbanization may explain some of this shift, increased wheat imports reflect both a lower absolute price and a marked fall in the world price of wheat relative to rice.Fourth, both the volume and value of food aid have declined over the past two decades, leading to the need for higher commercial imports by some developing countries.Finally, the rise in income per capita is probably the single most important force that has shaped the patterns of world food trade, and,it will The demand for imported feed grainsThe rise in imports of livestock and feed grains is particularly marked.-7One way to capture this is to convert all livestock products to feed grain In all other regions. imports rose faster than production. This trend is almost certain to continue.In 1982, poultry consumption in developing countries was 10 Mt.Population and income growth will result in an annual increase of demand of at least six percent so that, over 10 years* total consumption will rise to 18Mt. Production of an additional 8 Mt of poultry meat would require 20 Mt of feed grains.Even if half of this were to come from domestic output, import requirements will still rise by 10 Mt per year to meet the growth in demand for poultry alone. Current feed grain imports of developing countries are about 14 Mt, so that major increases can be expected. the growth rates in direct consumption per capita for the major food staples in developing countries were over 2 percent annually for wheat, less than 0.5 percent annually for rice, and negative for coarse grains, roots and tubers.The rise in imports and consumption of wheat is due to consumer subsidies, rising incomes, urbanization and lagging production of staples. For example, wheat output per capita has fallen in N. Africa, an area with the greatest growth in wheat imports.CH 1:8/3/85 While the use per capita of maize as a direct food grain has not changed over two decades, the demand for maize as a feed grain has continued to rise in developing countries.In the future, it is almost certain that the increasing demand for livestock products will lead to greatly increased demand for soybeans, maize and cassava as feedstuffs. This should provide a positive stimulus to domestic production in many countries.In others where the possibilities for growth in output are more limited, imports will continue to grow. The technology for the production of pork and poultry is both readily :;available and highly transferable, so that developing countries can readily acquire the imported technology for domestic production of these products, based on imported inputs.The domestic agricultural policies of both the industrial and developing countries have made the role of world trade smaller than it would have been in the absence of these interventions.At the same time, trade has been made . much more unstable.A country which depends on world markets for supplying a significant part of its food needs may be at a disadvantage. New agricultural technology can ease the process of increasing domestic production, reducing dependence on world markets, and lessening problems of food insecurity.Instability in world food markets is also transmitted to the non-farm sectors of the developing countries with forced reductions in imports of capital goods and industrial raw materials in order to maintain food imports. Improved productivity of domestic agriculture, along with other primary export industries, may thus also help to stabilize purchase of those imports necessary for stable growth and employment.in the non-fan sector.CH 1:8/3/85The process of economic growth involves three key ingredients: technological change, investment in human and physical capital, and increasing dependence on purchased intermediate inputs.The income streams generated by economic growth are spent largely on consumer goods (e.g., textiles, radios), on building materials, and on foodstuffs (e.g., livestock products, vegetable oils, fruits and vegetables). Many countries will increase their imports of both consumer goods and of fertilizer, metals, machine parts, fuels, chemicals. and pesticides -and thus increase their dealings with the typically large multinational corporations that dominate some of these industries. Command over foreign exchange must continue to grow in order to sustain these imports.Often this is generated by .agricultural exports.If these are not adequate, they can act as a brake on economic growth.As economic growth proceeds, the structure of comparative advantage may well change. Increased industrialization and rising labor c,osts may raise the domestic resource costs and result in higher imports (or fewer exports). judgments about what the nature of the impact should have been. For example, if it is the case that the real wages of agricultural labor did not increase in regions experiencing rapid technological change, this could be viewed as a simple statement of the consequences. But there is a possibility that some will view the welfare of the landless as a primary goal, and who will hasten When calculated for historical periods they answer the question: did the investment of scarce public funds generate a return greater than that which would have accompanied an alternative use of the resources ? With appropriate assumptions, a similar approach can yield estimates of the potential return to planned investment.Analyses of aggregate costs and benefits, appropriately discounted to reflect the lengthy lags involved, provide an encouraging background against which to foster the continued support of the international agricultural research enterprise, but they represent only one dimension of social accounting: that of economic efficiency. While it can be argued that such efficiency is a valid criterion against which to measure the social profitability of the use of scarce resourcesI it has become evident that it is not a universally sufficient yardstick, or perhaps even a necessary one. For more than a decade, explicit concern for welfare of the lower income groups has ?: become an important and recurring theme in discussions of economic development and role of the international lending and donor cormrmnity. The international centers have been seeking to articulate their goals and philosophy to reflect It should perhaps be stressed that the very impetus for the formation of the CGIAR was to encourage more research to assist developing nations increase the quantity and improve the quality of their agricultural outputs and thus raise living standards.That the system has chosen to direct its support to research on the basic food crops and livestock which comprise the diet of the majority of the population in the tropical zones strongly implies, in and of itself, a belief in the potential contribution of technological change to real income growth of the poorest of the poor. Food expenditures comprise such a large proportion of the total outlays of the lower income groups that it is virtually axiomatic that strategies aimed at lowering the real cost of foodstuffs will confer a disproportionate benefit on these groups. However, the force and simplicity of this argument is threatened as soon as recognition is given to the existence of low income producers as well as consumers, to the inequality in the ownership of productive resources, and to apparent As soon as the planner ventures beyond the confines of a single objective such as \"increasing rice yields\" or \"increasing, the output of cassavat I1 and adopts a mandate which includes \"accelerating agricultural and economic development\" or \"improve the diets and welfare especially of producers and consumers with limited resources\" an understanding is required of mechanisms whereby research, whose irsnediate product is simply new agricultural technology, can have an impact on these goals. Once the linkages are understood, the constraints can be identified and, for given priorities, the most, anticipated efficient research can be specified.Should the objectives also include raising the real incomes of smallscale producers of energy-intensive conznodities, there is the added complication that alternative research strategies may (and, generally, most surely will) have differential impacts on the two objectives.To overcome this a set of weights is needed that reflects the relative importance to be attached to each of the objectives and permits the formation of a single index or criterion against which alternative strategies can be evaluated. -   1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982  ","tokenCount":"3947"}

data/part_2/0137666392.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c742fc6855490c9f60f9c81034e041f9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f4334932-22b7-4848-b63a-ca27838358b7/retrieve","id":"-405748341"},"keywords":["anthesis","commercialization","inbred","nicking","silking","single-cross"],"sieverID":"99fe08c0-8456-4947-a371-447c977bf2b6","pagecount":"1","content":"Staggering planting of male and female parents in hybrid seed production is one of the challenges for large scale seed production for seed companies in the developing countries. Breeders need to provide data on nicking of the parents of new hybrids before release. This study was designed to generate information on nicking of 21 pairs of parents of new maize hybrids to facilitate commercial seed production. Twenty-one pairs of male inbred and female single-cross parents of intermediate drought tolerant and Striga resistant hybrids were tested in three sites (Ikenne, Mokwa, Zaria) in Nigeria. The results showed that the 21 female single-cross parents flowered earlier than the male inbred parents. Days between anthesis and silking of the female and male parents varied from -0.7 to 8.3. Ten pairs (Entry#1, 2, 3, 13, 16, 18, 6, 7, 11, 14)  of the parents had excellent nicking, ranging from -0.7 to 5.3 days, with high yield potential for three-way cross hybrids seed production. These pairs of parents can be plated the same day for large scale seed production for commercialization. Eleven other pairs of male inbred lines and female single-cross parents had male and female anthesis to silking interval ranging from 6.3 to 8.3 days that can be staggered by three to five effective planting days during sowing to achieve good nicking; this is capital intensive for commercial seed production. Nicking of both male and parental lines within few days would facilitate effective seed production operations contributing to profitability for seed companies. Additionally, the agronomic data generated during this study will be shared with seed companies for use in the varietal release, seed production, and commercialization.","tokenCount":"272"}

data/part_2/0149480949.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6b595faf3308476c4d69855104ee47c4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1c952ad9-3850-42d2-902e-a8c746be7b4f/retrieve","id":"-280725474"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0660c720-5898-4a01-a4b2-13dbbf621fea","pagecount":"28","content":"• Feed shortages and the poor quality of available feed are the major constraints to increased livestock productivity in Ethiopia.• Sowing a new pasture or improving an existing natural pasture requires a reliable source of seed or vegetative material of species recommended and adapted for the area.1. Formal Seed production A) Commercial seed production • Seed growers are organized in a form of large enterprise (regional enterprises like Oromia seed enterprise, Amhara seed enterprise, etc.)• Initially formed to grow and disseminate food crop seeds to Ethiopian farmers not forage seeds Cont… B) Small scale forage seed business  Private firms emerging around forage seed production and trading businesses in Ethiopia. Some of these firms have their own pieces of land or use outreach farmers to produce forage seeds and need to be provided with technical training and quality basic seeds.A) Farmers Cooperatives (Unions)   Seed bed preparation • The quality of seed bed preparation may vary according to the type forage crop to be planted • Perennial crops which are usually small seeded requires fine seed preparation • The seed bed should be free of weeds and when weeds are expected to be problems pre-emergence herbicides should be used Isolation  If different varieties of the same species are planted in the nearby area and if the species is crosspollinated type, the recommended isolation distance need to be maintained• Planting materials could be seeds, seedlings, cuttings/splits A) Seeds  Prepare the required amount of seed or planting materials. Make sure the seeds are the prescribed variety from a know source / certified seed -with the recommended quality Seed treatments • If the seed is known to have dormancy or hard seed coat, treat the seed with the recommended procedures• Some legume forage crops when planted in new places require inoculation with strains of rhizobium for proper nitrogen fixing • Sweating -Some forage species require piling for proper ripening of seeds and ease of threshing (like Rhodes and panicum grasses)• Making small bundles facilitate management the process• This is separating the seed from the rest of the cut material / chaff and straw• Threshing could be done manually, using animals or machineries• Care need to be taken to minimize or avoid damage of seeds during threshing• Dry the fresh seed under the shad or in the sun sunshine with good ventilation• The fresh seed with 40 -70 % moisture need to dry to 5-10% moisture level• The threshed seed has different unwanted materials, including, chaffs, weed seeds, soil materials etc. This materials need to be cleaned• Seed cleaning could be done mostly using sieves and wind (winnowing)• These activities are accomplished manually using human labor or machineries.• The final seed material must be checked for purity and viability in laboratory tests from homogenous samples.• Viability / Germination could be affected by dormancy for many forage grass species. Forage seeds need to be treated using different chemicals like fungicides before packaging and storage to increase shelf life of the seed and stop the effect of pests and disease during planting.• Seeds need to be stored in a cold please (15 -17 O C). The seeds should be kept in a dry and away from direct sun light.• Depending the length of storage the temperature could be adjusted for long term storage, refrigeration could be an option• There should be a proper seed packaging so that there will be no any seed damage or loss.• The packaging should be waterproof or moisture resistant.• The label should include species name, cultivar / accession number, lot number, harvest date, site, Seed certification systems are very essential that provide confidence both for the producers and users and strengthening the marketing system  Forage seed certification is an approval procedure of seed production from field and seed preparation to packaging according to the set standards  In Ethiopia most of the recommended forage species/ varieties have seed production standards approved by the Ethiopian Standards Authority.o Forage seed marketing is not well developed in Ethiopia, primarily due to the low adoption of forage cultivation in the country o There are only few private seed producers, and their customers are better lives through livestock ilri.org ILRI thanks all donors and organizations who globally supported its work through their contributions to the CGIAR system Thank you","tokenCount":"715"}

data/part_2/0158068472.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9d0e8d555256bbcc4d085116422400da","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1ca38076-4835-49b5-a514-d254e1567196/retrieve","id":"1484629624"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"278237d8-0bd7-4b75-b392-bc4c5f1d3f1f","pagecount":"1","content":"• To determine the foods sold in the selected markets, their sources, handling practices, and food safety needs from the perspective of key stakeholders in Burundi and Kenya.• Results from study will provide indepth understanding of food safety status in EAC.• Inform decision making for policy development and donor investment to improve food safety in the region.• The findings are expected to guide other objectives of the research project.• Unsafe food leads to foodborne diseases (FBD). One-on-one interviews with market and gov't officials, researchers.Random stratified and random systematic Participatory approachRanking and scoring, proportional piling, Venn diagrams.Intensive notetaking, recordingTranscription, translation, coding and thematic analysis. Descriptive analysis ","tokenCount":"105"}

data/part_2/0167065918.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d9c561a9d87d226c3b1f696c1a1fb8df","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/763c749b-a05d-422a-af2a-9f9009cccc5a/retrieve","id":"1035243030"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"86231bc5-5438-4a55-9f59-0860423f1b61","pagecount":"1","content":"One Health institutions working with animals or plants should not underestimate the importance of human research ethics. There is need for broader ethical frameworks to encompass One Health research.The universal ethical principles of human-subject research presented in the Belmont report as Respect for Persons, Beneficence and Justice, 1 should be applied to custodians of animals and the environment.Here, we describe experiences of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in implementing human research ethics in livestock projects.• During a long-term impact assessment, participants took photographs to represent changes on their pig farms • Voluntary participation in a photography exhibition gave farmers the opportunity to teach and learn from each other's experience in pig production, thus sharing benefits of research. • Participation rate was 90% (45/50).• Feedback was positive: 78% (35/45) named one or \"many\" things they learned, 62% (28/45) something they taught and 69% (31/45) something new they would try. • This peer-sharing democratised the knowledge created and served as a method to share research results with participants.• A One Health research ethic considers animals and the environment to be intrinsically valuable and also acknowledges the relationships humans have with them. • Human research ethics committees have an important role in institutional policy around animal and environmental research. • Adaptive and context-specific approaches must be used when applying a One Health ethic. ","tokenCount":"221"}

data/part_2/0168294321.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bd3083f539afcad2ede4adad174c4c7a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a259280a-d095-4567-b23a-1e3881f15571/retrieve","id":"1554176384"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2727a241-4f3f-4063-8418-aee1a8e606f4","pagecount":"48","content":"Dentro del anahsls de las tendencIas economlcas del sector agropecuano, que a traves de los años ha vemdo reahzando El CIA T, en el estudIo de las tendencIas ganaderas el mayor enfasls se ha dado al Troplco latmoamencano, ya que el foco de las mveslIgaclOnes en forrajes tropIcales se ha centrado en este subcontmente Algunos proyectos del CIAT mvolucrados en el desarrollo y utlhzaclon de forrajes, como el IPS y el PES, tienen un mandato ampho que mcluye algunas reglOnes de ASia y Afnca Por esta razon y porque en un mundo economlCO cada vez mas mtegrado y globahzado, para la toma de decIsIOnes no es suficIente Identificar y explorar las tendenCiaS regIOnales, SInO que es Importante conocer las tendenCIas econonucas en otras reglones del planeta, durante este año se elaboro un esrudlO, a grandes rasgos, de las tendenCias de los sectores productores de carne vacuna y leche en ASIa y Afnca La mforrnaClOn pnmana utlhzada proVIene de la base de datos del Proyecto de EvaluaclOn de Impacto, la cual mcluye mforrnaclOn de dIversas fuentes entre ellas F AO y Banco MundIal A la base de datos se le adICIOno un sIstema de generaclOn automatlca de reportes para ASIa y Afnca, mediante el cual elusuano puede obtener mforrnaclon sobre producclOn, areas sembradas, rendImientos, Inventan os ganaderos, consumo y comercIO, defimendo prevIamente el producto y el penodo para el cual reqUIere la mforrnaclOn El estudIO analiza las tendenCias en producclOn, consumo, comercto, productt\\'ldad y autosufictencta en los sectores productores de carne vacuna y leche tanto en ASia como en Afuca Se mcluye un conjunto de cuadros estadtsttcoS anexos, en donde se desagregan las vanables amba menCIOnadas, por pats y reglOn Se concluye que la dotaclOn relatlva de recursos, pnnclpalmente tierra y mano de obra, vana conSiderablemente de un contmente a otro y que esto se refleja en las tendenCIas productlvas observadas En ambos contmentes la base de la dIeta la constltuyen los cereales, que aportan mas de la m!1ad de las calonas y protemas consumidas El consumo de carne vacuna y de leche en Afnca y en ASia no es tan Importante en la dIeta como lo es en Amenca Latma En ambos contmentes la producclOn domestlca de carne y de leche no es sufiCiente para satlsfacer la demanda mterna por lo cual se recurre a las ImportaCIOnes En ASIa a pesar de que el consumo per caplta anual de carne vacuna es muy redUCido (entre 3 y 4 kg), las ImportaCIOnes promedias anuales en el penado 1990-1997 llegaron a 1 2 millones de toneladas, eqUivalentes al 11% de la produCClOU latmoarnencana en el mlsmo penado La productividad promedIa de la ganadena en ASIa es slgmficatIvamente mayor que la de Afnca En la pnmera se nota una clara tendenCia a la mtenslficaClOn de la producclOn ganadera, ya que la producllvldad ha contnhUldo de una manera slgruficallva al mcremento de la producclOn tanto de leche como de carne Palabras Clave T endencJas, Ganadena, Leche, Carne, ProducclOn, ProductIvIdad, Consumo, ComercIO, ASIa, AfncaLlbardo R1Vas -James A Garcza JLa ganadena vacuna es una actlvldad economlca de gran Importancia a traves de todas los contmentes, por la magmtud de recursos que utll!za particularmente de tierra, por su aporte a la dieta y por su partlclpaclOn cn el gasto en alImentos En la medida que se avance en el proceso de creCImiento y de expanSlOn del mgreso, la demanda de los consumidores por protema de ongen ammal se expande notonamente, par lo cual en la mayona de las reglOues en desarrolla se observa que asOCiado con el creCImIento aparece un rapldo mcremento del consumo de carnes y de productos ¡acteas Gran parte de ASia y Afuca al Igual que Amenca Launa, son conSIderadas como reglOnes en desarrollo La mayona de las paIses afrIcanos y en menar medIda las de ASIa, estan mclUldos en los grupas de mgreso baja y medIO baja, segun la claslficaclOn del Banca MundIal En el grupa de bajaS mgresos se mcluyen las patses cuya mgreso per caplta anual es Igual a menor a US$ 765 En el grupo de mgreso medIo -baJO aparecen aquellos cuyo mgreso anual por habitante esta en el rango US$ 766-3035 (World Bank 1997)Cifras de IFPRl a mvel global muestran que en los proxlmos 25 años, en los patses en desarrollo la demanda por cereales se mcrementara en 59%, la de ratces y tuberculos en 60% y la de carnes en 120% (Andersen et al, 1997) En vanos paises de AfrIca y ASIa una gran proporclOn de la poblaclOn sobreVive con un mgreso de menos de un dolar por dta Zarnbla (84 6%), NIger (61 5%), Kenya (50 2%), Uganda (50%), IndIa (53%), (World Bank, 1997) Dada la magnItud de la poblaclOn actual tanto en AfrIca como ASIa, es de esperar que de OCUITlr procesos de creCImIento, que generen mayor capacidad de compra, en defimtlva se traduzca en una gran preslOn de demanda por ahmentos, en partIcular en los segmentos de poblaclOn que en la actualIdad presentan marcados deficlts y en productos alImentICIOs de alto valor como las carnes los productos lacteos AfrIca aparece como el contmente con la mas amplIa dotaclOn mundIal de pastizales, 803 millones de hectareas, pero presenta muy baJOS mdlces de producclon de carne y leche por animal, por hectarea y por habitante (Cuadro 1)¡ ASOCiados de InvestlgaclOn del Proyecto de EvaluaclOn de Impacto del CIAT Los dos contmentes consideradas en conjunto, contabihzan Casi la mitad del area en pasturas y del mventano vacuno del mundo (46 7% Y 48% respectivamente)Una enorme proporclOn de la poblaclOn del mundo en desarrollo se concentra en ellos Por cada 100 habitantes en las reglones en desarrollo, 73 habitan en ASia, 15 en Afnca y 11 en Amenca Latma (Cuadro 1)Por el tamaño la poblaclOn de ASia y AfrIca y su dmamlca de crcClmlento, el avance en la producclOn de ahmentos se constituye en uno de los pnnclpales desafios en los proxunos años, para acelerar y mantener el crecimiento y mejorar el bienestar de grandes nucleos de poblaclOn en esas reglones del mundo en desarrollo A pesar de que a mvel mundial yen las areas en desarrollo en particular se aprecla una persistente declmaclOn en el ntmo de creCimiento poblaclonal, Afnca se destaca porque el crecimiento de su poblaclOn contmua Siendo muy alto En el penodo 1990-1997 la tasa de creCimiento de la poblaclOn afrIcana fue de 2 5%, 1 6 veces mas rapldo que en ASia y 1 S veces mayor que en Amenca Latina (Cuadro 2)Una alta fracclon de la poblaclOn afrIcana y aSlauca se concentra en el sector rural, 64 % en ambos contmentes en 1997, constituyendose en las reglOnes del mundo con menores mdlces de urbanlzaclOn Dado que gran parre de la poblaclOn mundlal y de los paIses en desarrollo se ubica en Afnca y ASia, como ya se anoto, se espera que gran parte de la demanda adiCIOnal de ahmentos provenga de esas reglones En la actuahdad algunos proyectos de CIAT relaCIOnados con actiVIdades ganaderas, como son el proyecto de Forrajes (IP5), el cual busca nuevas alternativas forrajeras para una producclOn ganadera sostemble econornlca y ambientalmente, en diferentes ccoslstemas de los trOplCOS y el Proyecto de Sistemas Sostembles para pequeños Productores (PES), los cuales llenen un mandato que, aparte de Amenca Latma, mcluye algunas reglOnes espeCificas de Afrlca y ASia En particular el AfrIca OCCidental y el Este y Sudeste de ASiaPor lo antenor, conSIderamos que es pertmente y de utlhdad, presentar una VISlon, aunque muy general, debido a la falta de mformaclOn mas detallada, de las pnnclpales tendenCias de la producclOn ganadera en Afnca y en ASia, en espeCial en las areas donde los proyectos de mvestlgaclOn del elA T esperan lograr Impacto El presente trabajO presenta CIfras y anahza las tendenCias de largo plazo dc algunas vanables cntlcas, como produCClOn, consumo, autosufiCienCIa, comercIO, mvcntanos ganaderos, area en pasturas y algunos mdIcadores de la productlvldad agregadaEl documento mcluye vanas tablas anexas con mformaclOn desagregada por subregJOnes y palses La mformaclOn pnmana se obtuvo de la base de datos de FAO, dlspomble en Internet   A pesar de que las carnes y los lacteos ocupan en la actualidad UD lugar secundano en la dieta afncana, las tendenCIaS del consumo de alimentos en las regIOnes en desarrollo, muestran en las ultImas decadas, un gran avance del consumo de carnes y productos lacteos frente al consumo de cereales Las estimacIOnes de IFPRI (1999) para el penado 1971-1995, muestran que el valor, en u$ de 1990, del mcremento del consumo de carne y leche fue 2 4 veces mayor que el valor del aumento del consumo de cereales, u$153 billones versus us$65 billones IFPRI sugIere que en las proxlmas decadas, dado que el consumo de cereales en muchos paIses en desarrollo se encuentra en niveles cercanos a la saturacIOn, la demanda por carnes y lacteos erecera mas rapldamente que la de estos 113 Ganadena Vacuna La producclon ganadera es una actIvIdad de alta complejidad que Involucra aspectos bIOlogrcos relacIonados con la produccIOn forrajera a lo largo del año y con la evolUClOn y producttvldad de! rebaño vacuno Las fluctuaCIOnes econolUlcas relaCIonadas con el comportamIento Clchco y estacIOnal de los precIos ganaderos, aillCIOnan complejIdad y dIficultan el analIsls y el entendImIento de las tendenCIas que se observan en la producClon vacuna La nattlraleza y estructura y comportamIento de los sIstemas de producclOn ganadera pueden vanar conSIderablemente de regIOn a reglOn y de pws a pals y el desempeño observado puede vanar de acuerdo al sIstema de producclOn espeCIfico Por ejemplo, un sIstema de produccIOn ganadera mlgratono puede tener un comportamIento, frente a CIrcunstanCIas SImIlares, muy dIferente al que puede observarse en un sIstema de pastoreo SemI-intenSIVO o al de uno basado en el confinwmento En el ultimo penodo sobresale por el dmamlsmo de sus inventarIOS vacunos Amca OCCIdental (3% por año) y dentro de ella Gumea 6 2%, Y Nlgena 4 1 %, 1I 32Producclon y CreCimIento de la Producclon La produce IOn de carne vacuna amcana se dlstnbuye de Igual forma en que se dIstnbuye geograficamente el lDventano vacuno 34% en Afuca OCCidental, 185% en Amca Onental y 16% en el Cercano Onente en Afuca La producclOn total de carne vacuna de Afuca en las dos ultima decadas ha crecIdo muy lentamente, en los 80 al O 5% anual yen los 90 al O 6% Estas tasas son muy mfenores al mcremento de la poblacIon, por lo cual la producclOn por habItante presenta una acentuada tendencIa declmante La producclOn de came vacuna por habItante para toda Afuca en conjunto es de 5 kg por habItante/año, fluctuando en el rango de 2 a llKg, por regIOnes y paIses Sobresalen por sus altos mveles de producclOn por habllante Sur Afuca 11 kg Y Kema (10 kg)La productIvIdad de la ganadena vacuna expresada como producclOn de carne por cabeza de ganado en el mventano total, declmo perslstentemente a lo largo de todo el penodo baJO analIsls La producclOn por cabeza se reduJo 15%, al bajar de 20 a 17 kg por ammal y por año Esta reducclOn de la productIvIdad es muy marcada en Afuca OCCIdental, en partIcular en NIgena (-52% por año), Costa de Marfil y MauntanIa ( -3 9 Y -38%, respectIvamente)El retroceso de la productIvIdad es el pnnclpal factor que exphca el lento avance de la producclOn de carne vacuna en el contmente afucano tomado como un todo SI se comparan los penodos 1981-1988 y 1989-1997 se encuentra que en ambos penodos los mventanos ganaderos crecieron y qne ese creCImIento fue la unlca fuerza que unpulso la producclOn, dado que la producclOn por ammal en stock se reduJo (Figura 4) IV 1 Uso de la tIerra Este contmente posee un area de 1607 millones de hectareas, de las cuales 1048 millones (65%) se destman a pastIzales pennanentes, el restante 35% se emplea en CulllvOS anuales y pennanentes El area en bosques llega a 557 millones de hectareas, equivalente a Casi la mitad del su area en pasturas Se trata del conllnente con mayor densidad poblaclOnal y menor dotaclOn de tierra por habitante Por cada persona eXiste menos de media hectarea cultivada, frente a 1 6 hectareas en Afuca y en Amenca Latma Indudablemente que la magnItud del area culllvada no refleja necesanarnente el potencial de producclOn de alImentos, dado que el otro factor detennmante, la productividad, puede dlfenr notonarnente de contmente a contmente, de pals a pals y dentro de un mismo pals Uno de los pnnclpales efectos del desarrollo y aphcaclOn de nuevas tecnologlas agncolas es la obtenclOn de mayores niveles de producto por urudad de area y menores costos por umdad de producto IV 2 Estructura del consumo de alimentos en ASIaAl Igual que en Afuca, los cereales son la base de la ahmentaclOn en ASIa Estos productos aportan el 61 % de las calonas y el 55% de las protemas consumIdas por los habitantes del contmente El grupo de las carnes aparece, aunque muy dIstante, en segundo lugar como aportantes de protemas y en tercer lugar en el aporte de calonas Los productos lacteos figuran en legares secundanos en la escala de ImportanCia ahmenllcla (Cuadro 4)A dIferenCIa de otros contmentes, en ASIa predomma el consumo de carne de cerdo De un consumo total de carnes de 20 8 kglhabltante/año, llkg (52%) corresponde a carne porcllla En segundo tennmo aparecen las carnes de ave, mientras el vacuno ocupa una poslclOn secundan a, representando el 16% del consumo total de carnes (Figura 6)Se espera que en ASia en los proxlmos años el consumo de vacuno crezca no solo en tennmos absolutos, SIllO en su partlclpaclOn en el consumo total de carnes El baJO consumo actual, la magmlud y el creCimiento de la poblaclOn aslatlca y la dmamlca econOIllIca de la reglOn, que ya comienza a recuperarse del estancamiento de mediados de la decada, son factores que favorecen el creCimiento de la demanda de vacuno en esa pane del mundo  O.[ En un penodo mas reCIente, 1989-1997, el crecImIento producTIvo que fue mayor, 5 6% por año, se ha sustentado en mayor medIda en la expanslon del mventano de vacas, 64% frente a 36% atnbUlble al alza de la productivIdad VI 2 Consumo y AutosufiCIencIa No obstante que el consumo de leche por persona en ASIa se puede catalogar como baJO, 24 kg por año, el contmente es un Importador neto de leche El mdlce de autosuficIencIa se sltua alrededor de 90% El Este y Sudeste presentan muy baJOS ruveles de autosuficIencIa ( 45%) y muy baJOS ruveles de consumo per caplta IndonesIa (37 kg), VIetnam (4 6 kg) Tatlandla (164kg)A pesar del sustanCial avance de la producclOn, el contmente aun contmua Importando slgruficatlVos volumenes de leche en polvo En 1997 las ImportaCIOnes netas se sItuaron en mas de 400 mJ! toneladasEn este trabajO empleando mfonnaclOn secundan a proveruente de la F AO, se anahzan las tendenCias de ruvel muy agregado de la producclon de carne v leche en Amca y Asta Para un extenso penodo que cubre las decadas del 80 y parte del 90, se examlrurn la evoluclOn de las areas en pasturas pennanentes, los mventanos ganaderos, la producclOn y productIVIdad tanto en la prOdUCClOn, el consumo y la autosuficIencIa, tanto de carne como de leche, Como conclUSIOnes mas sobresahentes se anotan las sIgUIentes 1) La dotaclOn relatlva de los pnnclpales factores de producclOn ganadera, tIerra y mano de obra y ganado dIfiere conSIderablemente de un contmente a otro En Afuca por cada hectarea destmada a cultlvos, eXIsten cerca de 5 hectareas en pasturas permanentes En ASia solo hay 2 hectareas La dotaclOn de tIerra agncola por habItante de Amca es 8 veces mayor que la de ASIa, 2 4 hectareas frente a O 32) Los cereales constItuyen la base de la dieta en los dos contmentes, ellos aportan mas del 50% de las calonas y la protemas consumIdas 3) Carne vacuna y leche en ASia y Amca no son ahmentos tan basICOS, como lo son en Amenca Latma Dentro del consumo total de carnes, en Afnca el vacuno predomma ocupando una franja que representa dos qumtas partes del consumo total En ASia el consumo dommante es el cerdo, que contablhza mas de la mItad del consumo de productos canncos 4) La productIVidad de la ganadena vacuna es slgmficalIvamente menor en Amca Por cada anImal en el rebaño vacuno, en ASIa en promedIO se produce 30% mas de carne y 138% mas de leche IndIcadores agregados de la productIvIdad de la ganadena en Afnc~ ASia y Amenca Latma 1997 ","tokenCount":"2743"}

data/part_2/0178066037.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f1c9918b3fa801b58a7c2adf78a7d5ca","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fc06128e-eee1-49a5-8cfd-3314fcf2bd44/retrieve","id":"-714476868"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2bf83223-ee9c-4730-8c3d-57e6ec5076f7","pagecount":"1","content":"Links to the Strategic Results Framework: Sub-IDOs:• Increased livelihood opportunities • Increased resilience of agro-ecosystems and communities, especially those including smallholders Is this OICR linked to some SRF 2022/2030 target?: No Description of activity / study: The COVID-19 pandemic is a major international health crisis which has resulted in simultaneous economic, social and food security crises. This study aimed to provide a snapshot of the short-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on smallholder rice farmers in Côte d'Ivoire. Results showed that all rice farmers were aware of coronavirus disease, and television and radio were the main sources of knowledge of the pandemic. After one growing season, the pandemic had negative impact on access to inputs, access to hired labor, yield, income and food security. Around 43% of farmers experienced at least one negative impact of the pandemic. About 30% of farmers perceived that the rice yield and income decreased due to the pandemic. Access to inputs and hired labor became more difficult and expensive for about 28% of farmers. Surprisingly, farmers in more remote villages were also affected by the pandemic as well.Geographic scope:• Regional Region(s):• Sub-Saharan AfricaComments: <Not Defined> Links to MELIA publications:• https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aesc21:312071 1 This report was generated on 2022-08-19 at 08:14 (GMT+0)","tokenCount":"205"}

data/part_2/0184318592.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a9e2e54af8e5a5e0ab60e0468a4dfe4b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/752035a4-9c43-41de-ba6e-c9852a14ceaa/retrieve","id":"1797543008"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"77e59675-4e26-442a-b5e2-8355794ee6e5","pagecount":"17","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above.The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-1 The SAPLING InitiativeThe CGIAR Sustainable Animal Productivity for Livelihoods, Nutrition and Gender Inclusion (SAPLING) is an initiative that focuses on sustainable animal productivity. This initiative aims to contribute to transforming livestock sectors in target countries to make them more productive, resilient, equitable and sustainable (see Box 1 on how this objective will be achieved).The initiative is working in seven countries located in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda), West Africa (Mali), Southeast Asia (Vietnam) and South Asia (Nepal) on a total of 15 livestock value chains (Figure 1). Within the One CGIAR, SAPLING is mapped to the action area Resilient Agrifood Systems.Figure 1: SAPLING focal livestock value-chains, which number 15 in total, across seven countries (Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Nepal and Vietnam) and six livestock types (beef cattle, chicken, dairy buffalo, dairy cattle, pigs and small ruminants).Box 1 SAPLING's objective will be achieved through five work packages:Technologies and practices for sustainable livestock productivity: developing, adapting, and testing new and existing productivity-and resilience-enhancing, low-emission, scalable technologies, and practices across the three main pillars of livestock productivity: improved feeds, animal health products and genetics (Work Package 1).Innovations and practices for safe consumption of livestock-derived foods as part of diverse diets: cocreating innovative models and approaches for social and behavior change communication and testing and evaluating approaches for incentivizing market actors to enhance the supply of safe, nutritious, and affordable livestock-derived foods (Work Package 2).Sustainable livestock productivity for gender equity and social inclusion: understanding constraints and opportunities, identifying best-bet entry points, addressing constraints, and developing tools to measure progress (Work Package 3).Competitive and inclusive livestock value chains: generating evidence on institutional arrangements and technical interventions to transition towards more profitable, inclusive, and sustainable livestock value chains (Work Package 4).Evidence, decisions, and scaling: generating and consolidating evidence, models, and tools to support public and private decision-making for a sustainable and inclusive livestock sector (Work Package 5).From: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/128150 2 Dairy value chain in KenyaDairy is the largest sub-sector of the agriculture sector in Kenya, contributing about 30% of the livestock gross domestic product (GDP) and 14% of agricultural GDP (FAO 2011;Odero-Waitituh 2017). Overall, the industry supports the livelihood of an estimated 1.8 million rural households and exhibits growth of 4% annually (KNDMP 2010); contributing to household income and food and nutritional security. Relative to the rest of East Africa, Kenya runs a competitive dairy sector with active processing and a strong distribution network. Nevertheless, Kenya remains a milk deficit country, experiencing yield decline (Figure 2) against demand for milk and dairy products that is growing at 2-3%, with annual per capita consumption estimated at 145 liters (Bingi and Tondel 2015;USAID KAVES 2015;Kaitibie et al. 2010). Indeed, overall supply is largely driven by the growing number of milking cows. Demand on the other hand is driven by population growth, urbanization, rising incomes and changing lifestyles. It is estimated that smallholder farmers contribute over 80% of domestic milk production with commercial production concentrated in Central and Rift Valley regions (USAID KAVES 2015; USAID KAVES 2013; FAO 2011). Nevertheless, commercial dairy farming is taking root in the Western/Nyanza regions and Lower Eastern Kenya, which were previously considered pre-commercial dairy areas (Auma et al. 2017). These regions present new growth areas for dairy production in Kenya, especially with advanced technologies and innovations that promise solutions to perennial dairy challenges. The emerging dairy counties in Western/Nyanza and Lower Eastern are also characterized by large gaps in milk supply (averaging 55%), which provides market incentive for farmers willing to venture into dairy farming. However, the supply gaps imply higher milk prices (KES 20-40 above prices in commercial dairy areas) (Auma et al. 2017), which place milk out of reach of many poor households. Productivity increases could therefore have significant impacts for nutritional outcomes.The sites for implementation of dairy value chain activities include the traditional dairy areas of Kenya: Nandi, Uasin Gishu (Rift Valley) and Nyandarua (Central Kenya), and precommercial dairy areas: Kakamega (Western Kenya) and Makueni (Lower Eastern Kenya). The selected counties represent places where CGIAR and their partners have ongoing or recently concluded projects that the SAPLING Initiative could build on. The traditional dairy areas also represent advanced dairy production systems that easily lend themselves to possibilities for testing innovations for further productivity improvements. Pre-commercial dairy areas on the other hand are characterized by supply gaps and attractive prices that are an incentive for farmers venturing into dairy farming. Moreover, technologies such as East Coast fever (ECF) vaccination and climate-smart forage varieties present substantial scope to overcome limitations that have prevented households from venturing into dairy production in pre-commercial dairy areas.• Do personalized extension services enhance uptake of appropriate integrated dairy technologies and lead to enhanced productivity and profitability of smallholder dairy enterprises? overviewSince past research has shown that successful livestock development requires integrated packages of productivity enhancing technologies and innovations along the value chain and in the enabling environment, SAPLING organizes its outputs not as individual \"silver bullets\" but rather in innovation packages-\"combinations of interrelated innovations and enabling conditions that, together, can lead to transformation and impact at scale in a specific context 1 \"-that target specific sets of interrelated, context-specific opportunities and Annex 1 provides additional information on the elements included in the ToC.1. Definitions from CGIAR MEL glossary unless otherwise noted.Certificate presentation to DFAs after training (photo credit/ILRI).   The first sub pathway rests on the recognition that sustainable improvements in farm-level productivity will come not only through better technologies and technology packages but also through integrated delivery models and decision support tools to optimize technology choices, leading to efficient and profitable dairy enterprises. The first Innovation Package (IP1) therefore consists of technology packages, delivery models that combine technology dissemination with management services, and a suite of digital decision support tools to enhance decision by service providers involved in dissemination of technologies (see Box 2). Immediate outcomes target dairy producers, service providers and the scaling partners. Value chain actors, including farmers, are expected to improve their knowledge on the technology packages and the DFA extension approach (IO2). The value chain actors, including service providers, are expected to improve their knowledge and skills on decision support tools and the integrated DFA extension approach. They will then use the knowledge and skills acquired to promote delivery of integrated technology packages, inputs and services. Awareness among service providers will create demand for new skills, tools, and approaches for delivery of integrated technology packages to producers, thus enabling value chain actors (dairy cooperatives, service providers -animal health assistants, inseminators, extensionists) to apply institutional arrangements (including embedded advisory services) and decision support tools that facilitate dissemination of technology packages (IO3). Interest among farmers generated through IO2 and IO3 is expected to catalyse demand for technology packages, which public and private sector players can respond to by including innovation packages in their business portfolios (IO1). This should lead to investment by the private and public sector partners of at least USD2.9M in the promotion and delivery of novel, low emissions, demand-driven, gender and youth inclusive, and productivity enhancing technologies (EOI2). The collective interest and investment by public and private sector, farmers and service providers, is expected to enable adoption of technology packages by 112,749 dairy producers (male and female), resulting in a 30% increase in productivity (EOI1).Several assumptions underlie the logic of this subpathway. The first is that technology packages, decision support tools, and delivery models correspond to the needs of farmers and service providers and therefore the latter will have the drive to deliver bundled inputs and services. Second, we assume that value chain actors, development, public and private partners find delivery models, decision support tools and technologies suitable for their businesses. A further assumption is that embedded private sector extension services based on shared farm management (DFA) enhance uptake of technology packages by producers and that integrated packages contribute to increased productivity, and profitability of dairy producers. Impact evaluations are planned to test these assumptions.The second sub-pathway is premised on the role of the public sector and how participatory and evidence-based planning and monitoring can enhance dairy sector development. This innovation package (IP2) is composed of participatory and data evidence-driven planning processes, value proposition for investors and data platforms for tracking sector development (see Box 3). At the core of this innovation package is sensitizing select county governments so that they appreciate evidence-based development planning. The county governments are expected to have improved capacity and utilize data driven approaches and platforms in planning the dairy sector development in their respective counties (EIO4). Consequently, this is expected to contribute to informing policies and investments towards an inclusive and sustainable livestock system (EOI4). The data and evidence driven, and participatory planning process will uncover value proposition for investors, thus attracting investment by public and private sector partners in delivery of innovation packages (EOI2) and help private sector actors to identify investment opportunities in the dairy sector. This is expected to enable adoption of technology packages by dairy producers (EOI1).Two fundamental assumptions underline this sub-pathway. First, we assume that the proposed evidence-based planning approaches match county government planning needs. Second, we assume that the evidence-based dairy sector planning process will demonstrate value proposition for public and sector investors.Box 2. IP1: Institutional and business models for integrated delivery of technologies, knowledge, and services to enhance profitability of dairy enterprises.Components of the package comprise:• Digital herd recording and genomic analysis for efficient identification of tropically adapted dairy breed types, to increase dairy productivity by genetic suppliers.• Co-developed herd health package for animal health (AH) service providers to improve their businesses and herd health service provision to farmers.• Capacity building of animal health (AH) service providers on herd health package.• Novel forages and feed innovations packaged and appropriately delivered to forage producers to achieve wider adoption to ultimately increase productivity.• Forage model farms to demonstrate production of novel forages.• Extension models that enhance integrated delivery of knowledge, technology packages, inputs, and services used by value chain actors to disseminate technology packages to smallholder farmers to increase dairy productivity and income.• Capacity building of value chain actors (cooperatives, agri-businesses) on extension models.• Suite of digital decision support tools (dairy profitability, on-farm feed advisor, AADGG) that strengthen and facilitate decision making by value chain actors, including farmers, and enable value chain linkages.• Capacity building of value chain actors on application and use of tools.• Innovative financing options that facilitate scaling of proven innovations by farmers linked to extension models.• Private sector actors, supported to include financing institutions with interest in extension model into consideration gendered constraints and opportunities.Box 3 IP2: Participatory approaches for evidence-based planning and monitoring of dairy sector developmentComponents of the package comprise:• Data platform for county government leadership to track sector development.• Stakeholder-led and data-driven approaches for dairy sector development planning co-developed and used by county leadership to identify investment opportunities and enhance investment in the dairy sector.• Capacity development of county staff on process and use of data platform for dairy sector development planning.ToCs are living documents that should be developed and updated in response to concrete programmatic needs. The original ToC was developed with partners as part of SAPLING co-design workshop held at the beginning of SAPLING. The revisions presented here have been undertaken to clarify the logic, enhance consistency across ToCs, and make more explicit the links to program-level MELIA. Future reviews are expected to occur annually with the aim of reflecting on the progress in achievement of intended goals and milestones.DFAs Posing for a photo after training in Bukura ATC, Kakamega County (photo credit: ILRI).USAID-KAVES. 2013. Annual report 2013. (Avaialble at: https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pa00m2s4.pdf).The ToC includes three standard elements: outputs (Innovation packages), outcomes and assumptions. CGIAR defines an outcome as \"a change in knowledge, skills, attitudes and/or relationships, which manifests as a change in behavior in particular actors, to which research outputs and related activities have contributed.\" In these ToCs, immediate outcomes (IOs) are initial changes in things like awareness and capacity that occur among next-users of the innovation packages. End-of Initiative outcomes (EOIs) are outcomes that occur further along the pathway and reflect changes in behavior among target actors and, in some cases, the consequences of that behavior such as increases in productivity or the value of investments. EoIs are the same across all ToCs while the immediate outcomes that lead to them are context-specific. In order to see the whole value chain VC ToC in a single diagram, multiple similar outcomes are grouped together in a single IO or EOIs. These could be unpacked in a series of nested ToCs if further detail on sub-pathways is needed. Assumptions are \"hypotheses about factors or risks which could affect the progress or success of a development intervention… It is useful to distinguish between: (i) theoretical assumptions, about how the intervention is expected to contribute to a process of change based on facts, and; (ii) contextual assumptions, about current conditions and the trajectory and risks that could affect the progress or success of a development intervention.\" While both types of assumptions are important, these ToCs focus on key theoretical assumptions since these are the ones that programs address as part of their research programs, investing resources to understand and test them.","tokenCount":"2230"}

data/part_2/0185087504.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b6166296633cc2165ccfa848e51adabb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/cd735043-f3b1-4939-b878-d31eb57be2bc/content","id":"-400987201"},"keywords":["Cross","inbred lines","heterosis"],"sieverID":"20cfc4c3-4250-43d6-b6a3-52d13e16410e","pagecount":"16","content":"Maize plays an indispensable role in meeting high food demand. It is globally one of the most widely adopted and cultivated crops. Hybrid development from fixed inbred lines is one of the tactics to boost maize production. The national average maize yield in Ethiopia is low and thus, selection of promising germplasm, knowledge of combining ability, and heterotic grouping are prerequisites to develop high-yielding maize varieties. Forty-two Quality Protein Maize (QPM) single crosses (21 inbred lines each crossed with two testers) along with three popular standard hybrid checks were evaluated in two replications using alpha lattice design during the 2017 cropping season at Ambo, Arsi-Negele, and Kulumsa. The objective of this study was to estimate standard heterosis for grain yield (GY), and other agronomic and morphological characters. Significant difference among crosses was observed for 19 traits at Ambo, 14 traits at Arsi-Negele, and 19 traits at Kulumsa in the hybrid trial. For GY, at Ambo, almost all crosses showed negative heterosis against the best check (AMH853). At Arsi-Negele 14 crosses had positive standard heterosis, from these only three crosses: L8xT1 (50.8%), L8xT2 (46.6%), and L7xT1 (33.9%) showed significant difference against Jibat but at Kulumsa, the difference for standard heterosisThe phenomenon of heterosis was defined by Shull [1] as \"the interpretation of increased vigor, size, fruitfulness, speed of development, resistance to disease and to insect pests, or to climatic rigors of any kind manifested by crossbred organisms as compared with corresponding inbreeds, as the specific results of unlikeness in the constitution of the uniting parental gametes\". Falconer and Mackay [2] defined as the difference between the hybrid value for one trait and the mean value of the two parents for the same trait. According to Miranda [3], heterosis is the genetic potential expression of the superiority of a cross in relation to its parents.Three types of estimation of heterosis are explained in the literature: mid-parent or average heterosis, which is the increased vigor of the F1 over the mean of two parents; high-parent or better-parent heterosis, which is the increased vigor of the F1 over the better-parent [4] and standard heterosis, superiority of F1 over the commercial hybrid [5][6][7]. Heterosis is usually considered to be similar with hybrid vigor [8]. Heterosis, or hybrid vigor, refers to the phenomena in which the offspring of two inbred parents exhibit phenotypic performance beyond the mid-parent or better-parent used to generate the hybrid [9]. Grain yield in maize is expected to exhibit heterosis as a consequence of partial to complete dominance of genes controlling the trait [3].Maize breeders need also to determine the genetic diversity of inbreeds because it facilitates the identification of those parents that would produce crosses possessing high levels of heterosis [10]. The information facilitates the development of high-yielding hybrids without testing all possible hybrid combinations among the potential parents available in a hybrid program. Three major genetic theories: dominance, overdominance, and epistasis, were proposed to explain mechanisms underlying the phenomena of heterosis. However, it is generally accepted that heterosis, to a large extent, is due to over-dominance gene action [11]. On the other hand, the expression of heterosis also depends on the level of genetic divergence between parents, i.e., differences in allele frequencies are necessary for the expression of heterosis. For that reason, expression of heterosis is expected to be lower in crosses between broad base openpollinated populations [3].The manifestation of heterosis depends on the genetic divergence of the two parentals lines [12]. Low grain yield heterosis is observed for crosses among genetically similar germplasm and for crosses among broad genetic base germplasm [13]. Higher levels of heterosis were seen with increased divergence within a certain range, but that heterosis declined in extremely divergent crosses [14]. Genetic divergence of the parents is inferred from the heterotic patterns manifested in a series of crosses [12,3].Heterosis in maize has been investigated extensively. Hallauer and Miranda [12] reported mid-parent heterosis ranged from -3.6% to 72.0% and high-parent heterosis ranged from -9.9% to 43.0% for maize. Maize has attained the highest levels of production in the temperate areas of the world employing modern agricultural techniques. Surprisingly, the magnitude of heterosis has not been changed during the hybrid era in the tropical areas as compared to with temperate because, in most of the tropical country's maize is grown as a rainfed crop in the hot season, under varying conditions of moisture, generally subject to periodic and erratic drought and/or excess of water at different stages of the growth cycle, without effective weed and pest control, and usually under low-fertility conditions. In general, it is grown as a subsistence crop, with very low levels of management and little inputs [15], even though mean commercial maize grain yield has substantially increased during this time [16]. Berhanu [5] reported estimate of heterosis ranged from 28.95 to 202.34% over mid-parent and 16.97 to 175.46 % over the better-parent for grain yield from crosses generated from LxT mating design.The development of hybrid varieties played a great role in improving food and feed supplies. Food and feed supplies would unquestionably be greatly reduced if only non-hybrids were available to the producer [8]. The development of maize hybrid began in the early 1900s [17,18,12,19]. According to Singh [11], most of the commercial hybrid varieties are F1's from two or more inbreeds. The success of hybrid maize development depends on the capacity of the breeding program to rapidly develop lines that combine well and identify the superior heterotic combinations to maximize the vigor of the hybrid [20]. An inbred is a nearly homozygous line obtained through continuous inbreeding of cross-pollinated species with selection accompanying inbreeding [11].Similar to the conventional maize (CM), QPM hybrids proved to yield more grain than openpollinated QPM cultivars, but mean grain yield does not differ for a single, three-way, and double-cross QPM hybrids [21]. The broader genetic constitution of three-way and doublecross hybrids might have helped them to buffer the extreme environmental diversity of the environment better than single crosses [21]. In a different trial, Pixley and Bjarnason [22] also observed a QPM hybrid exceeding a normal endosperm hybrid check by an average of 14% for grain yield, 48% for Trp concentration in grain, and 60% for Trp concentration in protein.Berhanu [5] evaluated tester crosses of white QPM and CM inbred lines and reported higher grain yield heterosis overall mid and better parents and some of the crosses over the standard checks. Similarly, Beyene [6] reported higher heterosis from diallel crosses evaluated at Bako, Ethiopia. This study aimed to estimate the standard or economic heterosis of the crosses over the standard checks.The study was conducted at three sites in the highland agroecology of Ethiopia including; Ambo, Arsi-Negele, and Kulumsa Agriculture Research Centers in the 2017 main cropping season.From the 21 inbred lines and the two testers 42 F1 hybrids were generated at Ambo Highland Maize Breeding Program (AHMBP). The 42 F1 hybrids along with three standard checks: one QPM (AMH852Q) and two CM (Jibat and AMH853), designated as hybrid check, were tested. Each new hybrids and standard check hybrids were planted in three replication and tested at three locations during 2017 main cropping season. Each cross planted in one row plot with 0.25 and 0.75 m spacing between plants and rows, respectively which consisted of 21 plants per plot.Standard heterosis (STH) or economic heterosis in percent were calculated for those parameters that showed significant differences among crosses following the method suggested by Falconer and Mackay [1].Standard heterosis (SH), was estimated for traits that showed significant MS for cross vs best check at individual locations. In order to consider traits for combined analysis, cross x location for MPH and MPH whereas to estimate SH, genotype x location interaction should be nonsignificant as additional criterion. For SH, the traits which had significant check x location interaction, SH was conducted for each location.x 100 according to Berhanu [5].Where, F1= mean value of the cross, STV = value of the highest yielding standard variety Test of significance of heterosis (the numerator in each equation before multiplying by 100) was determined using the t-test. The critical difference (CD) for testing the significance of SH was calculated using the following formulas:   2, 3 and 4). A similar result was also reported by Berhanu, [5]. The genotypic difference for Gray Leaf Spot (GLS) and Leaf above uppermost Ear (LFAE) was not significant in any of the three locations. Variances due to genotype were significant only at Kulumsa for Common Leaf Rust (CLR), Leaf Angle (LANG), and Leaf Area (LFAR), while for Turcicum Leaf Blight (TLB) and Harvest Index (HI) were significant only at Arsi-Negele. For Anthesis, Silking Interval (ASI), Kernel Modification (MOD), Plant Aspect (PAS), and Number of Kernel Rows Ear -1 (NKR) difference between the crosses was significant only at Ambo (Table 2). Days to Maturity (MD), leaves per plant (LFPP) and leaves below the uppermost ear (LFBE) were significant at two of the three locations.    Tables 6, 7, and 8 presents standard heterosis (SH) for five traits (GY, PH, EH, MOD and EAS) at Ambo, four traits (GY, PH, EH, and TLB) at Arsi-Negele, and three traits (GY, LFANG, and LFPP) at Kulumsa. For the combined data, the standard heterosis is presented in Table 5. The traits that had non-significant MS for cross vs best check were not included in estimating standard heterosis. The best checks used for calculating SH were Jibat at Arsi-Negele and Kulumsa and AMH853 at Ambo.At Ambo, all crosses did not show any SH over the best check (AMH853) for GY (Table 6). At Arsi-Negele, 13 crosses showed positive SH and three of them showed significant differences. SH ranged from -46.25% (L2xT2) to 50.81% (L8xT1) (Table 7). At Kulumsa, only two crosses (L7xT1 and L19xT1) had positive SH over Jibat but were not statistically significant. At this location, SH ranged from -55.52% (L13xT1) to 6.57% (L7xT1) (Table 8) which is in line with the result of Abiy [7]. He reported SH ranged -30.42% to 10.10% from highland maize hybrids tested at Ambo and Kulumsa but none of the crosses had significantly different SH.AT Ambo, all crosses had negative and significant SH, except three crosses (L7xT1, L8xT1, and L8xT2) which had positive and nonsignificant SH over CM best check (AMH853), for PH and EH. These three crosses were the highest grain yielder next to the standard check. SH ranged from -38.54% (L1xT1) to 2.89% (L8xT1) for PH and from -42.91% (L2xT2) to 3.72% (L8xT1) for EH (Table 6). Similarly, at Arsi-Negele, two crosses (L7xT1) and L8xT1) showed positive and non-significant SH for PH. The crosses showed positive SH but only SH from L7xT1 showed statistically significant. At Arsi-Negele SH ranged from -31.64% (L2xT2) to 8.76% (L7xT1) for PH and from -44.38 (L3xT1) to 16.85 (L7xT1) for EH (Table 7). The result of this study is in line with the negative SH reported by Berhanu [5] and Patil et al. [23]. At Kulumsa, the orthogonal contrast of cross-vs-check was nonsignificant due to this, the estimation of SH was not done.All crosses had positive SH for MOD except, L2xT1 at Ambo. This cross had zero SH for MOD indicating, its ability to produce well-modified endosperm than other crosses. Out of 42 crosses, 24 showed significant SH over AMH853 (Table 6). The highest (150.0%) SH was recorded by L20xT2 indicates this cross was the poorest for MOD. A lower magnitude of SH is desirable with regard to this trait.At Arsi-Negele, most of the crosses manifested by negative heterosis over the best check (Jibat) except, three crosses of which one had positive SH and the other zero SH for TLB. Ten crosses showed significant negative SH for TLB which indicates that these crosses tolerate TLB better than the standard check.The other crosses with zero value of SH are also good for TLB providing their stability and other agronomic traits are better than the standard check. The high yielder crosses (L8xT1 and L8xT2) showed significant tolerance to TLB than the standard check. The highest (16.67%) and lowest (-41.67%) SH for TLB was scored by L1xT1 and L21xT2, respectively (Table 7). In contrast to this result, Beyene [6] reported positive and significant heterosis over the standard check. Berhanu [5] also reported positive and negative SH over the check.At Ambo, positive SH was obtained from all crosses for EAS. There were also crosses (L1xT2, L9xT1, and L12xT2) with zero SH for EAS which indicates these crosses were good for EAS compared with the rest of the crosses.Positive and significant SH was obtained from 16 crosses which shows that about 38%of the crosses had poor EAS. Most crosses with significant SH were crossed that have T1 as one of their parents implying that T1 was a poor EAS combined towards improving EAS than T2 (Table 6). The result of EAS in this study was in line with the report of Beyene [6]. He reported positive and significant heterosis over the best check.At Kulumsa, all crosses had negative with highly significant SH for LFANG. This implies that all crosses had a narrow-leaf angle compared to the standard check (Jibat). Duvick [24] also reported as leaves became more upright in the 1970s era in a comparison of single crosses representing U.S. corn belt hybrids of three eras:1930s, 1950s, and 1970s. The narrowest (-49.12%) was recorded by L5xT1 but L21xT2, which manifested the highest SH to the negative direction with the value of -8.78% for LFANG had relatively wider LFANG (Table 8). Varieties with narrow leaves can help to economize the space and to exposed leaves found at the lower side of  8). Similarly, Berhanu [5] reported positive and negative SH over the check.In the combined analysis, SH estimation was computed for five traits which showed significant MS for cross vs best check (AMH853). The estimated SH is presented in Table 9.The highest SH of 20.8 % (1.67 t ha -1 grain yield advantage over AMH853) for GY was obtained from L8xT2, even though the difference was not significant (Table 9). This cross can be released after carrying out further evaluation across locations. SH standard heterosis ranged from -52.6% (L13xT1) to 20.8% (L8xT2) for GY. The five high-yielding crosses across the three locations were L6xT2 (8.20), L7xT1 (9.13), L8xT1(9.09), L8xT2 (9.67), and L19xT1 (8.30) (data not shown). Similarly, Beyene (2016) and Abiy 2017 reported non-significant SH. The two authors reported SH THAT ranged from -44.07% to -9.72% and from -30.42 to 10.1, respectively. Berhanu [5] obtained SH ranging between -28.17% to 20.33% and was able to identify one cross with significant SH.For DT, almost all crosses had positive and significant SH except, L16xT2 (-0.19%) which recorded negative SH. Similarly, most crosses had positive and significant SH for DS which indicates the crosses were late in flowering compared with standard check variety for both DS and DT. The value of SH ranged from -0.19% (L16xT2) to 16.10% (L1xT1) DT and from 0.71% (L16xT2) to 13.57% (L1xT1) for DS (Table 9). In contrast to the current finding, Berhanu [5], Abiy [7] and Patil et al. [23] reported negative and significant SH for DT and DS.Only four crosses had positive SH for EL but none of them were significantly different. These crosses were, L6xT1 (3.06%), L7xT1 (1.36%), L9xT1 (0.34%) and L9xT2 (6.80%). The value of SH for EL ranged from -35.4% (L1xT1) to 6.8% (L9xT2). The other crosses showed negative SH and a few of them showed significant differences. The result agrees with the previous works of Berhanu [5] and Beyene [6]. These authors reported SH that ranged from -26.4% to 1.47% and from -16.76% -6.8%, respectively.Only four crosses (L15xT2, L16xT2, L17xT2, and L21xT2) showed positive SH for TSW across locations but all were not statistically significant. SH ranged from -40.82 % (L3xT1) to 17.46 % (L17xT2) (Table 9). In contrast to the current finding, Berhanu [5] and Patil et al. [23] reported crosses with a positive and significant difference. Berhanu reported SH ranging from -29.32% to 10.87%. Patil et al. [22] also reported SH ranging from 30.24% to 64.15% for 100 seed weight.The analysis of variance showed significant difference among tested genotypes for grain yield, yield related, phenological, agronomic and morphological traits at individual locations. In combined analysis across location, the result showed very highly significant difference among genotypes for most of the traits considered in the study. The highly significant difference observed for genotype by location and cross by location interaction highlights that the performance of the genotypes is inconsistent across locations. This indicates that these new hybrids which performed good but with unstable performance across location should be consider for their suitability for specific location by doing further investigation. Based on the mean grain yield pooled over the three locations six crosses: L8xT2, L7xT1, L8xT1, L19xT1, L6xT2, and L18xT1 were found to be superior to the best check (AMH853) by 20.82, 13.60, 14.11, 3.71, 2.46, and 1.59 %, respectively. Generally, this study identified crosses that have a noticeable level of heterosis above the recently released standard variety (AMH853). This study indicates the existence of better newly developed crosses that are nutritionally balanced compared with the standard commercialized check varieties. We recommend these well-performed crosses to be considered for release following the remain steps need to be followed for varieties release.","tokenCount":"2857"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4e60d410f5c1d070fdd2159dd60a2ce8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3368d6b4-9984-4686-b994-886f427a5643/retrieve","id":"1680307983"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5e8c42e2-9a6d-46a8-8e56-ecc072f89d31","pagecount":"13","content":"In the last 11 years in North-East Nigeria, the ongoing insurgency led to devastation and displacement of the local population, impeding overall agriculture and economic development. The agriculture sector is dwindling with several constraints from climatic variability, droughts, pests, diseases, and inadequate policy provisions and support. This has resulted in poor agricultural productivity and infrastructure, limited livelihood and employment opportunities, nutritional insecurity, malnutrition, and the high price of agri-commodities. However, improved technologies, knowledge, and innovative means are available to address these constraints.The three and half year Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity-IAA issued under the US Government's Global Food Security Act was awarded by USAID Nigeria to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture-IITA and its partners in July 2019 towards economic recovery in North-East Nigeria. It supports vulnerable populations in 12 Local Government Areas-LGAs of Adamawa and Borno states by engaging in basic farming activities to improve food security, increase agricultural incomes and improve resilience among smallholder farmers. In addition, it facilitates improved agricultural inputs and extension advisory services to serve vulnerable populations, strengthen the institutions and market networks by engaging smallholder farmers, youth, and women in agribusiness activities. Please stay tuned as we continue to roll out such a newsletter regularly, showcasing our efforts in improving livelihoods, ensuring food security, and supporting communities in North-East Nigeria towards economic recovery and journey to selfreliance. In the subsequent editions, we hope to bring to you case studies and success stories of the impacts.    ","tokenCount":"243"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9ad070d1c2418fb17a9afb6851c56444","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/42aa6356-e52f-44c9-885d-dbf887d5484a/retrieve","id":"-1865211857"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a4a5c1dd-54ab-4e60-bd65-0beb9a38382d","pagecount":"21","content":"Gender Equality calls for a tool to track women's voice and agency in climate-related AFS governance• Promote greater understanding among governments, CSOs, private sector actors, & others of specific governance leverssuch as social innovations and organizational strategies-that can secure women's voice in decision-making for the policies that shape their lives & livelihoodsOur theory of change for WP4 is that, if women are better represented, heard and accounted for in climate-related AFS governance, their voices will promote gender equality, poverty reduction and resilience to CC.Large vacuum in the middle SDG: Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public lifeBut, how to measure and track?Global Gender Gap Index's Measure of Political Empowerment  Sampling: diverse organizations involved in AFS policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation at federal-and state-level; as well as other key players in the AFS.Sampling at state-level: 1 state selected per geopolitical zone. These states include Bauchi, Enugu, Delta, Kogi, and Ondo.❑ Sampling: 40 experts targeted in each of the 5 states and at federal-level (Abuja). Actual sample: 241 experts ❑ Target respondents: (1) Leaders, managers, or decisionmakers in the diverse AFS organizations (identified in the organization survey), (2) experts in agrifood policy, or (3) gender contacts for any gender-specific programming in the AFS organizations.❑ Expert identification: (1) From the organization survey, we asked the organization heads to respond to the expert survey or recommend other key staff to respond;(2) From a list of AFS key stakeholders that APRNet have compiled and worked with in the past, we contacted these stakeholders to respond. ","tokenCount":"264"}

data/part_2/0202197559.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0249dc8dfa921f60c62f2df979c37941","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/aed3aa66-c6cc-4697-adc1-64ec7d90b8fd/retrieve","id":"-1976278756"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8f4c7e65-8100-49ab-badd-fe5e0a9bd349","pagecount":"33","content":"En el Perú la denominación de origen (DO) es un signo distintivo que ha despertado muchas expectativas principalmente de grupos de productores de pequeña escala que tienen dificultades para vincularse de manera competitiva y sostenible a los mercados con productos que tienen una alta identidad con su territorio, su biodiversidad, su tradición y cultura. A esto se suma la política de fomento de esta herramienta que asumen diferentes instituciones del sector público y privado. Como resultado de ello la tendencia por desarrollar iniciativas en este sentido se incrementa.En ese contexto, hasta junio del presente año se han otorgado ocho DO, sin embargo, con excepción del Pisco, que es un caso sui géneris, ninguna ha avanzado más allá de obtener el reconocimiento oficial. Por ello se considera necesario estudiar el desarrollo que han seguido estas experiencias para profundizar la comprensión de los resultados y proponer acciones que contribuyan a mejorar su gestión. Este es el reto que asumen el Programa de Desarrollo Productivo Agrorural, la Alianza de Aprendizaje Perú, el Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y de la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual Indecopi como parte de un acuerdo interinstitucional establecido para este efecto, tomando como referencia el caso de la DO del Maíz Blanco Gigante Cusco y a partir de ello construir una propuesta de protocolo que oriente el accionar de AGRORURAL en los procesos de obtención y gestión de las DO.Obtener lecciones del proceso de reconocimiento y gestión de la DO Maíz Blanco Gigante Cusco que permitan diseñar y validar un protocolo que oriente la intervención de Agrorural para apoyar la gestión de denominaciones de origen en el Perú.El estudio parte de examinar la cadena productiva del Maíz Blanco Gigante Cusco, luego recupera la experiencia del reconocimiento de la denominación de origen, y, del análisis de estos dos grandes procesos se arriba a las conclusiones y delinean algunas recomendaciones para la aplicación y la gestión de la DO.La información recogida a través de entrevistas aplicadas a los actores directos e indirectos que participan en los diferentes eslabones, complementadas con información proveniente de fuentes secundarias permitieron el mapeo; la identificación de las relación entre los actores y las dinámicas comerciales que se dan en la cadena productiva. Los mencionados aspectos permiten explicar en gran medida los resultados del reconocimiento y la gestión de la DO.Se analiza (principalmente en base a la data estadística) las particularidades de la etapa de mercadeo, la tendencia de la demanda, la formación de precios y la distribución de beneficios, por cuanto, es en este complejo sistema que se gestionan colectivamente este signo distintivo.Para la recuperación de la experiencia de reconocimiento de la DO y su aplicación se establecen hitos cronológicos; las expectativas y las motivaciones de los diferentes actores que impulsaron esta iniciativa; se incorpora los conceptos y etapas de identificación, calificación y remuneración (adaptadas de la metodología de la FAO-SINER-GI, ver anexo 1).Las zonas reconocidas como productoras de maíz blanco gigante del Cusco, en adelante MBGC, para efectos de la DO son los distritos de San Salvador, Pisac, Taray, Lamay, Coya, Calca, Huayllabamba, Yucay, Urubamba y Ollantaytambo, ubicados en el Valle de Urubamba denominado también Valle Sagrado de los Incas, en la Región Cusco. La altitud está comprendida entre los 2600 y los 2950 msnm.Fuente: Rivera, Riveros 2008 La cadena inicia con la producción en el Valle Sagrado en tanto que los consumidores se ubican a nivel local, nacional y se extiende hasta los mercados extranjeros. Ver gráfico 2. El cultivo puede ser dirigido a la obtención de grano seco o cosechado en fresco como choclo 1 .. 1. El cholo es el fruto tierno del maíz, también conocido como elote.Elaboración propiaEl Maíz Blanco Gigante Cusco es una de las razas que pertenece al grupo de Maíz Amiláceo y es la más importante desde el punto de vista económico entre las siete variedades que se cultivan en la Región Cusco (Rimache 2007).El MBGC presenta granos de forma plana circular, de color blanco uniforme, entre 11 y 17 mm, además de este particular tamaño, es suave, de textura harinosa y el contenido de almidones posibilita diversas formas de procesamiento y consumo directo del grano seco y/o del fresco como se describe en el cuadro 1.El \"Mapa de razas de maíz del Perú\" elaborado por el Ministerio del Ambiente (mayo 2011) consigna que el maíz gigante del Cusco se encuentra distribuido en 22 regiones del país. En el mercado mayorista de granos de la ciudad de Lima y en las ferias agroalimentarias se encuentra con mayor frecuencia variedades de maíz blanco de grano gigantes (de semejante morfología que el MBGC) provenientes de la Región Apurimac, Región Huancavelica, del Valle del Mantaro, cultivados a partir de semillas oriundos de Cusco según manifiestan los entrevistados. Participan en la cadena productiva pequeños, medianos y grandes productores; acopiadores; transformadores locales y extrarregionales; exportadores; consumidores finales y prestadores de servicios públicos y privados.Según la información brindada por Apromaiz se estima que cinco mil agricultores se dedican a la producción del Maíz Blanco Gigante en la zona geográfica con DO. En el siguiente cuadro se muestra su distribución en relación al área de cultivo: solamente 0.1% de los productores poseen áreas entre 10 y 30 ha, en tanto que el 96.88% conducen áreas menores a cinco ha. Más de la mitad, 56.8%, poseen áreas menores a una hectárea es decir que manejan parcelas. Los Pequeños productores presentan un alto grado de atomización de terrenos, utilizan tecnología tradicional, se autoabastecen de semilla, tienen bajo nivel de productividad y calidad. Para una parte de ellos el cultivo de MBGC no es su actividad económica principal; en muchos casos radican fuera del Valle Sagrado y mantienen sus terrenos y el cultivo del maíz como parte de su tradición.Los medianos y grandes productores cultivan con tecnología mejorada que permite obtener buena calidad de maíz con rendimientos entre 4.0 a 6.5 Tm/ha como consecuencia de mayores inversiones, conocimientos, insumos y tiempo dedicados a la actividad productiva.Organización de pequeños productores. Existen siete organizaciones de pequeños productores, la mayoría de ellas formalizadas como resultado de la intervención de instituciones de promoción:- Se ha identificado tres tipos de acopiadores: medianos, grandes y pequeños. Los dos primeros tienen contactos con los exportadores y/o hacen las veces de operadores en función a la demanda. Los últimos se relacionan con agricultores de pequeña escala, en muchos casos proporcionan financiamiento para capital de trabajo para la campaña agrícola con la condición de tener la preferencia y exclusividad sobre la cosecha. Fuente: Sunat, 2011 Compilación: W. Koo Elaboración propiaSegún manifiestan los entrevistados, existen relaciones de desconfianza y la percepción de inequidad entre los pequeños y los medianos/grandes productores. Dicha situación, en opinión de G. San Román (socio de Apromaiz), se debe en gran medida a la Reforma Agraria. Estas diferencias no permiten que entre ellos se pueda establecer una visión común de desarrollo. La Reforma Agraria al que refiere San Román, ocurrió en 1969 caracterizándose por la redistribución de la propiedad, que afectó directamente a las haciendas a quienes se expropio sus tierras para luego entregarlos a los campesinos creando un clima de confrontación.El representante de Valle Alto refiere (en entrevista a \"El Comercio\" 2010) que se ha intentado crear redes de productores para una oferta colectiva \"… pero no prosperó porque faltó acuerdo entre ellos para sumar cosechas…\"Las relaciones entre productos y acopiadores se desarrollan sin mayores conflictos. Los primeros consideran a los segundos, como una necesidad en el modelo comercial existente.Las siguientes instituciones públicas y privadas están relacionadas con esta actividad: o Gobierno Regional de Cusco, gobierno subnacional. o Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria INIA, su misión es \"elevar el nivel tecnológico agrario nacional para incrementar la productividad y competitividad\". o El Instituto Nacional de Defensa de la Competencia y de la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual, Indecopi, busca \"promover y garantizar la leal competencia, los derechos de los consumidores y la propiedad intelectual en el Perú\". o Prisma, ONG que \"vincula al mercado con pequeños productores de las zonas rurales de nuestro país\". o Cajas Rurales, Cajas Municipales, quienes otorgan crédito. o Así mismo en la zona existen proveedores de insumos agrícolas, servicios de maquinaria agrícola y crédito principalmente para la producción.Dependiendo del tamaño de la actividad existen diferentes modalidades de comercialización: Los pequeños productores, quienes se estima aportan el 82% de la oferta del Valle Sagrado, luego de reservar parte de su cosecha para el autoconsumo y para semilla, venden aproximadamente el 70% de su producción a través de dos canales: los acopiadores y el mercado local. Los acopiadores son comerciantes de pequeña escala que venden el producto en el mercado local o/y nacional (Lima, Arequipa, Puno, entre otras regiones) dependiendo de la demanda y la calidad del grano. El precio es fijado por los acopiadores, más aún si han financiado la campaña.Un mecanismo frecuentemente empleado por los agricultores es almacenar la cosecha para luego comercializar el maíz en pequeñas cantidades a lo largo del año en la medida que requieran dinero.La Central de Cooperativas Valle Sagrado de los Incas organiza la oferta de sus asociados y vende el producto al mercado local o a los acopiadores, también realiza un proceso primario para obtener el \"mote\" o maíz descascarado. Con estas estrategias consigue tener una mayor capacidad de negociación frente a los intermediarios.Los medianos y grandes productores destinan una parte de la cosecha para comercializar como semilla a los productores del Valle del Mantaro y en menor medida a Pisco, Huaral y, venden el maíz desgranado, salvo contadas excepciones, a los acopiadores que radican en la zona como operadores de las exportadoras, es decir que los productores no mantienen relaciones comerciales directas con los exportadores. Aún cuando ofertan de modo individual son los actores con mayor capacidad para negociar mejores precios.Los acopiadores medianos pueden relacionarse con otro acopiador grande o con la exportadora, en tanto que los acopiadores grandes se relacionan directamente con las empresas de exportación y son quienes trasladan a la zona los requerimientos de los compradores internacionales (cantidad y calidad del grano), establecen los precios y las condiciones de negociación. Además de intermediar la compra del maíz se responsabilizan de la limpieza y de la selección del grano en primera y segunda, según la demanda del exportador. En la provincia de Calca existe algunas plantas seleccionadoras de diferente capacidad.Los acopiadores pequeños se relacionan con los pequeños productores para la venta regional y nacional.Las empresas exportadoras comercializan mayores volúmenes con España, Japón, Estados Unidos y China. Los volúmenes de exportación y los precios presentan una tendencia creciente en los últimos cinco años. Ver cuadro N° 3 y gráfico N° 3. El criterio básico de compra venta del producto en el mercado nacional e internacional es el tamaño del grano y la buena calidad. Se han establecido dos clasificaciones con relación al número de granos por onza americana ó por el diámetro de la criba de la zaranda usada para la clasificación:Calibre 1 ó maíz de \"primera 24/27 granos por onza (*) No pasan por zaranda 15 mm Calibre 2 ó maíz de \"segunda\" 29/34 granos por onza.No pasan por zaranda de 13 mmEn el siguiente cuadro se puede observar el incremento del precio en función al valor agregado que se va sumando por efectos de la transformación y presentación. En el año 2010 la relación de precios es de 1 a 18 veces si comparamos el valor de venta promedio en chacra del maíz como grano seco, desgranado, sin seleccionar y sin clasificar en comparación con el valor de venta promedio de productos de consumo final como los snacks.Cuadro N° 5: Precio promedio de MBGC por presentación Estudios recientes han identificado varios factores -en relación al producto, rentabilidad, capital social y medio ambiente-que ponen en riesgo la dinámica de la cadena productiva también existen oportunidades en relación al crecimiento del mercado interno y externo.Como refieren los entrevistados (productores del Cusco y otras regiones) es frecuente la mezcla de maíz proveniente de diferentes localidades comercializándose como MBGC. El problema surge cuando se afecta la calidad y en consecuencia la reputación de los productores del Valle Sagrado.En los últimos años se ha presentado el riesgo de mantener la oferta de grano seco de maíz debido a las inundaciones de las parcelas que provocan la interrupción de las etapas fenológicas del maíz como en la floración, la madurez fisiológica, el llenado de materia seca de los granos y la eventual pudrición de las mazorcas antes de la madurez. Frente a esta eventualidad los agricultores optan por cosechar el fruto tierno para la venta como choclo.Otro aspecto que puede afectar la oferta del MBGC es el cambio de uso de tierra. Existen muchos agricultores que ante la necesidad de tener mayores ingresos en el corto plazo venden sus tierras agrícolas a empresas privadas para proyectos urbanísticos. En los últimos años se ha intensificado la instalación de cadenas hoteleras en el Cusco, principalmente en el Valle Sagrado.En el lado positivo y según refieren los procesadores y exportadores de snack \"… el mercado local no es el único interesado en nuestros snacks. \"El boom gastronómico sigue teniendo efectos y en los piqueos peruanos se siente fuerte desde los últimos tres o cuatro años, debido también al interés en alimentarse más sanamente…algo que no tiene que ver con la nacionalidad\". (Representante comercial de la empresa Valle Alto). Según el representante de Inka Crops \"el consumo aquí está creciendo desde hace tres años en las cadenas de supermercados, por la apertura de nuevos locales en Lima y en provincias... en el 2009, creció 20%\" (declaraciones al \"El Comercio\" 2010).Los pequeños productores refieren tener baja rentabilidad por el cultivo del MBGC que se explica por los bajos volúmenes de producción (en razón de la constante microparcelación y la baja productividad); el bajo precio del maíz en chacra y la percepción que subvencionan este cultivo. En conjunto, estos aspectos hacen perder interés en esta actividad económica.El costo de la mano de obra no calificada en la zona se ha incrementado en un 100% como efecto de la mayor ejecución de obras de infraestructuras públicas y privadas elevando también el costo de la mano de obra para las labores culturales para la producción del MBGC.Persiste la desconfianza entre los productores por varias razones: escaso intercambio de información y comunicación; dispersión tecnológica; tenencia de tierras; percepción de inequidad en el vínculo de los productores con los acopiadores.La mayoría de las asociaciones de productores no tienen vida orgánica y aún falta la perspectiva empresarial en las organizaciones.Estudios de Rivera, Riveros, Roxabel identifican varios factores de riesgo del medio ambiente: El uso excesivo de fertilizantes en los suelos de producción, está ocasionando salinización en algunos sectores del valle. Impermeabilización progresiva de suelos, por formación de hardpan que se produce por las continuas labranzas del suelo, se soluciona roturando el suelo cada cuatro o cinco años. Incremento de la presencia de plagas y enfermedades como consecuencia del cambio climático: o Puranius sp. que pertenece a la familia Curculionidae. Es un insecto cuya larva ataca al maíz que esta brotando.o La arañita Roja, perteneciente a la familia Tetranychidae, responsable de la disminución de la fruta en el valle como durazno, ciruela pera, frutilla, etc. La contaminación del río Vilcanota es bastante alta, lo cual afecta notablemente la salud del ecosistema del territorio. La fuente que origina la contaminación en el río proviene en gran parte de la Ciudad del Cusco y en menor contribución de las localidades aledañas al río a lo largo del Valle Sagrado. La ubicación altitudinal de los cultivos se está desplazando en función a la variación climatológica de los espacios geográficos.Proceso de reconocimiento y gestión colectiva de la DODe modo cronológico se destacan los siguientes hechos: La búsqueda del reconocimiento de la DO del Maíz Blanco Gigante del Cusco data del 1997, año en que Apromaiz busca la asesoría de Indecopi-Cusco, del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y de la Cámara de Comercio de Cusco. PyMAGROS 2 , incorporó entre sus actividades apoyar una solicitud de denominación de origen para un producto reconocido internacionalmente. Con este propósito entre el 2001 y el 2003 realizó diversas actividades de difusión sobre los alcances de las DO con la activa participación de Indecopi-Lima y la ONG Centro de Desarrollo y Servicios-CESEM. Este esfuerzo encontró muy poca respuesta e interés de los profesionales y productores. Entre mayo del 2003 y febrero del 2004 se buscó la conformación de una alianza interinstitucional con la participación inicial de PyMAGROS-COSUDE e Indecopi, luego se invitó al Proyecto Corredor Puno-Cusco 3 , y APROMAIZ. El 13 de agosto del 2004 se promulga la Ley N° 28331: Ley Marco de los Consejos Reguladores de Denominaciones de Origen.Entre setiembre del 2004 y julio del 2005 se realizaron dos estudios: (i) técnico agronómico, por un equipo de profesionales de la Universidad Nacional la Agraria, La Molina, (ii) histórico, que se concluyó bajo responsabilidad de PyMAGROS. Culminado los estudios se elaboró el mapa cartográfico de la zona de producción. El 19 de julio de 2005, en condición de titulares, Apromaiz y el Núcleo Ejecutor Central del Proyecto de Desarrollo del Corredor Puno-Cusco, Proyecto del MINDES-FONCODES, presentaron a la Oficina de Signos Distintivos de Indecopi-Cusco la solicitud de Declaración de Denominación de Origen \"Maíz Blanco Gigante Cusco\". Conforme corresponde al proceso administrativo de petición de DO, se publicó la solicitud en el diario oficial El Peruano el 3 de agosto del 2005. El día 26 de setiembre del 2005 la Oficina de Signos Distintivos de la oficina de Indecopi en Lima, expidió la Resolución N° 012981-2005/OSD-INDECOPI y el Certificado N° 00000002 reconociendo la DO Maíz Blanco Gigante Cusco y su inscripción en el Registro de Denominaciones de Origen de la Propiedad Industrial. Con la finalidad de difundir la DO designada se realizaron conferencias de prensa en Lima y Cusco con numerosa asistencia por el reconocimiento y la revaloración del producto y por la expectativa por su posible contribución a la comercialización. En diciembre del 2006 se instaló el Sub Comité Técnico de Normalización de Granos Andinos con el apoyo de la Comisión de Reglamentos Técnicos y Comerciales de Indecopi. Entró en funcionamiento en el 2007. La conformación del Consejo Regulador de la DO del MBGC se formalizó el 03 de Abril del 2007. En setiembre del 2007 se inició la formulación de la norma técnica de la DO del MBGC.2. PyMAGROS, Programa estrategias de articulación entre productores y mercados del agro de la sierra, fue ejecutado y financiado por la Agencia Suiza para el Desarrollo y la Cooperación. 2001Cooperación. -2005. 3. 3. El Proyecto Corredor Puno-Cusco fue financiado por FONCODES con recursos de endeudamiento provenientes del Contrato de Préstamo 467-PE (FIDA y recursos ordinarios). 2001 -2007.A finales del 2008 se terminó de formular la propuesta del reglamento del Consejo Regulador. A fines del 2008 como parte del cierre del Proyecto de Desarrollo del Corredor Puno-Cusco y, en busca de la sostenibilidad de este esfuerzo, coordinó un mayor involucramiento del Ministerio de Agricultura, MINAG. También se transfirió la experiencia al Gobierno Regional de Cusco quien en términos formales recepcionó todo el expediente, asumiendo el compromiso de darle continuidad, sin embargo, no se formuló un proyecto en el marco del Sistema Nacional de Inversión Pública SNIP 4 , ni se incorporó en la estructura presupuestal para garantizara la fase de gestión de la DO. A la fecha no se ha emitido ninguna autorización de uso de la DO, no se desarrolla ninguna actividad de gestión colectiva para el aprovechamiento de este signo distintivo.La necesidad de relacionar las cualidades específicas del MBGC con su lugar de origen surgió en los últimos años de la década del 90 debido a que algunos intermediarios entregaban maíz de otras localidades adjudicándole la procedencia al Valle Sagrado ó haciendo la mezcla de maíces incumpliendo las condiciones de calidad exigida por los exportadores causando, en opinión de los agricultores, que los precios disminuyeran en perjuicio de los productores de Cusco. Efectivamente, según los datos estadísticos de Sunat, los precios de exportación decrecieron por varios años consecutivos desde US$ 1 dólar (en el año 2000) hasta US$ 0.69 (en el 2004). En general, lograr el reconocimiento de la DO del MBGC estuvo marcado por las siguientes expectativas de los diferentes actores de la cadena productiva:• Proteger las características específicas del producto evitando la usurpación y/o substitución. • La posibilidad de \"generar conciencia de calidad y buenas prácticas, fomentando que los pequeños productores se organicen y se integren más ventajosamente a estos circuitos comerciales\". • Generar mercados alternativos.• La proyección comercial que podría generar.Los puntos anteriores reflejan las diferentes interpretaciones sobre la utilidad y alcances de la DO, que va desde la diferenciación del producto en razón de su territorio de origen (en coincidencia a la definición establecida en las normas), hasta adjudicarle el potencial de generar procesos complejos como asociatividad y articulación al mercado por el solo hecho de lograr el reconocimiento oficial. Inclusive se pensó que contar con una DO podría impedir que el producto sea cultivado por otros agricultores de otras regiones y evitar la salida de la semilla del Valle de Urubamba.Gamboa 5 2011, señala que la DO es un \"signo distintivo…en tal sentido, debe entenderse, no como un elemento que revindica un producto autóctono, sino como una herramienta empresarial de distinción del producto…\", reitera \"la DO, no genera un efecto económico por el solo hecho de su registro, o en forma inmediata y directa, depende como se use\". Por su parte Sánchez 2007, señala \"las denominaciones de origen son reconocidas por el Estado, es decir, el Estado no lo crea y por tanto, alguien lo ha hecho. Alguien ha creado un producto, lo ha comercializado exitosamente al punto de adquirir calidad y reputación… fruto de todo ese esfuerzo, como coronación de un proceso de por sí exitoso, entonces se solicita el reconocimiento de una denominación de origen al Estado\".Frente al reto de obtener la DO, tempranamente se identificó la necesidad de desarrollar un trabajo colaborativo entre las instituciones, en este sentido se realizó un esfuerzo sostenido para la conformación y funcionamiento formal de una alianza interinstitucional cuyo establecimiento tomó diez meses hasta la firma de un convenio que estableció compromisos, responsabilidades técnicas y financieras de los integrantes.El esfuerzo interinstitucional para lograr el reconocimiento de la DO se dio por la complementariedad de intereses de los medianos y grandes productores, con los de las instituciones de promoción públicas y privadas. Los actores entrevistados adjudican un rol preponderante a la alianza en la obtención de la DO por su compromiso y su perseverancia.Las coincidencias centrales de los miembros de la alianza, así como su papel en esta parte del proceso se presentan a continuación:Apromaiz.-Su interés en la DO se focalizó en \"proteger las cualidades especiales que identifican al MBGC como un producto especial\" así como la reputación del producto y resguárdala de las adulteraciones que tuvieran consecuencias negativas expresadas en menores precios en el mercado internacional. También consideró, frente al estancamiento del mercado, la posibilidad de acceder a nuevos mercados. Apromaiz participó activamente en todo el proceso de registro de la DO. Conocedor de la actividad aportó información agronómica para la elaboración del expediente técnico.Núcleo Ejecutor Central del Proyecto de Desarrollo del Corredor Puno-Cusco del MIMDES-FONCODES.-el reconocimiento de la DO coincidía con los objetivos del proyecto referidos al \"apoyo a iniciativas generadoras de ingreso rural para campesinos y microempresarios\". Contribuyó con el cofinanciamiento y el aporte en la elaboración de documentos técnicos.Proyecto PyMAGROS de la Agencia Suiza para el Desarrollo y la Cooperación-COSUDE.-consideraba la gestión de la DO como una estrategia para \"diferenciar los productos andinos en su mercados de destino y ayudar a consolidar cadena productivas\". PYMAGROS promovió el proceso de obtención de la DO: convocatoria a las otras instituciones para conformar la alianza y monitoreo de las actividades planificadas colectivamente.Indecopi.-a través de la Oficina de Signos Distintivos tuvo un decidido trabajo, participó activamente en todo el proceso: en las actividades de difusión dirigida a los productores, fomento de reuniones de coordinación, asesoramiento en normatividad y procedimientos para la obtención de la DO y en la supervisión del expediente.Los pequeños productores.-estuvieron presentes solo en algunos momentos del proceso (ocasionalmente se contaba con la participación de delegados de la Central de Cooperativas) a pesar de los esfuerzos de incorporación que realizó inicialmente PyMAGROS y luego la alianza en el entendido que la mayoría de los productores del Valle del Urubamba deberían ser beneficiarios de la DO. Con ese propósito se realizaron varios eventos de información, sensibilización y se apoyó la formalización de siete asociaciones de agricultores.En el 2001 PyMAGROS decidió apoyar el registro de una DO. Para este efecto seleccionó el MBGC. Luego en el 2005 en cumplimiento de los requisitos establecidos por Indecopi, basado en la Decisión 486, se ejecutaron dos estudios que acreditaron la relación entre las características específicas del MBGC con el medio geográfico en el cual se desarrolla, los factores naturales/ humanos y la reputación del producto.El primer estudio estableció científicamente la interacción entre el material genético cultivado, las condiciones naturales en el cual se desarrolla y las prácticas culturales aplicadas. La suma de estos factores determina la calidad del MBGC. El estudio fue realizado por profesionales de la Universidad Nacional Agraria, La Molina.El segundo estudio validó la tradición del producto (desde la época pre-inca) en el territorio como una forma de demostrar la importancia y el reconocimiento del producto en la economía y la seguridad alimentaria. El estudio fue iniciado por un consultor especialista y se concluyó bajo responsabilidad del equipo de PyMAGROS.Según la FAO, la remuneración es la fase estratégica de uso y desarrollo de la DO en el mercado, que exige, entre otros aspectos, la acción colectiva. En ese sentido, un mecanismo establecido por la normatividad de las DO es el funcionamiento de los Consejos Reguladores (CR).La Ley Marco de los Consejos Reguladores de las Denominaciones de Origen, N° 28331, establece que una vez reconocida una DO la Oficina de Signos Distintivos del Indecopi podrá autorizar el funcionamiento de los CR a aquellas organizaciones constituidas como asociaciones civiles sin fines de lucro que lo soliciten y que cumplan con los requisitos establecidos en la Ley.Una de las funciones asignadas a los CR, artículo 11° de la menciona Ley, es la autorización de uso de la DO a quienes cumplan con dos condiciones básicas: (i) demostrar que la calidad de su producto se ajusta a las características especificadas en el expediente técnico, y (ii) certificar ser productor de la zona geográfica motivo de la DO.Según el Texto Único de Procedimientos Administrativos (TUPA) la autorización de uso de la DO también puede ser otorgada directamente por la Dirección de Signos Distintivos de Indecopi con los mismos requisitos señalados en la Ley 28331.En el 2008 se entendió que únicamente el CR tenía potestad para autorizar el uso de la DO. A la fecha queda claro que la DO puede ser autorizada directamente por Indecopi quien señala que esta función será temporal, mientras el CR logre alcanzar los requisitos establecidos para la autorización de su funcionamiento y cuente con las capacidades para el cumplimiento de las funciones asignadas por Ley.La falta de experiencia de los actores interesados en este tipo de procesos; la ausencia de una ruta crítica administrativa establecida por Indecopi para los pasos siguientes al otorgamiento de una DO, influyeron en extender el tiempo, el esfuerzo y los recursos económicos -a pesar de la voluntad y compromiso de las organizaciones privadas y públicas-sin arribar a la aplicación de la DO.La revisión de la experiencia muestra que la concepción sobre los alcances de la DO, lo complejo y prolongado que resultó el proceso llevó claramente el esfuerzo de las instituciones al logro únicamente del reconocimiento de la DO, sin alcanzar a discutir ni definir una gestión estratégica colectiva de este instrumento.La gestión colectiva de una denominación de origen, en la medida que comparte un activo común, requiere abordar por lo menos dos componentes bastante diferenciados: aplicación de la normatividad y la promoción/comercialización. o Velar por el prestigio de la denominación de origen en el mercado nacional y en el extranjero o Vigilar y controlar la producción a fin de garantizar la calidad del producto o Verificar el cumplimiento de la norma técnica o reglamento La exigencia de los dos últimos puntos podría constituirse en factores de potencial exclusión de un número significativo de pequeños productores que no alcancen la calidad establecida en el expediente técnico debido al conjunto de elementos que los mantiene en situación de baja competitividad.Otro reto es la producción del MBGC en el largo plazo bajo las mismas características establecidas en el expediente técnico con valores únicos en condiciones de cambio climático como ya se puede observar en el Valle Sagrado.2. Promoción y comercialización conjunta, con la finalidad de posicionar el producto, ampliar el mercado y mejorar la capacidad de negociación de los actores de la cadena productiva para compartir los beneficios de modo equitativo.acopiadores, exportadores y transformadores con diferente nivel de desarrollo empresarial, tal como se describe en secciones anteriores de este documento.En la medida que el proceso no concluyó con la autorización de uso de la DO esta no fue implementada para propósitos comerciales nacionales o de exportación por los promotores de esta iniciativa.En el mercado local y nacional en los últimos años se ha incrementado los productos procesados como los snacks en base a maíz. Se observa que algunas empresas transformadoras señalan en sus etiquetas que su ingrediente es \"Maíz Blanco Gigante de Cusco acreditado con DO\". o En el proceso de identificación, calificación y certificación de la DO del MBGC no se consideraron los aspectos de reproducción ni las condiciones de sostenibilidad ligados a la calidad del producto, a la rentabilidad económica y social de la actividad ni el cuidado del medio ambiente. Tampoco forman parte de los requisitos establecidos por Indecopi.o La cohesión institucional que impulsó el proceso de la DO, habiendo transcurrido mucho tiempo y los desalentadores resultados obtenidos, se ha debilitado sensiblemente. PyMAGROS y el Proyecto Corredor Cusco Puno ya no existen y, para varias de las instituciones que estuvieron involucrados en el proceso, la DO dejó de ser un tema en sus actuales planes operativos.o Se mantiene el interés del sector privado como APROMAIZ y la Central de Cooperativas del Valle Sagrado de los Incas, organizaciones que pueden capitalizar todo el esfuerzo y la inversión interinstitucional realizada.o Los acopiadores asentados en el Valle Sagrado no muestran mayor interés, en la medida que conocen que la DO no es una condición importante en la comercialización del MBGC, \"con DO o sin él se sigue vendiendo el maíz del Cusco\" afirman.o Algunas instituciones han expresado su interés en retomar el tema: Dirección Regional Agraria Cusco, Agencia Agraria de Calca y Urubamba, Promperu, Inia, Indecopi.1. La obtención del registro de la DO del MBGC se estableció como una meta en sí misma. Bajo esta concepción la etapa de identificación y calificación del producto se cumplió exitosamente a pesar de las dificultades, sin embargo, no se explicitaron los pasos a seguir para la etapa de gestión colectiva de la DO.2. En el proceso de identificación, calificación y registro de la DO del MBGC no se consideraron los aspectos de reproducción, las condiciones de sostenibilidad ligados a la calidad del producto, rentabilidad económica y social de la actividad, ni el cuidado del medio ambiente. Tampoco forman parte de los requisitos establecidos por Indecopi para el otorgamiento de una DO.3. Los medianos y grandes productores mantiene el interés por la DO principalmente como una herramienta para la protección de las características especificas de MBGC en relación a su territorio de origen y evitar la adulteración y la usurpación de la reputación del producto por agricultores de otras localidades que tuvieron consecuencias en la disminución del precio para los productores cusqueños. Los pequeños productores, que son la mayoría, y los acopiadores no reconocen ninguna utilidad a la DO en la medida que no es un requisito solicitado por el mercado.4. Las condiciones de transacción (precio, calidad, cantidad) en términos generales son definidos por los comercializadores con limitada participación y capacidad de negociación de los productores de las diferentes escalas de producción.5. La conformación del precio refleja la asimetría de la cadena productiva en particular en lo relacionado con la distribución de los beneficios económicos de la actividad.6. La capacidad de la DO de constituirse en una herramienta de gestión comercial requiere un desarrollo empresarial previo, que implica contar con calidad estandarizada, oferta organizada, avance en la articulación comercial y organizaciones de productores consolidadas.1. Para hacer mas útil la gestión y la aplicación de las DO, se requiere de un fortalecimiento institucional que incluya aspectos como:• Definición de políticas y estrategias de uso de la DO, sea como instrumento de apoyo al desarrollo rural o como herramienta de gestión comercial. • Difusión y homologación de conceptos y criterios consensuados.• Junto con la promoción del instrumento, divulgar las condicionantes y restricciones de las DO, de acuerdo con las distintas realidades regionales y de las diferentes cadenas productivas, incluyendo el riesgo de que su aplicación puede generar procesos de exclusión de actores que por diferentes razones, no puedan alcanzar las condiciones de calidad establecidas en un protocolo, o que la distribución de los potenciales beneficios de su utilización no se distribuyan equitativamente en cadenas en las que haya asimetría, sobre todo en aquellas con circuitos largos con participación de muchos actores en los procesos de transformación y comercialización. • Establecer y difundir la ruta crítica del proceso administrativo para el registro y la gestión de la DO que refleje la política institucional de Indecopi. • Poner en agenda la discusión sobre la pertinencia de la doble/triple función (promoción, normativa y/o fiscalizadora) de las instituciones públicas como Indecopi, Gobierno Regional, Gobierno Local con respecto a las DO y sus características particulares como bien público, de gestión colectiva y con titularidad del Estado.2. Clarificar con los actores de la cadena productiva, en particular con los productores, en razón de las expectativas existentes, las posibilidades y limitaciones de la DO:• Como herramienta de diferenciación del producto para fines de mercadeo, más aún, cuando se trata de insumos y no de productos finales. • Capacidad de protección del producto como único en razón a su origen geográfico frente a la posibilidad de otorgar exclusividad de producción. • La necesidad de la gestión colectiva de la DO en relación a la asociatividad.• La exigencia de mantener las características específicas declaradas en el expediente técnico y la relación directa con el cuidado del medio ambiente. • El manejo empresarial y la capacidad de inversión para realizar acciones de promoción y articulación comercial.La metodología propuesta por la FAO-SINER-GI, Uniendo Personas, Territorios Y Productos. Guía Para Fomentar la Calidad Vinculada al Origen y las Indicaciones Geográficas Sostenibles, es una propuesta de ayuda a los actores locales para implementar los diferentes aspectos que forman parte del desarrollo de un sistema de producción de Indicación Geográfica para aumentar el potencial para el desarrollo sostenible.Gráfico 1: El círculo virtuoso de la calidad vinculada al origen Fases del círculo virtuoso:1. Identificación.-precisa el producto y los recursos locales necesarios para su producción así como su vínculo con la calidad específica del producto.Calificación.-es el proceso mediante el cual la sociedad (consumidores, ciudadanos, instituciones públicas, otros actores de la cadena de valor, etc.) reconoce el valor agregado del producto vinculado al origen.Remuneración.-corresponde a los mecanismos mediante los cuales la sociedad pagará a los productores por los servicios que conlleva el producto vinculado al origen. La comercialización de un producto con indicación geográfica requiere de una estrategia colectiva para gestionar el activo colectivo con el objetivo de agregar valor y aprovecharse de la reputación. La remuneración de los recursos locales específicos se puede obtener también mediante mecanismos no comerciales. En este caso, puede ser necesario recompensar estos valores por medio de un apoyo público directo (financiero o asistencia técnica públicos).4. Reproducción de recursos locales.-significa que los recursos se preservarán, renovarán y mejorarán a lo largo del círculo a fin de hacer posible su sostenibilidad a largo plazo, garantizando de este modo la existencia misma del producto vinculado al origen.5. Función de las políticas públicas en el círculo virtuoso.-los actores públicos (Estado, gobiernos regionales y locales y otras autoridades e instituciones que representan el interés público) pueden proporcionar un marco jurídico e institucional adecuado para el reconocimiento, la regulación y la protección de los derechos de","tokenCount":"6044"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ac76ea261d600bc125a36d3396598b7c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a6f331e8-afda-4037-95d6-0bec4b09493c/content","id":"-167244992"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f22c938e-5ba6-4eb2-b109-068d35ba4c27","pagecount":"6","content":"Leaf rust, caused by Puccinia hordei, is an important disease of barley in many parts of the world. In the eastern United States, this disease was effectively controlled for over 20 years through the deployment of cultivars carrying the resistance gene Rph7. Isolates of P. hordei with virulence for Rph7 appeared in this region in the early 1990s rendering barley cultivars with this gene vulnerable to leaf rust infection. From a preliminary evaluation test, 13 accessions from diverse geographic locations possessed resistance to P. hordei isolate VA90-34, which has virulence for genes Rph1,2,4,6,7,8,and 11. Each of these 13 accessions was crossed with susceptible cvs. Moore or Larker to characterize gene number and gene action for resistance to P. hordei. Additionally, the 13 accessions were intercrossed and crossed to host differential lines possessing genes Rph3, Rph5, and Rph9 to determine allelic relationships of resistance genes. Seedlings of F 1 , F 2 , and BC 1 F 1 populations were evaluated in the greenhouse for their reaction to P. hordei isolate VA90-34. Leaf rust resistance in six of the accessions including Collo sib, CR270.3.2, Deir Alla 105, Giza 119, Gloria, and Lenka is governed by a single dominant gene located at or near the Rph3 locus. All accessions for which the gene Rph3 was postulated to govern leaf rust resistance, except for Deir Alla 105, likely possess an allele different than Rph3.c found in Estate based on the differential reaction to isolates of P. hordei. The resistance gene in Grit and Donan is located at or near the Rph9 locus. Alleles at both the Rph3 and Rph9 loci confer resistance in Femina and Dorina. In addition to Rph3, Caroline and CR366.13.2 likely possess a second unknown recessive gene for leaf rust resistance. Resistance in Carre 180 is governed by a recessive gene that is different from all other genes considered in this study. Identification of both known and unique genes conferring leaf rust resistance in the barley germplasm included in this study provides breeding programs with the knowledge and opportunity to assess currently used sources of leaf rust resistance and to incorporate new sources of resistance into their programs.Leaf rust, caused by the fungus Puccinia hordei G. Otth, is one of the most destructive diseases of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in many areas of the world (22). The disease can markedly reduce both grain yield and seed quality of the crop. Local epidemics of leaf rust have been reported in Australia and Europe resulting in significant yield losses (6). In Australia, yield losses as large as 31% were reported by Cotterill et al. (7) in commercial barley fields with moderate leaf rust infection in 1990. King and Polley (16) reported yield differences ranging from 17 to 31% in Europe from trials of fungicide-treated versus nontreated plots of barley infected with leaf rust. In Virginia, average yield loss due to leaf rust was estimated to be between 6 and 16% under severe epidemics in 1990 and 1991 for barley genotypes varying in reaction to race 30 (12).Development and use of resistant cultivars is the most economical and environmentally safe method to control P. hordei. Sixteen major resistance genes (Rph1 to Rph16) have been identified in barley (5,10,13,14,20,21). Of these 16 genes, only Rph3, 7, and 9 have been deployed in commercial cultivars worldwide. Virulence for Rph3 and Rph9 has been identified in Europe, South America, and the Middle East. Virulence for Rph9.z (formerly designated Rph12) has been identified in Europe and Australia. Prior to 1990, virulence to Rph7 was known only in Israel (11) and Morocco (19). In the early 1990's, virulence for Rph7 was identified in California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia (12,26) and more recently in South America (2). The prevalence of pathotypes with virulence for the major genes for resistance to P. hordei is of great concern to plant breeders and pathologists, because some of these genes, including Rph3, 7, and 9, were considered the most effective and have been used widely in barley breeding programs. A few barley accessions possessing genes conferring resistance to P. hordei isolates capable of overcoming all previously reported Rph genes have been identified (13)(14)(15)27). However, resistance conferred by major genes has frequently failed to provide long-term disease control and deployment of single major genes in cultivars grown over a broad area potentially can lead to serious epidemics.Information on genetic variability for resistance to leaf rust among accessions of H. vulgare can facilitate efficient exploitation of such resistance and lead to the development of barley cultivars with broad-based resistance. In order for breeders to efficiently use the available sources of leaf rust resistance, it is necessary to determine the inheritance and genetic relationship of resistance genes. The objectives of this study were to determine (i) the inheritance of resistance in 13 spring barley accessions to isolates of P. hordei possessing virulence to Rph7, and (ii) the allelic relationships between resistance genes in these accessions.Mexico, D.F.) Barley Program, and host differential lines possessing leaf rust resistance genes Rph1 to Rph11 were initially evaluated for resistance to four isolates of P. hordei. Three of the isolates have virulence/avirulence patterns that have not been observed in the P. hordei population of North America. Isolate ND89-3 originated in Morocco (15) and isolates BRS76-12 and BRS90-40 originated in the United Kingdom (15). Isolate VA90-34 was collected in a breeding nursery in Blacksburg, Virginia in November 1990. Differential reaction of barley genotypes to these four isolates allowed for an initial characterization of the 31 accessions for putative resistance genes. Thirteen accessions were selected for the current study on the basis of diverse origin, resistance to isolate VA90-34, and reaction to other differential races of leaf rust (Table 1).P. hordei isolate VA90-34 (virulence for Rph1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11) was used in the current genetic studies because it is avirulent for the resistance genes in the 13 sources, and the race group (race 30) of isolate VA90-34 is prevalent in Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region of North America (12,26). Inheritance of resistance in each accession, including gene number and action, was obtained from analysis of segregation patterns of progeny derived from crosses of the 13 resistant accessions with susceptible parent cvs. Moore and Larker (Table 2). Cv. Moore was used as the universal susceptible parent in most crosses, and cv. Larker was used as an alternative susceptible parent when spikes of cv. Moore were not available for crossing. F 1 seed from these crosses were used to produce F 2 populations and to develop BC 1 F 1 (cv. Moore or Larker × F 1 ) populations. Genetic populations were developed to investigate allelic relationships among the resistance genes. Resistant accessions were intercrossed and crossed to four host differential lines in all possible combinations, excluding reciprocal crosses (Tables 3 and 4). Resistant parents were crossed only to differential lines possessing resistance to isolate VA90-34. These differential lines were Estate (PI 57700) with Rph3.c, Magnif (CIho 13806) with Rph5.e, Hor 2596 (CIho 1243) with Rph9.i, and Triumph (PI 268180) with Rph9.z (formally designated Rph12). F 1 seeds from these crosses were used to produce F 2 populations.Evaluation of leaf rust reaction. The parents, BC 1 F 1 and F 2 progeny, and a set of host differential lines (Rph1 to Rph11) were screened for their reaction to isolate VA90-34 in the greenhouse. For each cross, five seedlings of each parent, 168 to 355 F 2 seedlings, and 17 to 53 BC 1 F 1 seedlings were evaluated for their reaction to leaf rust infection. A BC 1 F 1 population was not available for the accessions Deir Alla 105, Femina, or Lenka. Nevertheless, genetic analysis of each accession in different crosses, including those in both inheritance and allelism studies, provided ample data to support a definite conclusion regarding the number and action of genes present.Seeds were space planted in plastic pots (75-mm diameter and 65-mm depth) filled with a potting mixture (3:1, peat moss/soil). Pots were placed in wooden flats (35 pots per flat and 5 seeds per pot), and flats were arranged by population on a greenhouse bench. Ten to fourteen days after planting (two-leaf stage), seedlings were inoculated with a mixture of P. hordei urediniospores (isolate VA90-34) and talc (≈1 g of spores per 5 g of talc) using a pump. The inoculated plants were placed in a moist chamber maintained near saturation by intermittent misting from a humidifier for 16 h at 20 ± 1°C. Following the mist period, the canvas top of the chamber was opened halfway to allow plants to dry slowly. Plants were placed on a greenhouse bench maintained at 22 ± 3°C.The 0 to 4 rating scale of Levine and Cherewick (17) was used to score infection types of the parental, BC 1 F 1 , F 2 , and host differential plants 10 to 14 days after inoculation. Infection types of each plant were based on assessment of the first and second leaf of each seedling. Plants with infection types from 3 to 4 were rated susceptible, and plants with infection types from 0 to 2 were rated resistant. Infection types of plants from genetic populations were compared with those of their respective parents and the host differentials to assure proper classification and assignment to resistant and susceptible classes. Observed segregation patterns of resistance and susceptible progeny were used to determine genetic relationships. A chi-square test was used to test the goodness-offit for observed segregation patterns to expected genetic ratios. In cases where F 2 progeny were derived from different F 1 plants, a chi-square test for homogeneity was used to determine whether different populations displayed similar genetic behavior. The variance among populations tested was homogeneous, and pooled data are presented in the tables.Preliminary study of resistance to P. hordei in 13 H. vulgare accessions. Infection types of the 13 barley accessions, two susceptible parents, and 12 host differential lines to four isolates of P. hordei are presented in Table 1. Reaction of the 13 accessions to four isolates with differential virulence patterns allowed for preliminary differentiation among the accessions regarding putative resistance genes. None of the 13 accessions characterized as resistant to isolate VA90-34 were resistant to all of the isolates tested. Isolate ND89-3 with virulence for all genes (Rph1 to Rph11) except Rph3 possesses one of the widest virulence spectra among P. hordei pathotypes (15). Isolate BRS76-12 with virulence Inheritance studies. Segregation of F 2 and BC 1 F 1 progeny for resistance to P. hordei from crosses between resistant accessions and susceptible cvs. Moore and Larker is shown in Table 2. The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in F 2 populations derived from crosses between cvs. Moore and Larker with resistant accessions Grit, Donan, Gloria, Collo sib. (Collo\"S\"), Deir Alla 105, Lenka, Giza 119, and CR 270.2.3 was consistent with a 3:1 (resistant/susceptible) ratio. This indicated that resistance in these accessions is governed by a single dominant gene. Observed segregation patterns of their respective BC 1 F 1 populations were consistent with the expected 1:1 (resistant/susceptible) ratio for one dominant gene. The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in F 2 populations from crosses of cv. Moore with Dorina and Femina was consistent with a 15:1 ratio, indicating that these accessions each possess two independent dominant genes for resistance. The number of resistant and susceptible plants in the BC 1 F 1 population for Dorina approximated a 3:1 ratio and supported the two-gene hypothesis. A BC 1 F 1 population was not available for Femina.The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in F 2 populations from crosses of cv. Larker with resistant accessions Caroline and CR 366.13.2 was consistent with a 13:3 ratio, indicating the presence of one dominant and one recessive gene in each of these accessions (Table 2). The number of resistant versus susceptible progeny in the respective BC 1 F 1 populations of these crosses was consistent with a 1:1 ratio, and supported the twogene model of one dominant and one recessive gene. Resistance in Carre 180 is governed by a single recessive gene as indicated by the segregation of one resistant to three susceptible progeny in the F 2 population. The lack of resistant progeny in the BC 1 F 1 and F 1 (data not presented) generations confirmed the recessive nature of this gene. Because gene number could not be confirmed in the BC 1 F 1 generation, the F 3 generation of this cross was evaluated for segregation. Among 40 F 3 families, nine were homozygous resistant, 21 segregated in a 1:3 (resistant/susceptible) manner and 10 were homozygous susceptible. This segregation pattern gave a good fit (P = 0.93) to a 1:2:1 genotypic ratio, which was expected for monogenic inheritance of resistance in Carre 180. In summary, leaf rust resistance is governed by a single dominant gene in eight accessions: two dominant genes in two accessions, one dominant and one recessive gene in two accessions, and a single recessive gene in one accession.Allelic relationships among genes in the 13 resistant parents. Allelism tests were conducted to determine whether resistance genes in the 13 parents were at the same or different loci and to determine if the accessions have unique genes for resistance. Segregation patterns for reaction of F 2 populations to P. hordei in crosses among the 13 resistant parents are presented in Table 3. Susceptible F 2 progeny were not observed in crosses among Grit, Donan, Dorina, and Femina, indicating that these parents have at least one gene in common or alleles at the same locus. Likewise, susceptible F 2 progeny were not found in crosses among Gloria, Giza 119, Deir Alla 105, CR 366.13.2, CR 270.2.3, Dorina, Femina, Lenka, Caroline, and Collo \"S\". This indicated that these resistant parents have at least one gene in common or alleles at the same locus. In crosses where segregation for susceptible progeny occurred, the observed segregation patterns confirmed previous results (Table 2) for gene number and action in most cases. Segregation of resistant and susceptible plants was observed among F 2 progeny for crosses between Carre 180 and all other parents, indicating that the gene in Carre 180 is different from genes in the other resistant parents. The number of resistant and susceptible plants observed in the F 2 populations derived from crosses between Carre 180 with 10 of the 12 resistant parents was consistent with the hypothesis that Carre 180 possesses a single recessive gene. However, in two crosses this gene appeared to be inherited as a dominant factor. The modified segregation patterns (15 resistant to 1 susceptible) observed in crosses between Carre 180 with Collo \"S\" and Lenka may have resulted from epistasis, suppressor gene action, or both in these genetic backgrounds. Although the infection types of most F 2 plants were easily distinguishable and were classified on the basis of parental and host differential reaction type, it is also possible that some of the progeny were misclassified.In summary, leaf rust resistance was governed by alleles at a common locus in 10 accessions, and four other accessions possess alleles at a second independent locus. Among these accessions, Dorina and Femina possess alleles at both loci. Segregation patterns in crosses of Caroline and CR 366.13.2 with other resistant parents supported the hypothesis that leaf rust resistance in these accessions is governed by one dominant and one recessive gene. The identity of the recessive gene in Caroline and CR 366.13.2 is unknown. Carre 180 has a recessive gene that is independent of all these loci.Allelic relationships of genes in the 13 resistant accessions with those in four host differential lines. Crosses between resistant parents and host differential genotypes with effective leaf rust resistance genes to P. hordei isolate VA90-34 were evaluated to determine whether resistance in the 13 accessions is conferred by known or unique genes. Development of genetic populations for this study was initiated in the early 1990's. At that time, the only differential lines available were those possessing genes Rph1 to Rph12 (now designated Rph9.z). Among these genes, only Rph3, 5, 9, and 10 were effective against isolate VA90-34. The host differential line possessing Rph10 was not included in the allelism tests because it is susceptible to P. hordei race 8, whereas the 13 parents are resistant to race 8. Segregation patterns of F 2 populations from these crosses are presented in Table 4. Estate (Rph3.c) × resistant parents. Susceptible F 2 progeny were not obtained from crosses of Estate with the nine resistant parents Gloria, Giza 119, CR 270.3.2, Collo \"S\", Lenka, Deir Alla 105, Dorina, CR 366.13.2, and Caroline. Lack of segregation in these crosses suggests that resistance genes in these parents are either allelic or closely linked to the Rph3 locus. The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in F 2 populations from crosses of Estate with resistant parents Grit and Donan was consistent with a 15:1 ratio for two independent dominant genes. A 13:3 (resistant/susceptible) F 2 ratio was observed for the cross between Estate and Carre 180, as was expected for one dominant and one recessive gene governing resistance. Although a cross between Estate and Femina was not obtained, no segregation was observed in F 2 populations from crosses between Femina and other accessions possessing Rph3 (Table 3). Therefore, Femina likely possesses an allele at the Rph3 locus.Magnif (Rph5.e) × resistant parents. Segregation for susceptible F 2 progeny occurred in all crosses between Magnif and the 13 resistant parents; therefore, the genes in these accessions are different from Rph5 in Magnif (Table 4). The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in F 2 populations from crosses between Magnif and 8 of the 13 resistant parents was consistent with a 15:1 ratio, which corroborated the hypothesis of dominant monogenic inheritance of resistance in these eight accessions. A 61:3 (resistant/susceptible) F 2 ratio was observed for crosses of Magnif with Caroline and CR 366.13.2 as expected for resistance governed by one recessive and two dominant genes. The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in F 2 populations from crosses of Magnif with Dorina and Femina was consistent with a 63:1 ratio and supported the hypothesis of three independent dominant genes for resistance. The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in the F 2 population from the cross between Magnif and Carre 180 was consistent with a 13:3 ratio as expected for one dominant and one recessive gene.Hor 2596 (Rph9.i) × resistant parents. Lack of segregation for susceptible progeny in crosses of Hor 2596 with Donan, Dorina, Femina, and Grit suggested that these accessions possess an allele at or near the Rph9 locus (Table 4). Expected segregation patterns of resistant and susceptible progeny were observed in crosses of Hor 2596 with 8 of the 13 resistant parents and confirmed previous conclusions regarding gene number and mode of inheritance. This result also indicated that resistance in these accessions was not conferred by alleles at the Rph9 locus. Deviation from the expected 61:3 (resistant/susceptible) ratio for F 2 progeny from the cross between Hor 2596 and Caroline likely was the result of small population size. Triumph (Rph9.z) × resistant parents. Segregation for susceptible progeny was not observed in crosses of Triumph with Donan, Dorina, Femina, and Grit, suggesting that these resistant parents possess an allele at or near the Rph9 locus (Table 4). Results from this study concerning crosses with Hor 2596 and Triumph corroborate with those of Borovkova et al. (1), who proposed that the resistant gene in Triumph Rph9.z (formerly designated Rph12) is an allele of the gene found in Hor 2596 (Rph9.i). The number of resistant and susceptible progeny observed in F 2 populations from crosses between Triumph and 5 of the 13 resistant parents was consistent with a 15:1 segregation ratio. Therefore, resistance in these accessions was governed by single dominant genes not located at the Rph9 locus. A F 2 ratio of 61:3 (resistant/susceptible progeny) was found for crosses of Triumph with CR366.13.2 and Caroline as expected based on the hypothesis that the latter two accessions each have one dominant and one recessive gene for resistance. Resistance in Carre 180 is governed by a single recessive gene independent of the Rph9 locus as confirmed by the 13:3 (resistant/susceptible) segregation pattern observed for F 2 progeny from the cross with Triumph.In summary, 9 of 13 accessions possessed alleles at the Rph3 locus and four accessions possessed alleles at the Rph9 locus governing resistance to leaf rust. Among these accessions, Dorina and Femina possessed alleles at both loci, whereas Carre 180 possessed a recessive gene independent of these loci. The recessive genes in Caroline and CR 366.13.2 likely are independent of the other genes identified in this study.Leaf rust resistance conferred by the gene Rph7 remained effective in the Eastern U.S. for more than 20 years (12). In 1990, virulence to Rph7 was identified (26) and, therefore, necessitated a search for new sources of resistance. Unique sources of leaf rust resistance continue to be found among accessions of H. vulgare (23,27). In the current study, 13 accessions of spring barley possessing resistance to isolates of P. hordei with virulence for genes Rph1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 were identified and genetically characterized.Leaf rust resistance in the accessions Collo \"S\", CR 270.2.3, Deir Alla 105, Donan, Giza 119, Gloria, Grit, and Lenka is governed by single dominant genes. Dorina and Femina each have two dominant genes conferring resistance, whereas Caroline and CR 366.13.2 each have one dominant and one recessive gene. The mode of inheritance in Carre 180 is different from that of all other accessions in that a single recessive gene confers resistance. Considering that most of the Rph genes previously identified in H. vulgare are dominant in action, it is interesting that two or three of the genes identified in the current study are recessive in action. Jin and Steffenson (15) identified a recessive gene in addition to Rph3 in H. vulgare accession PI 531990. They also observed recessive gene action in accessions of H. spontaneum. According to a recent study by Chen and Line (3), resistance to P. striiformis Westend. f. sp. hordei in barley is predominantly governed by recessive genes.Ten of the thirteen accessions evaluated in this study possess alleles at or tightly linked to the Rph3 locus. Jin and Steffenson (15) also observed that Rph3 occurred at a high frequency in barley genotypes originating in Egypt and the Mediterranean region. The allele conferring resistance in Deir Alla 105 likely is Rph3.c, as found in Estate, based on a similar reaction of these two genotypes to four differential isolates of P. hordei. In contrast, the allele at or near the Rph3 locus in Caroline, Collo \"S\", CR 270.2.3, CR 366.13.2, Dorina, Femina, Giza 119, Gloria, and Lenka differ from Rph3.c, based on susceptibility of these accessions to isolate ND89-3 which is avirulent to Rph3.c. This finding was verified by additional tests of these parents with isolate ND89-3. Alleles producing different reactions to a series of P. hordei isolates have been identified previously in barley (4,14,25). Results of the current study support the hypothesis of multiple alleles at loci governing resistance to barley leaf rust (14,20,24,25). Although virulence to Rph3 has been reported in Europe (6), new alleles at this locus could provide control of leaf rust, especially when used in combination with other resistance genes. Virulence for Rph3 has not been identified in North America or Mexico (9,23); therefore, alleles at this locus can be deployed, preferably in combination with other resistance genes to provide control of barley leaf rust in these areas. Donan, Dorina, Femina, and Grit possess alleles at or tightly linked to the Rph9 locus. Dorina and Femina also have alleles at the Rph3 locus. Virulence for Rph9.z (formerly Rph12) has not been identified in North America, nor has this gene been deployed on this continent. A low percentage of P. hordei isolates collected in Arizona and California in 1993 had virulence for Rph9.i (9). Alleles at the Rph9 locus, such as Rph9.z, could be combined with other effective resistance genes, such as Rph3, to provide resistance to leaf rust in North America and other countries where virulence for these genes has not been identified.In addition to a dominant allele at the Rph3 locus, Caroline and CR 366.13.2 each possess a recessive gene that is independent of the other genes identified in this study. Carre 180 possesses a single recessive gene for resistance to isolate VA90-34 that is independent of all other genes identified in the current study. Further allelism tests and perhaps a molecular mapping project should be initiated to determine if this gene is new.Resistance to leaf rust was not governed by the Rph5 locus in any of the 13 accessions based on segregation for susceptible progeny in all crosses with Magnif. Virulence for Rph5 is widely prevalent in Europe (18) and South America (2,9) but has not been identified in North America where this gene has not been used in commercial cultivars. Therefore, Rph5 also could be deployed in North America, but probably should be used only in combination with other effective genes.In summary, resistance to P. hordei isolate VA90-34 is governed by single dominant alleles at the Rph3 locus in six accessions. Caroline and CR366.13.2 likely have a second unknown recessive gene in addition to Rph3. Resistance in two accessions was governed by single dominant alleles at the Rph9 locus, whereas two accessions possessed dominant alleles at the Rph3 and Rph9 loci. Dreiseitl and Steffenson (8) reported a similar occurrence of known Rph genes among 93 Czech and Slovak barley accessions. In that study, Rph3 was postulated for 17 accessions, Rph9.z (formerly Rph12) for 26 accessions, and the combination of Rph3 and Rph9.z for seven accessions. Resistance in Carre 180 is different from that of all other parents and host differentials included in the current study and is inherited as a single recessive gene in most cases.Further studies are needed to elucidate the identity of unknown genes reported herein and to determine the identity of alleles at the Rph3 and Rph9 loci for accessions with these putative genes. Results from this study should be useful to barley breeders in assessing current genetic variability for leaf rust resistance in their programs and in providing them with the genetic identity of resistance genes in potentially new sources. Combining unique resistance genes, such as those identified in Carre 180, Caroline, and CR 366.13.2 with other effective resistance genes such as Rph3, 5, and 9 and more recently identified genes such as Rph16, should provide for more durable resistance than single deployment of these genes. Furthermore, resistance of all 13 accessions to isolate VA90-34 and to other isolates makes them valuable sources of leaf rust resistance in North America.","tokenCount":"4455"}

data/part_2/0220895099.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7ce1b33e94e071dc4c020b5658ef0c29","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/79052a30-81eb-4131-8f11-f228d8c557f1/retrieve","id":"-1933591344"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7f6d202e-bb7b-44a3-b62d-cbc6a122c2a2","pagecount":"12","content":"One of the first tasks undertaken by the World Beta Network, after it was formed in 1989 as one of the IBPGR crop networks, was the development of an International Database for Beta (IDBB). It was felt that the collation, analyses, and dissemination of information through a centralized database was essential in the development of a viable World Beta Network (WBN). Since 1989, the BAZ Gene Bank has provided the acting secretariat of the WBN and has managed the IDBB within the framework of the German-Dutch cooperation on plant genetic resources.In 1995, the BAZ Gene Bank developed a core collection for the genus Beta that is composed of accessions from the various national holdings documented in the IDBB -e.g., a \"Synthetic Beta Core Collection\" (SBCC). This core collection, currently, is being used as the working collection within the framework of the EU Beta project GENRES CT95 42, which ends on 28 February, 2002. Characterization, evaluation and molecular marker data recorded by project partners will be documented in the IDBB and will be available to analyse the current composition of the SBCC.At the same time, national curators in the USA, Greece and Russia have started to create their own national core collections, which are not necessarily fully congruent with the core collection developed for the EU project. To maximize the use of an international Beta core collection, the development and organization of that collection must be done in conjunction with national collections so that entries from the national collections overlap those of the synthetic core collection.During the first meeting of the ECP/GR Beta working group in Broom's Barn (UK) in 1999, there was a recommendation to establish a task force to review the core collection proposed by the BAZ Gene Bank, to further develop it and bring it into harmony with the various national core collections. Drs. B. Ford-Lloyd (U.K.), L. Frese (Germany), L. Panella (USA) and A. Tan (Turkey) agreed to participate in the task force and to organize a task force meeting in conjunction with the 'Study Group for Breeding and Genetics' of the International Institute of Sugar Beet Research (IIRB).L. Frese submitted a project proposal to the ECP/GR, which was approved. He was charged by the ECP/GR with the implementation of the meeting on June 30, 2000.Reports on five Beta core collections exist. Detailed information is available on the Synthetic Beta Core Collection (SBCC) developed for evaluation purposes, the USDA/ARS Beta core collection and the Beta core collection of the VIR at Saint Petersburg. The structure of the Beta core collection of the Greek Gene Bank is unknown and will be investigated. The Plant Genetic Resources Institute of AARI (Turkey) will develop a Beta core collection within a new project.Within a large genetic resources collection it is desirable capture the majority of genetic diversity in a subsample of the entire collection. Frankel (1984) suggested developing core collections that would represent, with minimum repetitiveness, the genetic diversity contained in a collection. Core collections have been developed for many crops to improve the efficiency of germplasm screening procedures ( van Hintum, 1999). Molecular Data (RFLP, PCR-based, and DNA sequence), morphological, yield and quality characters have been used to generate cluster analyses of Beta. The resulting dendrograms show that the genetic diversity of the genus Beta can be described well as an hierarchical tree. Classical taxonomists (e.g. Buttler, 1977) subdivide the genus into four sections, the 'main branches' of the diversity tree. Molecular marker investigations (Jung et al., 1993;Shen et al., 1998) of the genetic relationship among sections are very much in agreement with classical taxonomy. The genetic diversity within each section of the genus Beta is organised like side branches of a tree. Wild species in Beta section Beta (Letschert, 1993) have been divided into species and subspecies by means of morphological characters and allozymes. Cultivated material in the species, B. vulgaris, forms four groups (Lange et al., 1999), within which individual hierarchical classification of accessions is also possible. This is in agreement with studies of Holland (1956) and (Michalik et al., 1998) using morphological traits, yield trait components and RAPD markers. Further divisions into origin region and origin country within an individual side branch produce a more complex diversity tree (as proposed in Figure 1  2. Random selections were made from each of these regions to achieve the 10% target representation.The SBCC was developed based on the \"diversity tree\" (see Boukema et al., 1997) of the genus Beta. Taxonomic and geographic information, as well as curator knowledge (i.e. information on genetic distances among groups of material within a species or information on the occurrence of resistance genes in specific geographic areas) was used to select individual entries from the world Beta holding. The SBCC consists of all taxa except for B. nana When selecting individual accessions from the world Beta holding a very low weight was given to sugar beet accessions, the target group for base broadening efforts. The final size and structure of the SBCC was determined by the maximum evaluation capacity of project partners charged with screening for disease resistance and the seed availability. The SBCC consists of 805 accessions (Appendix 1). The path indicator method was applied for preliminary analysis of the SBCC. The percentage of accessions represented in the SBCC compared to the total number of accessions present in the world holding varies between 2 % (sugar beet) up to 27 % (Beta corolliflora).  The Beta collection was grouped into the various taxa and further subdivided into wild, primitive or transient types, landraces, old local varieties and modern varieties. A typical accession of each group was selected as 'base' accession. As there is a high within group variability descriptive data were used for cluster analysis. Within each group accessions were compared to the 'base' accession and selected according to the similarity level.Accessions with very specific characters like cytoplasmic male sterility, monogerm seeds, tetraploid germplasm completed the choice (Burenin, 1999).The core collection consists of 189 accessions of which 27 accessions belong to the SBCC by chance (Appendix 3, SBCC accessions are indicated by '+').The rationale for the need of Beta core collections was reviewed. It was decided by the taskforce to pursue and promote the international approach. The taskforce recommends that an 'International Beta Core Collection' (IBCC) be developed. We felt that an IBCC would:• represent the diversity of the genus Beta better than any national effort alone could achieve alone.• improve access to a defined set of entries held within a network of decentralised Beta holdings through a central database.• facilitate and promote the use of genetic resources collections.• provide the best standard set of entries for biosystematic research.• improve access to information on core collection accessions through a central databaseThe section Beta is the domain in the case of the USDA/ARS core collection, and the cultivated species the domain for the VIR Beta core collection. In contrast, the SBCC comprises all species and sections except for section Nanae. The question was raised whether the IBCC should be restricted to section Beta (cultivated forms and related wild species) or should encompass the whole genus Beta. It was noted that the sections Corollinae, Nanae and Procumbentes contain valuable genetic variation but, due to technical problems (hard-seeded fruits) and crossing barriers between section Beta and sections Corollinae, Nanae and Procumbentes, utilisation of the germplasm is still difficult. Furthermore, breeders only recently have started to fully exploit section Beta for broadening the genetic base of the sugar beet crop. The participants suggested that section Beta should be the priority domain of the IBCC. This does exclude the development of a small core collection of sections Corollinae, Nanae and Procumbentes for research purposes.A. Use of characterisation and evaluation data A Large characterisation data set has been recorded on the US Beta collection and is available documented in the GRIN (Genetic Resources Information Network) database. Similar data were also taken on the collection of the BAZ Gene Bank and on the SBCC accessions used in the GENRES CT95 42 project. Additional data may exist in other national documentation systems and these data should be collated in the central crop database, the IDBB. L. Frese related to the group that the BAZ database manager, C. Germeier, recently visited the USDA-ARS station in Beltsville, MD, where the GRIN database is maintained. They discussed the issue of data transfer from GRIN to the IDBB. C. Germeier also noted that the final, consolidated sets of GENRES evaluation data will be sent by project partners to the IDBB in late 2001. Once the data are received, the SBCC can be analysed statistically to characterize the structure of genetic diversity present. Based on the results of the analyses, the size and structure of an IBCC can be recommended. It was suggested to develop the IBCC by applying the diversity tree concept. In the case of the SBCC, the end points of the diversity tree described by path indicators culminate at the level of collection sites. Breaking points determined by the sample status (landrace, variety, breeding line, etc.) could help refine the core collection.Molecular markers have been used by several researchers (for example Jung et al. 1993, Letschert 1993, Kraft et al. 1997, Shen et al. 1998, McGrath et al. 1999). Only Michalik and co-workers (1998) recorded molecular marker data together with agronomic characters and made suggestions for a 'Garden Beet' core collection based on both sets of characters. B. Ford-Lloyd noted that new AFLP data are currently generated within the framework of the GENRES CT95 42 project on nomenclature duplicates; the duplicate group itself is sometimes represented by its 'most original accession' in the SBCC. He suggested to use the AFLP data for the enhancement of the SBCC. Of particular interest for the decision making process is knowledge on the within accession variability in relation to the between accession variability in beet species. B. Ford-Lloyd noted that a population of B. vulgaris subsp. maritima growing in southern England is known to represent the majority of all genetic diversity occurring in English populations. If it can be assumed that a large fraction of genes and alleles present in an individual accession also are shared by many accessions, there would be important implications for the design of the IBCC. Instead of the 805 accessions selected for the SBCC, a limited set of accessions might suffice to represent most of the genetic diversity present in an outcrossing Beta species. However, sufficient and detailed information is still lacking, and investigations of the Beta species with molecular markers will certainly help to elucidate the structures of genetic diversity. A research project perhaps could be submitted within the 5 th framework programme of the EU (deadline mid February, 2001). The preparation of the 6 th framework programme has started recently and very probably will allow research on biodiversity aspects.It was also reiterated that the IBCC should not be developed from scratch but the SBCC used as a starting point.There should be a stepwise improvement as more characterisation, evaluation and molecular marker data become available through the GENRES CT95 42 project initially and other evaluation projects of accessions in other genebanks. It was recommended that the improvement of the core collection be considered a dynamic process, which underscores the need for continued communication among curators and gene bank managers.It was noted that little is known about the existence of pedigree data. Some information is perhaps available in the USDA/ARS system. Where it is available, it can be useful in predicting the genetic relationships among accessions representing germplasm that has undergone some level of commercial genetic improvement.L. Frese and L. Panella brought up the important role in the decision making process that the curators knowledge could play in helping to determine entries for a core collection. If still available, knowledge on the breeding history of landraces and early open-pollinated varieties could also be used. A. Tan reported that, in Turkey, narrative on the local use of germplasm is being collected and documented. This knowledge can be invaluable in the development and improvement of a core collection.The structure of the Beta core collection of the Greek Gene Bank is unknown and will be investigated.The task force recommends that an 'International Beta Core Collection' (IBCC) be developed.L. Panella noted how critical this matter is and suggested that it be discussed during the next ECP/GR Beta working group and World Beta Network meeting. Because seed samples of the international Beta core collection will be maintained in a network of decentralized Beta germplasm holdings, curators of these individual holdings need to guarantee sufficient seed stock, unrestricted access to these entries, and seed shipment within a reasonable time period after receipt of a users request. In addition, a core collection is not expected to remain static over time. Accessions may be removed from or added to the core collection, it is crucial that evaluation data be shared to help in these decisions. For these reasons it is crucial that the genebanks involved be willing to cooperate, and, therefore, one of the first steps needs to be getting agreement from the curators of collections involved that they are willing and able to participate. If they are not, then duplicate samples can be obtained and maintained by one of the other participating genebanks.L. Frese noted that the ECP/GR Beta working group recommended the development of a system of sharing of responsibilities for conservation and suggested that the responsibility for maintenance of core collection entries could be linked to it. He further explained that all SBCC samples have already been earmarked within the IDBB. Therefore, the IDBB can serve as a central technical management tool. Since it is not possible to charge a single institution/genebank with the maintenance and distribution of core collection samples the work load must be shared. L. Panella noted seed multiplication capacity could be found in the USA for such an important project and offered to assist curators in maintaining IBCC accessions.Also noted was that, in some countries, the genus Beta is not a priority species, though the country itself forms an important part of the natural distribution area and is sheltering a high diversity of cultivated and wild types (for instance, the Iberian peninsula and the Canary Islands). How, under such circumstances, maintenance of wild and cultivated germplasm (the international interest) can compete with the national priority crops still remains to be answered.The question of whether we should try to maintain a core collection similar to the barley core collection in parallel to the original collection was raised again. The group voted against this concept since it would reduce variability within core collection entries and would increase maintenance work considerably. Members of the taskforce pointed out that self-pollinated crop species and cross-pollinated species must be handled differently.A quite interesting discussion ensued on the maintenance of core collection entries of sections Corollinae, Nanae and Procumbentes. Of particular interest are the species of section Corollinae and Nanae, which are not at all adapted to the climate in Central Europe or in the USA. If grown in an alien environment, a strong selection pressure might very well favour genotypes most adapted to genebank management practices rather than maintain the population's natural diversity. For these species, in situ management of the species really would complement ex situ management practices (which guarantee ready access to germplasm for research purposes).To underline the importance and function of in situ management programmes it was suggested to add a database module for in situ managed populations / sites of Corollinae, Nanae and Procumbentes species to the IDBB, and to earmark the accessions as core collection entries. Hopefully, this would strengthen national in situ programmes because the international user community would stress the concern for genetic resources maintenance and the scientific and economic need for in situ management of species and specific populations. A. Tan supported this idea and recommended using official channels to approach the institutions, local communities, or persons involved in in situ management of Beta species or of sites sustaining Beta populations.The dynamic nature of the core collection requires that functional information exchange mechanisms be established among curators responsible for entries from their national collections that are part of the international synthetic core collection. Data on IBCC entries needs to be provided by national genebanks to the IDBB. Through this focal point, information any user will have access to IBCC seed and the data linked with it. The IDBB and IBCC manager will function as an information and germplasm broker. Through routine inquiries the IDBB/ IBCC manager will update information on seed availability.The taskforce felt that it would be a good idea to backup the entire IBCC as a unit. This should probably be done at two locations because any one location that would act as a backup would also probably have a portion of the collection from their genebank. Lee Panella offer the USDA -ARS National Seed Storage Laboratory as available for backup.• Initiate discussion on the need for in situ management programmes for sections Corollinae, Nanae and Procumbentes. Where possible link existing programmes with the in situ / on farm management of wild and cultivated material of section Beta.• Organise supporting letters from IPGRI and the IIRB and inform co-ordinators of national genetic resources programmes on the need for specific in situ management activities in I. Refer to the GPA and the Bern convention (in the case of Nanae and Procumbentes).• Find a mechanism to help encourage users to return characterisation and evaluation data to national genebanks.• Acquire data from national genebanks and, if appropriate, analyse them together with GENRES CT95 42 data. Exploit data to improve the IBCC.• Provide national genebanks through the national focal points with the complete list of IBCC entries ordered by origin country.• Contact curators of national Beta collections and inform them on the existence and function of the IBCC.• Ask curators whether they are prepared and able to accept maintenance responsibility for IBCC entries.• Inform curators that the number of seed requests for IBCC entries may increase and make sure that the IBCC accessions are maintained using the best practices.• Stress the importance of base and safety duplicate samples.The meeting was closed at 12.30 h.","tokenCount":"3019"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bc8a011bb41e0e353b03a5c4850b54cd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/37a22e79-62c5-43d3-b797-91feebd84e1b/retrieve","id":"-1804009666"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1096dab3-4d3e-47d4-a227-d76020a1089c","pagecount":"40","content":"CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secure future. The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock provides research-based solutions to help smallholder farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists transition to sustainable, resilient livelihoods and to productive enterprises that will help feed future generations. It aims to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world.The Program thanks all donors and organizations who globally supported its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.Crop production and use by the six main crops and farm type Crop residue uses by crop and farm type Livestock production variables by livestock species and farm type Pig breeding variables by farm type Livestock disease incidences by livestock species and farm type Livestock health by livestock species and farm type Use and perception of veterinary services by farm type    Value of production and sales from crops, livestock, and off farm activities Hungry months by proportion of households Foods eaten at least weekly by farm type Female control of production by farm type Histogram of land cultivated (ha) and % of households in Son La Topography of respondents' land by farm type   Proportion of households using different animal feeds by farm type Proportion of households using different forage crops by farm type Feed basket contents by season, livestock species, and farm type The survey responses were grouped into a farm typology with households close to roads and markets, in the valley bottoms with the best soil and most commercialised and intensified classified as farm Type A; those on the valley edges and slopes, who practice more mixed agriculture and are less specialised classified as farm Type B; and those high on the slopes who have poor road access, poorer quality land, and are generally more extensive and subsistence-oriented than the others classified as farm Type C.The survey results revealed that livelihood strategies in Son La relied heavily on crop sales for income, although livestock production also contributed significantly to farm income, especially for Type A farms. Off-farm income usually only represented a relatively small proportion of overall household income among the three farm types. Households across the region reported mild food insecurity, with some small differences among farm types, whereby Type A households were reported to be slightly more food secure than the others, and Type C slightly less food secure than Type B.In terms of gender equality, the general pattern suggested that control over production and ownership of assets is fairly equitable but tends to skew towards male decision making and ownership of land, especially for Type C farms. While most activities were carried out jointly by both sexes, crop planning and animal healthcare were more often undertaken by males, while manure management was undertaken by females.Challenges in soil fertility were reported by more than 85% of the farming households, with most responding that they experienced soil erosion and soil moisture problems. Crop inputs were used by similar proportions of households among the three farm types, except for irrigation water often used in paddy rice systems, which was used by around 30% of households of farm Types A and B, but by only 6% of Type C farming households.Around four agroecological practices were employed by farm Types A and B. Type C farms only employed around 3 of these types of practices.Cropping was diverse in the study site with households growing nine crops on average. There was little variation among farm types in this regard. Crop residues tended to be used more for livestock feed by farm Type A than either of the other two farm types.Livestock species ownership did not tend to differ among farm types, with nearly all farms owning chicken, and around 50% owning cattle and 50% owning pigs. More than twice as many households from Type A owned buffalo compared to Type B and C farms. Income from buffalo production was much higher for Type A farms despite the fact that Type C farms kept around the same number of buffaloes as Type A farms. This suggested that buffalo kept by Type C farms are used for purposes other than commercial sale (eg, draught power).The proportions of households using different sources of forage for their livestock feed baskets tended to be similar, although Type A farms reported the highest proportion of households using cultivated forages (73%). Feed basket composition changed on a seasonal basis with Spring feed being dominated by cultivated forage and Winter feed consisting mainly of crop residues and other feed types. In terms of livestock health, Type A farms tended to have a greater proportion of their livestock free from disease.Overall, gastro-related diseases were reportedly the most common types of diseases across all livestock species. Households from farm Type B tended to use the greatest number of animal health best practices, followed by farm Type A, then farm Type C. Artificial insemination (AI) had never been used by any of the farm types for the breeding of buffalo, chickens, ducks or other poultry, and by only 1% of Type A farms for the breeding of cattle. On the other hand, over 7% of Type A and B farms and 4% of Type C farms had used AI for the breeding of pigs. Li-chăn aims at stimulating system transformation through bundled livestock-based interventions in North-West Vietnam, covering the areas of livelihoods, environment, equity, and market access to benefit highland farming communities.The selected study location is Mai Son district, Son La province, was chosen to represent different challenges and needs in the North-West Highlands of Vietnam. Son La is the largest mountainous province in northern Vietnam with a total area of 1.4 million ha and a total population of 1 million people. The population consists of 12 ethnic groups, comprising 55% Thai, 18% Kinh, 12% H'Mong, 8% Muong and 7% others. The target district, Mai Son, has a diversity of farm types, from grazing and extensive systems at the top of the mountains to intensive farms with strong crop and livestock integration at the bottom of the valleys, with a variety of socio-economic and ecological conditions.In support of the contextual analysis, and the monitoring and evaluation of the Vietnam Livestock country project, a baseline survey (the Rural Household Multi-Indicator Survey -RHoMIS) was conducted. The survey had three main objectives: -to provide a baseline to enable the evaluation of the planned interventions in livestock systems on farm practices and rural livelihoods, -to characterise in detail the rural livelihoods and livestock systems in the target district; and -to aid in the assessment and analysis of the dynamics of livestock production systems in reaction to various shocks.Photo ILRI/Alliance Bioversity-CIAT/Mai Thanh TuLittle kid and his cattle in Mai Son District, Son La Province, Vietnam.Photo Livestock CRP Photovoice/Luong Thi ThuThe sample size for the household survey was determined based on data derived from the CRP Humid Tropics household survey in Son La and Dien Bien provinces conducted in 2014. According to an analysis of minimum detectable difference of this data, a survey design of around eight commune clusters with 50 households per cluster resulted in 95% confidence intervals of around 40-65% of the mean. This resulted in a minimum sample of 400 household surveys.The communes where the surveys were administered were randomly selected from the 21 communes in Mai Son district by assigning a random number to each commune and then ranking the communes by their random number. Due to inaccessibility problems, one commune from Mai Son district (Chieng Noi) was excluded from selection. Households were randomly selected for survey by assigning random numbers to each household and sorting by these random numbers within each commune. To participate in the survey, it was deemed necessary that the household be engaged in farming activities and own a large ruminant or pig. As such, in the instance that the household did not meet these criteria, a household from a replacement list was used instead.The questionnaire was based on the RHoMIS core version 1.6 (see www.rhomis.org), with additional and bespoke modules added for livestock feeding, health, and breeding, as well as ecological landscape management, and uptake interventions promoted by the Li-chăn project. The survey was translated into Vietnamese, and implemented by a team of trained enumerators using the android-based open data kit (ODK) software.All data preparation and analysis was conducted in using R language (version 4.0.4) and the RStudio environment (version 1.4.1103). Data and analysis scripts have been archived and are available on request. The meaning and calculation procedure for core indicators are shown in Table 1. The number of members of the household.The number of members of the household in terms of male adult equivalent (MAE). The number of individuals within each age and sex category are multiplied by their associated coefficient. For example, if the caloric demand of an adult males is 2,500 kCal per day, the coefficient is 1. If the caloric demand of an adult female is 2,200 kCal per day, the coefficient is 0.86.Land Cultivated (ha) The total area of land cultivated by the household.The total livestock holdings in terms of tropical livestock units (TLU). Calculated by multiplying the number of heads of livestock by their TLU coefficients and adding all together. The TLU scale is pegged to the mass of one adult cow. For example, one chicken is 0.01 TLU. If a household has five chickens and no other livestock, their livestock holdings will be 0.05 TLU.The score of the household on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, measured on a scale of 0-8, where 8 indicates the most severe experience of food shortages, and 0 indicates no shortages.Lean months (count)The number of months in which the respondent states there were shortages of food. HDDS (flush season) (0-10) Household dietary diversity score during the a month of the year when there was the most food available. The score range is 1 to 10, where each point represents consumption of one food group at least weekly. The ten food groups are defined in the guidelines for the Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women indicator.Household dietary diversity score during the a month of the year when there was the least food available. The score range is 1 to 10, where each point represents consumption of one food group at least weekly. The ten food groups are defined in the guidelines for the Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women indicator.The total value of activities (TVA) in US Dollars per male adult equivalent (MAE) per day. This is calculated by taking sum of annual incomes from farm sales, off farm work, and the value of farm produce consumed, divided by 365, and then divided by the household size in MAE.Cash Income ($/MAE/day) Total cash income for the household in US Dollars per male adult equivalent (MAE) per day. This is calculated by taking sum of annual incomes from farm sales and off farm work, divided by 365, and then divided by the household size in MAE.($/hh/year)The total cash income from off farm activities, in US Dollars per male adult equivalent (MAE) per day. This is based on the question: 'what proportion of your income comes from off-farm sources', with binned responses possible (none=0%, little=10%, under half=20%, half=50%, most=70%, all=90%). The off farm income is therefore: off farm income = prop*(farm income/(100-prop)).Crop Production Value ($/hh/year)The annual total value of household crop production in US Dollars per household. This is the sum of the income from all crops and value of all crops consumed at local market prices.Crop Sold Value ($/hh/year)The annual total value of household crops sold in US Dollars per household.Crop Consumed Value ($/hh/year)The annual total value of household crops consumed in US Dollars per household, at local market prices.Value ($/hh/year)The annual total value of household livestock production in US Dollars per household. This is the sum of the income from all livestock products and the value of all livestock products consumed at local market prices.Livestock Products Sold Value ($/hh/year)The annual total value of household livestock products sold in US Dollars per household. This includes live sales, sales of meat, eggs, milk, or dairy produce.($/hh/year)The annual total value of household livestock products consumed in US Dollars per household, at local market prices. This includes consumption of meat, eggs, milk, or dairy produce.The kCal potentially available to each household member per day (measured in MAE).There are two main portions of this calculation. The first is the calories consumed directly from self-produced food. The second is the calories which could be acquired through the cash incomes generated. These are quantified according to local market prices for staple crops.The proportion of farm produce which is sold, where the 'amount' of farm produce is measured in cash value, not mass.A count of the number of discrete sources of cash income reported within the last 12 months.The proportion of the total value of activities (TVA) which is controlled by a female in the household. For each farm product or income stream, a question is asked regarding who in the household decides on consumption or spending. Through this it is possible to determine the proportion of total value controlled by males or females.Based on consultations with partner organisations and early assessments of the local context, three farm types were identified according to their accessibility to roads and markets. Households closest to roads and markets, in the valley bottoms with the best soil and most commercialised and intensified were classified as Type A households. Households on the valley edges and slopes, who practiced more mixed agriculture and were less specialised were classified as Type B households.Finally, those households high on the slopes who had poor road access, poorer quality land, and were generally more extensive and subsistence-oriented than the others were classified as Type C households. Full criteria are listed in the appendix.The 175 villages within the ten communes were each categorised according to this typology, whereby all households from that village were designated as the same farm type. The majority of households interviewed were Type A or Type B (see Table 2). The typology groupings were not spread evenly between the communes, which reflects the geographic differences between the study locations (see Figure 1).   Household interviews were carried out in Mai Son District, Son La Province, North-West Vietnam between 11 February and 23 March 2020. Six hundred and twentytwo interviews were collected across 175 villages in ten communes (Figure 2). The communes were: Nà Ớt, Chiềng Kheo, Mường Bon, Xã Hát Lót, Chiềng Mai, Mường Bằng, Cò Nòi, Chiềng Chung, Chiềng Lương, and Chiềng Chăn.The communes where the surveys were administered were randomly selected from the 21 communes in Mai Son district by assigning a random number to each commune and then ranking the communes by their random number. Due to inaccessibility problems, one commune from Mai Son district (Chieng Noi) was excluded from selection. Households were randomly selected for survey by assigning random numbers to each household and sorting by these random numbers within each commune. To participate in the survey, it was deemed necessary that the household be engaged in farming activities and own a large ruminant or pig. As such, in the instance that the household did not meet these criteria, a household from a replacement list was used instead.About two thirds of the respondents were male, and about two thirds of the respondents self-identified as a household head (the remainder were mainly spouse of head). According to the enumerator evaluation of responses on survey implementation (reliability and rapport), it seemed to go well. The survey duration averaged 48 minutes, which is within the expected duration for the questionnaire (Table 3). The bar charts of Figure 3 show the total value of households' income and agricultural production. The height of each bar represents the total value in terms of USD per male adult equivalent per day. The colours within the bars show where that income or value came from: crops which were consumed, crops which were sold, livestock produce that was consumed, livestock produce that was sold, or paid off-farm activities. Note that due to the differing number of interviews in each farm type, there are differing numbers of vertical bars, as each bar represents one household. Type A were indeed the wealthiest in terms of income, followed by type B, followed by type C. The differences were not huge however.Most households produced a basic quantity of crops for consumption (green), and relied heavily on crop sales for income (blue). Most households also kept livestock, and consumed some of their livestock produce (orange).Type A derived more value from livestock sales (red) than the other farm types. Type C appeared to generate less value from livestock production compared to the others, which implies a combination of lower livestock ownership and/or lower livestock productivity.Many households also earned off-farm incomes, but these were generally supplemental rather than forming a major component of livelihoods.Assets and incomes per farm type are summarised in Table 4. Farm size was pretty similar between the types. Livestock ownership was higher for farm Type A compared to the others. The total value of all farm produce, and the actual cash incomes, were highest for Type A, followed by Type B, and then Type C. Value of crop production was highest for Type A, followed by Type B and then Type C. Livestock production value was also higher for Type A, and then Type B and C earned similar values from livestock. Farm Types C and A earned the most from off-farm income, and farm Type B earned considerably less from off-farm activities. In terms of market orientation, Types A and B sold about two thirds of their produce, whereas Type C sold about half of their produce. All farm types had around three sources of cash income on average.Overall, these results show that Type A appears to have higher incomes, more intensified crop production, and more livestock production, probably due to both more ownership of livestock and greater intensification. All farm types were engaged in sales of produce to markets, although Type C was less engaged with markets than the others. Type C appeared to be generally poorer and less intensified, and despite further distance to towns and roads, were often engaged in off-farm work, which suggests a need to supplement farm incomes. Type B were somewhere in between these two, generally relying on farm production and sales, but were not as productive as Type A. There appeared to be mild food insecurity in the study area. Type A was slightly more food secure than the others, Type C slightly less food secure, and Type B in the middle. March, April and May were the leaner months in terms of food availability (Figure 4). Table 5 presents food security indicators. On the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), households reported mild food insecurity (scoring 1 or 2 out of a possible 8, where a higher number indicates more experience of hunger). On the household dietary diversity score (HDDS), there was some small difference between the flush and lean seasons, but it was not great. Households generally scored about 5 out of a possible 10, where each point represents weekly consumption of a specific food group. This suggests a nutritionally adequate but not plentiful diet. In terms of the potential calorie availability if all incomes were used to purchase food, and all farm products consumed, households appear to be well able to meet their basic calorie demands.    The actual food groups consumed are shown in Figure 5. The food groups consumed were fairly similar between the farm types, with very frequent consumption of grains, leafy vegetables, and meat. Fruits, eggs, and other vegetables were also often consumed. Legumes, nuts and seeds, and vitamin A rich fruits and vegetables were consumed less frequently. Farm Type C consumed slightly less animal sourced foods than the others. Farm type B consumed more vegetables and fruits of all varieties, perhaps suggesting a culture of kitchen gardens or horticulture.Gender issues were assessed through three sets of questions: decision making overspending of incomes and use of farm products (termed \"control of production\"); through assessment of ownership of productive assets such as land and livestock; and through engagement in farming activities.Figure 6 shows the female control of production for each farm type. The general pattern was that a bit over half of households reported fairly equitable levels of control, and a bit less than half of households reported control heavily skewed towards male decision making. These two distinct groupings regarding control of production were evident in each farm type, although there was slightly more male domination in type C compared to the others. A small minority of households reported very high levels of female control of production, these are typically single female-headed households (about 5% of the study population).Table 6 shows ownership of assets, for each farm type and each of the two sexes. Joint ownership was possible and in that case both male and female ownership was recorded. Livestock were jointly owned in almost all cases, with some exceptions amongst Type C, where males more commonly owned cattle, pigs, and chicken compared to females. Land ownership was however more clearly male dominated, with twice as much male land ownership compared to female. Again, there was a slightly larger male bias amongst farm type C compared to the others.  Table 7 shows female and male contributions to farming activities. The values represent the proportion of households who report males and/or females taking part in each activity. Most activities were carried out jointly by both sexes, although there were a few notable exceptions. Crop planning and animal healthcare were more often undertaken by males and not by females. Females more often undertook manure management than males (at least for farm types A and C).Photo ILRI/Alliance Bioversity-CIAT/Mai Thanh TuWomen and their buffaloes in Mon village, Chieng Luong commune.Almost all households owned the land they farmed (>95% of housheolds in each farm type). About 10% of households in each farm type rented extra land for agricutlural use, and about 10% of households reported using communal land (Table 8).Farms were generally about one hectare in size, and rarely larger than three hectares. Farm type C more commonly had larger farms comapred to the other farm types. The land are distrubutions are show in Figure 7.The topography of the land varied between the farm types (Figure 8). Farm Types A and B typically had access to both flat and sloping land, whereas far fewer Type C households had access to flat land. This influences the types of crops which can be grown, and increases the labour requirement for cropping.Land management practices such as soil or water conservation measures, integration of livestock-croptrees, and recycling of biomass are reported in Table 9. On average, a household in Farm Type A or B used four agroecologically sound practices, and households in Farm Type 3 used three agro-ecological practices (Figure 9). The most frequently used practices were returning of crop residues to soils, application of manures to soils, feeding of crop residues to animals, cut off drains and minimum till. There was more scope for integration of trees, use of legumes for soil fertility, and anti-soil erosion measures. It should be noted that almost all households applied chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Despite all these practices, almost all households reported that they perceived problems due to limited soil moisture, soil fertility and soil erosion.  Cropping was fairly diverse, with households on average growing nine crops, and in some cases even up to around twenty different crops. There was not much difference between the farm types in this regard. The frequency with which crops were grown is shown in Figure 10 below, for each farm type. The major crops were rice (either irrigated of rain fed), maize, sugar cane (mainly for Farm Type A), and coffee (mainly for Farm Types B and C). Rice was mainly consumed in the home, maize was mainly sold, and coffee and sugar cane were almost exclusively sold (see Table 10).Longan and Mango were also reported as important crops by a minority of households. The other cropsmostly fruits and vegetables -were not considered central to the household economies, but presumably supplemented diets.  Table 11 describes how the different farm types managed their crop residues by the different crops. Type A farms tended to use crop residues more for feed than either farm Type B or farm Type C, which was that farm type that used crop residues least for animal feed. Rice crop residues was the crop used most for livestock feed, being used by over 50% of Type A farms as livestock feed. Maize was more commonly burned by Type A farms (40%), but was also commonly incorporated directly back into the soils by all farm types (between 16-29% of HHs). Survey respondents generally considered that they did nothing with coffee crop residues suggesting that farmers did not perceive much value in the residue of these crops. Sugar cane crop residue was more commonly either burned or used as livestock feed across all farm types, although a smaller proportion of farms also incorporated these residues directly back into the soil. Other uses of crop residues (e.g. composting, sale, use as a fuel) were not common. Often respondents said they did \"nothing\" with the residues, which is not entirely logical, but explains why some residues do not appear to be utilised. Table 12 provides more detail with regard to livestock ownership and production purpose. Most income generated from livestock was derived through cattle production and sales, milk production was not an objective for these smallholder farmers. Income from buffalo production was much higher for Type A farms ($257 year-1) compared to Type B and Type C farms ($23 year-1 and $0 year-1 respectively). This was in spite of the fact that Type C farms kept around the same number of buffaloes (2) as Type A and B farms. This suggests that the buffalo kept by Type C farms are used for purposes other than commercial sale (e.g. draught power), as borne out by the figures for buffalo sales, which were higher for Type A and B farms (0.63 and 0.43 respectively) than Type C farms (0.17). This also explains why more Type A and B farms reared improved buffalo breeds (5 and 4% respectively) compared to Type C farms (2%). The other main source of income from livestock production came from pigs with Type A farms again generating most income ($173 year-1) compared to Type B ($156 year-1) and C ($101 year-1) farms.  As can be viewed in the Figure 12, the proportions of households using different sources of forage for their livestock feed baskets tended to be similar for each of the farm types, with crop residues, cultivated forage, and gathered forages being used by around 50% or more households. Type A farms exhibited the highest proportion of households using cultivated forages (73%), while 59% of Type B farms used cultivated forages, and 65% of Type C farms. Grazing practices were also used as part of the feed basket by all farm types, with fewer Type A farms using grazing (34%) compared to Types B (49%) and C (43%).Households from Type A and C farms reported experiencing peaks in insufficient grazing for cattle during the months of February-April (up to 16% of households), while the peak months for insufficient grazing for Type B farms extended from December-April. Type A and B farms reported purchasing cattle feed throughout the year with a greater proportion of households purchasing cattle feed from December-April. Much fewer households from Type C farms reported purchasing cattle feed. No households from this farm type reported the purchase of cattle feed during the months of April or from June-December.Respondents were asked which crops they cultivated for forage purposes. Napier grass accounted for the most popular cultivated forage species accounting for between 50-65% of households, being cultivated slightly more by Type A farms (around 65%). Banana and maize were also widely reported (Figure 13). Although these are not primarily forage crops, it underlines the importance respondents place on multi-functionality of crops. Type C farms dedicated more land area to forage crop cultivation (0.23 ha) compared to Type A (0.16 ha) and C (0.14 ha) farms.In Figure 14, the feed baskets for cattle and buffalo are presented by season and farm type. Overall, both cattle and buffalo receive similar feed baskets by farm type and season, with the exception of buffalo kept by Farm Type C, which use less gathered forage and grazing for their buffalo. Spring feed is dominated by cultivated forage across farm types with 50% or more of the feed basket of households consisting of cultivated forage.In the winter, the feed basket tends to consist mainly of crop residues and other feed types. Artificial insemination (AI) had never been used by any of the farm types for the breeding of buffalo, chickens, ducks or other poultry, and by only 1% of Type A farms for the breeding of cattle. On the other hand, as seen in the Table 13, over 7% of Type A and B farms and 4% of Type C farms had used AI for the breeding of pigs. According to respondents, between 4-5% of pigs bred over the last 12 months were conceived using AI. The AI community scheme accounted for between 1-2% of total pig breeding. 9.0 4.6 3.9Overall proportion of pigs bred using AI (%)7.4 7.6 3.9Proportion of pigs bred with AI community scheme (%)2.1 0.9 2.0Table 14 presents the incidence of different disease types among livestock among the three farm types. Type A farms tended to have a greater proportion of their livestock free from disease, in particular with respect to cattle (78%), buffalo (77%), pigs (73%), and chickens (33%). This contrasted with farm type B households, which had fewer households reporting that their livestock remained free from disease (57% cattle, 65% buffalo, 39% pigs, 14% chicken). Overall, gastro-related diseases were reportedly the most common types of diseases across all livestock species.  According to respondents there were not large differences in proportions of livestock vaccinated among the farm types (Table 15). Cattle and buffalo tended to be the most vaccinated livestock species. Up to around 80% of cattle and buffalo were vaccinated across farm types. The proportion of goats, pigs, and chicken vaccinated were much lower, perhaps reflecting their economic value, ranging from around 20-45%.  Vet uses per year (count)2.3 2.0 2.0Biosecurity count in Table 16 denotes the number of best practices used by households and promoted as part of the intervention projects (deworming, fencing, footbaths, record keeping, and improved handling of sick animals). Households from farm Type B scored highest in terms of biosecurity score, followed by farm Type A, then farm Type C. A greater proportion of Type A farms used veterinary services (72%) compared to Type B (63%) and C (55%) farms. The perceived quality of public and private vets overall was positive. However, Type C farms households' perception of quality of public vets tended to be higher than their perception of quality of private vets.As viewed in the figures below, African Swine Fever (ASF) was first observed in Vietnam in February 2019. Around 70% of respondents to the household survey had heard of the disease, and 60% indicated that the disease had already affected livestock in their community, although around 90% indicated that their livestock herd had not been affected. Of those that had pigs infected, the majority did not cull their pigs (Figure 16).   verall, farm types tended to rely on crop sales for the majority of their income, however, livestock production was also an important income source, especially for Type A households. Off-farm income usually only represented a small proportion of total household income. Food insecurity in the region was mild, with Type A farms reportedly more food secure than the other farm types.In terms of gender equality, while overall there appeared to be a fairly equitable share in control of production and ownership of assets, there was a slight skew towards male decision-making and ownership of land, especially for Type C farms. With high levels of perceived fertility problems due to erosion and lack of soil moisture across all farms, the proportion of households from each farm type using agricultural inputs was similar, except for irrigation water which was less accessible to Type C farms. Type C farms also used, on average, one fewer agroecological techniques to enhance soil fertility (3), than farm Types A and B (4).Cropping practices were diverse across all farm types, with an average of nine crops being cultivated per household. Nearly all households owned chickens and around 50% owned cattle and pigs. However, more than twice as many households from Type A owned buffalo compared to Type B and C farms. The proportions of households using different sources of forage for their livestock feed baskets tended to be similar, although Type A farms reported the highest proportion of households using cultivated forages and crop residues.Feed basket composition changed on a seasonal basis with Spring feed being dominated by cultivated forage and Winter feed consisting mainly of crop residues and other feed types. In terms of livestock health, Type A farms tended to have a greater proportion of their livestock free from disease. Households from farm Type B tended to use the greatest number of animal health best practices, followed by farm Type A, then farm Type C. Seven percent of Type A and B farms and 4% of Type C farms had used artificial insemination for the breeding of pigs. This household survey highlights several entry points to stimulate system transformation through bundled livestock-based interventions in Mai Son district.On the genetics side, breed quality should be improved for both cattle and pigs for all farm types. This could be achieved by improving farmers knowledge on breed selection, increasing access to AI services for cattle, and increasing the capacity of farmers to perform AI for pigs. Farmers should be encouraged to use improved practices to handle animal diseases, from vaccines to basic biosecurity measures and handling of sick animals, especially type C households.In terms of animal feeding, all households would benefit from the introduction of cultivated forages in their production system, and from feed conservation techniques for the winter time. Recycling of cropresidues and animal manure should be encouraged further, especially again for type C households who are less familiar with these practices. Although soil fertility decline and erosion were reported as critical, soil conservation measures are not widespread and should be promoted in the region. Residues burning should be particularly avoided.Finally, there is scope for the development of specialized livestock products, especially for type A households who have already a bit more experience with livestock sales and a better connection to markets. This survey targeted one type of actors, the farmers. Future activities and interventions will need to also assess the needs and priorities of other actors of the sector: service providers, extension services and local authorities. Their support and involvement will be essential to ensure successful improvement of livelihoods and the environment in Mai Son district.This appendix shows the information on which the village-level typology classifcation was based. Each table relates to one commune. ","tokenCount":"5860"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d77a7b6e809c28bff69e9cd9d4b8756a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/47ca1d4d-aa82-4b09-8a5b-eb67cf18d050/content","id":"1724721819"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"afb22042-feab-4bab-83bf-80b42353ec99","pagecount":"15","content":"Note: Throughout the chapter, we discuss host plant resistance to FAW using maize as an example, since considerable work has been done on maize. However, the principles of host plant resistance remain the same in other major crops (e.g., sorghum, millets) affected by FAW.Host plant resistance, in the context of resistance to insect pests, was originally defined as \"the collective heritable characteristics by which a plant species may reduce the probability of successful utilization of that plant as a host by an insect species\" (Beck 1965). It is indeed a central component of the integrated pest management (IPM) strategy to control the fall armyworm (FAW) (Prasanna et al. 2018), and comprises:• Native genetic resistance: Identifying/developing germplasm with resistance to an insect pest; and• Transgenic resistance: Using a gene (or genes) from an external source(s) (other than the recipient plant species) to make the host plant resistant to an insect pest.FAW-tolerant/resistant varieties, whether derived through native genetic resistance or through a transgenic approach, provide a practical and economical way to minimize crop losses due to the pest. Improved maize varieties with genetic resistance to FAW will effectively complement other IPM interventions (Riggin et al. 1992(Riggin et al. , 1994)). Seed-based technologies such as host plant resistance are not only easily disseminated and readily adopted by farmers due to their visible benefits, but will also require far fewer applications of pesticides than FAW-susceptible varieties, thus saving smallholder farmers resources (financial and labor), while mitigating negative environmental impact.When designing a breeding strategy to introduce FAW resistance traits into elite maize germplasm, breeders should consider not only the source and strength of FAW resistance, but also the potential durability of resistance over time. Insect pests such as FAW can evolve to overcome monogenic (based on a single gene) or oligogenic (based on a few genes) resistance, as has been demonstrated particularly in transgenic crop varieties (Huang et al. 2014). Breeding for insect-pest resistance is, therefore, a continuous process, with no \"finish line\" to the perpetual race between the host and the evolving pest. As a general principle, breeding programs should seek to identify, utilize, and ultimately combine multiple resistance traits-whether conventional or, where approved for use, transgenic, to improve the durability of host plant resistance (Prasanna et al. 2018). Prasanna et al. (2018) presented a comprehensive review of host plant resistance to FAW, especially in maize (FAW IPM Guide For Africa). This included information on potential sources of resistance to FAW in maize germplasm identified or developed earlier by maize breeding programs in the Americas, and detailed protocols for (a) mass rearing of FAW and (b) screening germplasm under artificial and natural FAW infestation. These will not be repeated in this chapter. Here we will (a) provide an update on progress with regard to breeding for native genetic resistance to FAW in maize; (b) highlight the status with regard to deployment of genetically modified (GM) maize (specifically Bt maize) in Asia for the control of FAW, and the need for implementing a well-coordinated insect resistance management (IRM) strategy in Asia; and (c) suggest possible next steps for making host plant resistance an integral component of an IPM-based strategy for sustainable management of FAW in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Asia.2. Breeding for Native Genetic Resistance to FAWThe International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has a wealth of diverse genetic resources in maize, including improved germplasm for an array of traits (e.g., high yield, drought tolerance, heat tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, disease resistance, etc.) relevant for smallholders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In addition, the maize germplasm bank at CIMMYT-Mexico (https:// www.genebanks.org/genebanks/cimmyt/) holds over 28,000 accessions that provide a rich platform for identifying genetic resources for client-preferred traits. Throughout the 1970s to 1990s, research conducted at CIMMYT in Mexico (Mihm 1997) revealed that there is genetic variation and potential to support breeding for native genetic resistance to FAW insect-pests of maize, including stem borers, FAW, and post-harvest pests (weevils and large grain borer).The work done at CIMMYT-Mexico led to development of two major populations-Multiple Insect Resistant Tropical (MIRT) and Multiple Borer Resistant (MBR)-that served as the foundation for deriving improved tropical/subtropical maize inbred lines with at least partial resistance to FAW. CIMMYT's insect-resistant maize populations were derived primarily from the Caribbean maize germplasm and Tuxpeño landrace accessions from Mexico (Mihm 1997). Most native resistance in maize to FAW is polygenic (based on multiple genes) and quantitative in nature, conferring \"partial resistance\". The quantitative or polygenic nature of native genetic resistance also offers the opportunity to minimize selection pressure on FAW and prevents emergence of new resistant strains.CIMMYT and partners in Africa have utilized the insect-resistant maize populations and inbred lines from Mexico and developed elite maize germplasm with resistance to other lepidopteran stem borer pests, including the European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis Hbn.), the African stem borer (Busseola fusca Fuller), and the spotted stem borer (Chilo partellus Swinhoe) (Beyene et al. 2012;Murenga et al. 2015;Tefera et al. 2016a,b). Some of these insect-resistant materials have the potential to offer resistance against FAW, which is also a lepidopteran pest.The CIMMYT team, together with the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), adopted and further optimized the USDA-ARS-based FAW mass-rearing protocol at KALRO-Katumani, for a steady supply of neonate larvae for artificial infestation of maize germplasm in screenhouses. This is important for identifying reliable sources of resistance to the pest. A colony of FAW was established and maintained at KALRO Insectary at Katumani, Kenya, on artificial diet as described by Prasanna et al. (2018). The larvae and pupae were originally collected from Kiboko (02°21'S, 037°70'E, 945 m.a.s.l.) and Machakos (01°57'S, 027°25'E, 1568 m.a.s.l.) in the eastern part of Kenya. The FAW rearing facility at the Katumani Center has the capacity to supply 500,000-800,000 neonates per year, which are used for germplasm screening experiments under artificial infestation at Kiboko, Kenya.A screenhouse complex (with 13 screenhouses, each 1000 m 2 ) was established by CIMMYT at KALRO Research Center at Kiboko, Kenya, in 2017-2018, for intensive screening of maize germplasm against FAW under artificial infestation (Figure 1), and for identifying and developing promising FAW-tolerant inbred lines and hybrids. Each screenhouse can accommodate 245 maize rows of 3 m length. Similar screenhouse facilities are being established by CIMMYT at Hyderabad, India. The neonates produced in the laboratory are used for artificial infestation of maize plants in the screenhouse. To infest a plant, a camel-hair brush is used to pick the neonates from a container and put them in different nodes of maize plants to avoid cannibalism (Figure 2) (Prasanna et al. 2018).Infestation is carried out either early in the morning (7-9 am) or in the evening (4-6 pm) to allow the neonates to acclimatize to the environment since sudden changes of conditions may desiccate the neonates, especially if infestation is done during dry, hot conditions. Based on optimization experiments, the CIMMYT team at Kiboko, Kenya, typically uses five (5) neonates for infesting inbred lines at the V5 stage (three weeks after planting), and seven (7) neonates for infesting hybrids at the V3 stage (two weeks after planting).Data recording: When identifying germplasm with native genetic resistance to FAW, it is important to consider not only the foliar damage score but also the ear damage score, as FAW larvae can cause significant ear/kernel damage by burrowing into the developing ears. CIMMYT uses a 1-9 scale (Prasanna et al. 2018), which is a modification of the Davis et al. (1992) 0-9 scale, for assessing maize germplasm against FAW under artificial infestation for the foliar damage. At physiological maturity (harvest), the CIMMYT team also assesses the ear damage of the maize germplasm due to FAW on a 1-9 scale, as described by Prasanna et al. (2018).In addition, other parameters including percentage ear rot and number of exit holes per ear, are also recorded. The average score of foliar and ear damage rating, besides grain yield and other parameters are considered for final rating of the germplasm.Starting in 2017, the CIMMYT maize breeding program in Kenya implemented intensive efforts to identify and develop maize germplasm with tolerance/resistance to FAW. FAW-tolerant maize germplasm developed earlier at CIMMYT-Mexico as well as inbred lines, open-pollinated varieties (OPVs), and hybrids developed by CIMMYT in Africa through the Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) project were some of those that were screened. Between 2017 and 2020, over 6,000 maize genotypes, including 3,000 inbred lines and 3,000 hybrids/OPVs from diverse sources were screened under artificial FAW infestation in the screenhouse complex at Kiboko. The work has led to identification of some promising FAW-tolerant/resistant* inbred lines, especially from the MBR and MIRT germplasm backgrounds, with low foliar and ear damage scores.The FAW-tolerant/resistant CIMMYT maize inbred lines include CML71, CML124, CML125, CML338, CML333, CML334, CML338, CML370, CML372, and CML574. Since 2018, FAW-tolerant/ resistant CIMMYT Maize Lines (CMLs) have been disseminated to 92 institutions in 34 countries globally, including an array of National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES), advanced research institutes (ARIs) and commercial seed companies (Table 1). The FAW-tolerant/  * In the context of insect pests, \"resistance\" is the capacity to minimize the damage through mechanisms such as antibiosis and/ or antixenosis, while \"tolerance\" is the ability to restrict the economic damage even in the presence of the pest (outside/inside the host). Resistance to an insect pest, thus, may involve a combination of antibiosis, antixenosis, and/or tolerance (Painter 1958).Earlier studies evaluating FAW-resistant maize germplasm showed that the mechanisms contributing to native genetic resistance in these materials could be quite varied: for example, some lines showed higher levels of metabolites such as silk maysin and terpenoids, while some lines have morphological traits (e.g., very tight husk cover) that minimize the ear damage by FAW. As of now, we do not have firm evidence whether the promising inbreds/hybrids developed recently at CIMMYT can be considered as \"resistant/tolerant\" to FAW, as we still do not know the underlying mechanisms; this requires further studies. Therefore, in this chapter, we have used the term \"FAW-tolerant/resistant hybrids\".resistant CMLs can be potentially utilized as trait donors in breeding programs of partner institutions that are aiming to develop FAW-tolerant maize cultivars suitable for local environments. These CMLs can be sourced through a Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) from CIMMYT Genebank at Mexico. Several national maize breeding programs in Africa and Asia have initiated breeding programs for development of FAW-tolerant cultivars (e.g., Matova et al. 2020;Kasoma et al. 2020), especially utilizing sources of native genetic resistance developed and disseminated by CIMMYT.Besides the promising CMLs mentioned above, the CIMMYT team in Africa has also identified over the last two years several promising inbred lines (materials under development) in both yellow-and white-kernel backgrounds, with tolerance/resistance to FAW for both foliar and ear damage as well as combining ability for grain yield under FAW artificial infestation. For example, based on the data from germplasm screening during 2017-2018, several crosses were made among the promising FAW-tolerant/resistant lines, from which progenies were selected and intercrossed to increase the frequency of favorable resistance alleles. Doubled haploid (DH) lines were developed from F1, F2, and backcross (BC) source populations that showed promising levels of resistance to FAW. In 2019-20, a total of 2733 DH lines were produced from different source populations. In 2020, a set of 1400 DH lines were screened against FAW under artificial infestation at Kiboko (Figure 3), leading to identification of new lines with resistance to FAW. Such lines are being used to make new single-cross and three-way hybrids for further evaluation in 2021 and beyond. In 2019, 88 three-way hybrids showed genetic variation for grain yield under various conditions and FAW damage parameters. Hybrids with MBR and MIRT backgrounds were among those that showed a combination of low ear damage and good grain yield across various conditions. In 2019-2020, over 500 hybrids, including single-and three-way crosses, were tested across different management conditions, including screening at Kiboko under artificial FAW infestation. Stage-gate advancement of promising maize hybrids with native genetic resistance is implemented by considering both foliar damage and ear damage scores below specific thresholds (≤5.0 and <3.0 Davis scores, respectively), in addition to significantly higher grain yield than the FAW-susceptible commercial checks. On average, the FAW-tolerant pre-commercial maize hybrids produced 47% to 77% higher grain yield than the FAW-susceptible commercial checks. Based on the results of on-station screenhouse trials against FAW (under artificial infestation) conducted at Kiboko during 2017-2019, the CIMMYT maize team in Africa further evaluated in 2020 a set of eight promising white-grained hybrids (four early-maturing and four intermediate-maturing) against four widely used commercial hybrids (two early-and two intermediate-maturing) as checks under different management conditions. The experimental conditions and the main findings are summarized below:• \"No-choice\" trial under FAW artificial infestation in screenhouses in Kiboko, Kenya: Each entry was planted in 40 rows in a separate screenhouse compartment (\"no-choice\"), and each plant infested with seven FAW neonates 14 days after planting. Foliar damage was assessed 7, 14, and 21 days after infestation. Ear damage due to FAW in each plot was also recorded, in addition to grain yield and other agronomic parameters. Significant differences were observed between three FAW-tolerant hybrids (FAWTH2001, FAWTH2002, FAWTH2003) and the commercial benchmark hybrid checks at the vegetative and grain-filling stages and at harvest (Figure 4). In the FAW artificial infestation trial, the three FAWTH hybrids yielded 7.05 to 8.59 t/ha while the commercial checks yielded 0.94 to 1.03 t/ha.• On-station trials in East Africa: The trials, including the eight test entries and four commercial checks, were conducted at six locations in Kenya during the maize cropping season in 2020. The purpose of these regional trials was to collect data on agronomic performance across a range of environments. Entries were evaluated for their performance under managed drought stress, managed low-nitrogen stress, and artificial inoculation for Turcicum leaf blight (TLB) and Gray leaf spot (GLS) diseases. The three-way cross CIMMYT test hybrids and their parents were also characterized on-station for their seed production characteristics, including maximum flowering time difference between parents and singlecross female parent seed yield. In addition to the above, the eight test entries with FAW tolerance were also evaluated in regional on-station trials (comprising a total of 58 entries) at 28 locations in Kenya and Tanzania. No significant differences were observed between the three selected FAWTH hybrids and the commercial checks for grain yield and other important traits evaluated under optimum conditions, managed drought stress, low-nitrogen stress, and TLB and GLS disease pressure. The three selected FAWTH hybrids recorded excellent synchrony in terms of flowering between the female and male parents, and very good female parent seed yield.• On-farm trials in Kenya: The eight test hybrids and four commercial checks were evaluated under farmers' management conditions (without any insecticide spray) at 16 on-farm sites in Kenya. Each entry was planted in 20-row plots, and data were recorded on natural FAW infestation. Foliar damage was assessed 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 days after germination together with insect incidence. Ear damage and percent ear damage were also recorded, as well as grain yield and other agronomic parameters. There were significant differences in terms of foliar damage ratings between the FAWTH hybrids and the commercial checks. For ear damage, the differences were not statistically significant. The grain yields did not vary significantly under natural infestation in the on-farm trials because of the very low incidence of FAW at most sites.Based on the stage-gate advancement process, including rigorous review of the complete set of onstation and on-farm trial data (described below), the three promising FAW-tolerant elite maize hybrids (FAWTH2001, FAWTH2002, FAWTH2003) were announced by CIMMYT in December 2020 (https:// www.cimmyt.org/news/announcing-cimmyt-derived-fall-armyworm-tolerant-elite-maize-hybrids-foreastern-and-southern-africa/) for partners, especially in SSA.Note: Native genetic resistance to FAW in maize is partial, though quite significant in terms of yield protection under severe FAW infestation, as compared to the susceptible commercial checks. Sustainable control of FAW is best achieved when farmers use host plant resistance as part of an IPM program, including good agricultural practices, pest scouting (Chapter 2), and judicious use of saferuse pesticides (Chapter 3) only when needed to encourage conservation biological control.Considering the importance of FAW as an emerging major pest of maize in West Africa, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) began screening genotypes under naturally occurring FAW infestation in 2016, and later under artificial infestation with FAW larvae, to identify tolerant synthetics, hybrids, and inbred lines from existing adapted germplasm. Among the 365 yellow and 212 white lines screened at IITA, 13 yellow and 20 white lines exhibited minimal damage symptoms and had well-filled ears under severe natural infestation. As cyclical/recurrent breeding methods have been used to accumulate desirable genes for resistance to FAW (Welcker 1993;Welcker et al. 1997), equal quantities of seeds of the self-pollinated ears from each of the white and yellow lines were used to form balanced bulks, which were planted to form a white synthetic (AWSYN-W) and a yellow (AWSYN-Y) synthetic. After one generation of recombination, the two synthetics were improved using an S1 selection scheme under artificial infestation with FAW larvae.A modest FAW rearing facility has also been established at IITA for artificial infestation and has been further upgraded with support from the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Research Program MAIZE to enable screening large numbers of inbred lines under artificial infestation. The IITA maize team has screened more than 20 stress-tolerant and provitamin A-enriched synthetics, about 60 drought-tolerant and Striga-resistant hybrids being tested in regional trials, and more than 200 advanced stress-tolerant maize inbred lines, all under FAW natural infestation in the screenhouse. Some promising synthetics and hybrids were tested in multiple locations under natural FAW infestation to confirm their performance. These materials are suitable candidates for extensive field testing under both natural and artificial infestation to identify the best products for further testing and sharing with partners. To boost the levels of resistance to FAW in adapted germplasm, several FAW-resistant inbred lines from the USA have also been introduced as donors and backcrosses have been made (Abebe Menkir, IITA, personal communication).The There is still a lot to learn about the genetic architecture of native genetic resistance to FAW in maize, although a few studies carried out in recent years have given some insights. and evaluated this population for FAW leaf-feeding damage under artificial infestation over 3 years in the USA. QTL analyses led to identification of two major QTLs in bins 4.06 and 9.03 that together explained 35.7% of the phenotypic variance over all environments. The QTL identified in bin 9.03 colocated with a previously identified QTL associated with resistance to leaf-feeding damage in maize by FAW and other lepidopteran insects, while the QTL in bin 4.06 is a new source of resistance to FAW leaf-feeding damage identified in this study. Badji et al. (2020) evaluated a set of 316 tropical maize lines under natural insect pressure for FAW in Uganda and identified 14 SNPs through genome-wide association study (GWAS). These SNPs are distributed on all chromosomes except chromosomes 6 and 7. Several FAW resistance QTLs discovered in earlier studies (Brooks et al. 2005(Brooks et al. , 2007;;Womack et al. 2018) co-localized with 6 of the 14 SNPs reported by Badji et al. (2020).The CIMMYT team in Africa recently undertook GWAS and joint linkage association mapping on a set of 285 lines and about 485 DH lines developed from seven FAW-tolerant lines. These lines were evaluated for their responses to FAW artificial infestation at Kiboko, Kenya, in 2017 and 2018. Foliar damage was scored 7, 14, and 21 days after artificial infestation on a modified Davis scale (1-9) (Prasanna et al. 2018). Ear damage was also rated on a 1-9 scale, based on the protocol described by Prasanna et al. (2018). All the screened lines were genotyped with the DArTseq genotypingby-sequencing platform (Diversity Arrays Technology/DArT). A set of 20,000 SNPs were used for association mapping on 285 lines, and around 1000 SNPs were used on DH populations, for linkage and joint linkage association mapping. The study revealed a very weak and non-significant correlation between foliar and ear damage scores. GWAS revealed 22 SNPs significantly associated with foliar damage, distributed on all 10 chromosomes. Only one SNP, S4_186497220 on chromosome 4, was significantly associated with ear damage. Seven SNPs distributed on chromosomes 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 were significantly associated with grain yield under FAW infestation.Even though there were no common SNPs identified across the GWAS panel used by CIMMYT and that by Badji et al. (2020), several markers were consistently present in the same bins on chromosomes 8, 9, and 10. QTLs on chromosome 4 (17.28 Mb and 183.82 Mb) and chromosome 9 (at 8.05 Mb) are consistent with bi-parental population-based QTL mapping in the CIMMYT study, as well as earlier studies (Womack et al. 2018(Womack et al. , 2020)). These regions appear important for developing markers for resistance to foliar damage by FAW.In CIMMYT's GWAS panel, ridge regression-based genomic prediction correlations were 0.61, 0.53, 0.31, and 0.30 for early foliar damage, late foliar damage, ear damage, and grain yield, respectively, under FAW artificial infestation. In contrast, prediction correlations as high as 0.69 to 0.71 were reported for foliar damage (under FAW natural infestation) in a set of 316 lines by Badji et al. (2021).Overall, considering both foliar and ear damage, the role of specific QTLs on chromosomes 4 and 9 needs further investigation, while genomic prediction could possibly play an important role in improving native genetic resistance to FAW.Deploying transgenic or genetically engineered/modified (GE/GM) maize hybrids that express lepidopteran resistance genes is an important component of an IPM strategy to effectively control FAW. FAW-resistant transgenic maize hybrids typically have insecticidal crystal protein genes (cry genes) and/or vip genes encoding vegetative insecticidal proteins (Vip), isolated from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Numerous transgenic maize hybrids, with various combinations of cry (cry1Ab, cry1F, cry1A.105 + cry2Ab2) and vip (vip3A) genes, are commercially available in Brazil and North America, where over 80% of the total maize production area is cultivated with Bt maize (Horikoshi et al. 2016;ISAAA 2019).In Africa, Bt maize is currently being commercialized only in South Africa, where regulatory authorities have overseen multiple approvals, with more than 15 years of deployment of such products. Kenya is presently undertaking national performance trials of MON810 (cry1Ab)-based Bt maize hybrids. In South Africa, Bt maize hybrids expressing the cry1Ab gene (MON 810) and the cry1A.105+cry2Ab2 genes (MON 89034) have been planted on over 1.62 million hectares, comprising 71% of the total maize area (ISAAA 2017). After the documentation of FAW invasion into Africa during early 2016, it has been included as a target pest of MON 89034 (Botha et al. 2019). MON 89034 is particularly recommended for FAW control due to its high efficacy against the pest, as well as the resistance management value of \"pyramided\" insect-resistant Bt genes expressing the Cry1A.105 and Cry2Ab2 proteins. The MON 810 maize event, which has been cultivated in South Africa since 1997 and is intended to primarily manage the larval feeding damage caused by stem borers (e.g., Chilo partellus, Busseola fusca), confers partial resistance to FAW.Beyond South Africa, under the TELA® Maize project the National Agricultural Research Organizations of Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Mozambique are testing the performance of Bt and stacked Bt + Drought Tolerance (DT) transgenes introgressed into Africaadapted maize genetic backgrounds. The TELA Maize Project is a public-private partnership led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) working towards the release of transgenic drought-tolerant and insect-protected (TELA®) maize hybrids, in partnership with Bayer, CIMMYT, and National Agricultural Research System (NARS) institutions in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.In Asia, Bt maize is currently grown in the Philippines and Vietnam, and Bt maize events are approved in Pakistan. After the invasion of FAW in Vietnam in 2019, the pest was reported to have affected 35,000 hectares. However, in 2020, there was a reduction in heavily affected areas as well as an increase in planting of insect-resistant Bt maize hybrids (USDA-GAIN 2020b; Figure 5). One of the Bt maize hybrids, DK6919S, planted by farmers of Nghi Xuân, Hà Tĩnh province, was resistant to FAW, and reportedly led to an increased yield of 5.5-6.0 tons/hectare as compared to conventional varieties/ hybrids (https://www.sggp.org.vn/giong-ngo-dk-6919-s-cho-nang-suat-cao-tren-vung-dat-nghixuan-660427.html [in Vietnamese]).Pakistan: Currently, conventional maize is grown on 1.4 million hectares in Pakistan, with an increase in area from 1.0 to 1.4 million hectares in the last two decades. The production also has increased from 1.7 to 7.2 million metric tons due to the introduction of elite genetics and improved agronomics (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home). The evaluation of GM maize events started in 2009 in Pakistan, and the approval of stacked GM maize expressing insect resistance and herbicide tolerance traits for  Other countries in Asia: Bt maize is undergoing testing and approval processes in Indonesia and China. Events with insect resistance genes such as cry1Ab, cry1F, cry1A.105, cry2Ab2, and cry1b-cry2Aj fusion are in various stages of the approval process. In January 2021, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs granted a biosafety certificate for Bt maize event DBN9501 (vip3Aa-19), developed by Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group, conferring resistance to FAW. A biosafety certificate was granted in January 2020 to \"double-stacked 12-5\" (cry1e + cry1Ab-cry2Aj) maize, which was co-developed by Hangzhou Ruifeng Biotech Co. Ltd. and Zhejiang University. In a recent study, Li et al. (2019) demonstrated that the FAW population invading China is highly susceptible to the commonly used Cry1, Cry2, and Vip3 proteins, with the highest susceptibility to Vip3A, Cry1Ab, and Cry1F. In another study, Zhang and Wu (2019) showed that pyramided events DBN3608 and DBN3601 (Cry1Ab + Vip3A) have high resistance to FAW. Recent publications from China (Li et al. 2020(Li et al. , 2021) ) highlighted the need to deploy pyramided events in China as an effective strategy for delaying resistance evolution in target pests, including FAW to Bt maize.The first case of documented field-evolved resistance to Bt maize in FAW was for Cry1F-based maize hybrids in Puerto Rico (Storer et al. 2010(Storer et al. , 2012a)). Several factors were central to the evolution of FAW resistance in Puerto Rico, including the island setting, which limited insect migration; the tropical climate conducive to year-round cultivation of maize; and drought conditions in 2006/2007, which reduced the availability of alternative hosts for FAW (Storer et al. 2010). Subsequently, field resistance to Cry1F maize was detected in the southeastern USA (Niu et al. 2013;Huang et al. 2014) and in the Brazilian state of Bahia, three years after being deployed in Brazil (Farias et al. 2014a). A significant decrease in susceptibility to Cry1F was detected in FAW across Brazil between 2010 and 2013, especially in areas with intensive maize production and high adoption of Bt technologies (Farias et al. 2014b). Low compliance with non-Bt structured refuge recommendations was one of the root causes for resistance to Cry1F in Brazil (Farias et al. 2014b). Bernardi et al. (2015) detected partial cross-resistance among Cry1 proteins in FAW, meaning that the Cry1F resistance conferred some resistance to Cry1A.105 and Cry1Ab. However, no significant crossresistance was found between Cry1F and Cry2Ab2. MON 89034 maize (expressing the Cry2Ab2 and Cry1A.105 proteins) in combination with appropriate management practices continues to provide effective control of FAW in Brazil (Bernardi et al. 2015). Omoto et al. (2016) documented the evolution of field-relevant Cry1Ab Bt resistance in FAW in Brazil, potentially due to either direct selection from the use of MON 810 and/or cross-resistance to Cry1F.The use of Bt maize hybrids with less-than-ideal IRM fit (e.g., less-than-high-dose expression, components of Bt pyramids with cross-resistance to other Bt proteins in the landscape) combined with low compliance with the structured refuge recommendation seems to be a common theme across the resistance cases with FAW in South America (Farias et al. 2014a;Chandrasena et al. 2017). A consequence of these is a reduction in the number of effective modes of action to manage FAW. However, the deployment of MIR162 (Vip3Aa20) maize represents an effective new mode of action added to the maize cropping system to counter FAW.The primary threat to the sustainable use of Bt maize is the selection for resistance in the target pests.It is important to note that, to date, there is no evidence that Bt resistance alleles were transferred from the Americas to Africa and Asia with the current invasive FAW population (see also Chapter 1). This evidence includes the fact that MON810 performed as expected across Africa. However, good stewardship practices encourage deploying the best IRM strategies regardless. Therefore, proactive IRM programs are needed to delay resistance in the FAW populations. A sound IRM plan varies with the crop and pest combination, but generally considers:1) Lowering the frequency of resistance alleles/genes in the insect population, which can be accomplished via an effective dose or high-dose expression of Bt proteins in Bt maize.2) Providing refuge plants for the target insect pest to reduce selection pressure.3) Ensuring \"redundant killing\" with products expressing two or more proteins that provide multiple modes of action against the targeted insect pests.4) Rigorous scouting and surveillance for potential development of insect resistance above a baseline level determined prior to introduction of the GM crop.For Bt maize, the critical components of an IRM strategy are the refuge strategy and refuge compliance, which drive the durability of the product. The refuge ensures that a sufficient population of susceptible insects is available to mate with the few resistant insects that may evolve in the Bt maize-planted areas. This significantly dilutes the frequency of resistance alleles in the insect population, thereby delaying the evolution of insect resistance to the Bt traits. Refuge plantings are recommended for use with all Bt maize products.In addition, the latest generations of Bt maize express at least two Bt proteins for FAW control with unique modes of action. These products, known as Bt pyramids, are characterized by more robust insect protection and improved IRM value (Horikoshi et al. 2016;Roush 1998;Storer et al. 2012b).Studies undertaken in the USA and Brazil suggest that pyramiding multiple transgenes (in the same plant) is more effective in terms of FAW control than single-gene-based resistance (Huang et al. 2014;Horikoshi et al. 2016). This also calls for introgression of different transgenic resistance traits (e.g., different cry genes, or cry + vip3A) into a maize genetic background, preferably one with native genetic resistance to the insect pest. The biggest advantage of this type of pyramid is that if the pest overcomes the transgenic resistance trait(s), the native resistance of the conventional genetic background (even if partial) can potentially mitigate the infestation until maize hybrids with more effective resistance are developed and deployed.The new generation of Bt maize technologies with multiple modes of action, together with the implementation of IRM strategies that are more dependent upon manufacturing and less dependent upon grower behavior, can mitigate the risk of resistance. Seed blends (with Bt and non-Bt seeds mixed in the seed bag), sometimes referred to as refuge-in-a-bag (RIB), offer one such solution to enhance IRM in Bt crops. Seed blends are a widely adopted refuge deployment strategy for dualgene Bt maize products registered for use against FAW, such as MON 89034 and TC1507 × MON 810 in the Philippines and Vietnam. In contrast, the current requirement for single-gene products in these countries is a 10% structured refuge. RIB may not be without risk, as some entomologists are concerned that the RIB approach may lead to resistance development in some above-ground pests, such as FAW. • An array of FAW-tolerant/resistant germplasm in diverse genetic backgrounds needs to be developed and deployed for both Africa and Asia. A major obstacle to breeding crop varieties with FAW resistance using conventional breeding is the low frequency of resistant genotypes in germplasm collections. Therefore, it is imperative both to widen the search for sources of native genetic resistance to FAW and to discover, validate, and ultimately deploy genomic regions conferring resistance to FAW using either marker-assisted breeding or genomic selection, as appropriate, depending on presence/absence of major haplotypes conferring resistance to FAW.• It must be noted that farming communities need elite crop varieties with not only FAW tolerance/ resistance, but also a package of other traits relevant for that specific agroecology or market segment, including high yield, abiotic stress tolerance, disease resistance, nutrient and water use efficiency, nutritional enhancement, etc. Often the sources of genetic resistance to FAW may not be directly useful as elite parental lines of commercial hybrids/varieties. Therefore, intensive and accelerated breeding efforts are required to transfer native resistance from validated sources of resistance into diverse, Africa-adapted and Asia-adapted elite maize products (inbreds/hybrids/OPVs) for deployment to farming communities. Similar efforts are needed in other major crops, such as sorghum and millets, affected by FAW in Africa and Asia.• Lack of adequate investment in accelerated and intensive breeding for native genetic resistance to FAW in Africa and Asia is hampering progress by the international agricultural research centers and national partners to come out with solutions for FAW management based on host plant resistance. This needs to be urgently addressed.• Another important gap that needs urgent attention is the stacking of transgenic insect-resistant traits with native genetic resistance. This could generate significant synergistic value, ensuring sustainable yield protection from pests such as FAW.• Deploying improved maize varieties with genetic resistance to FAW (native or transgenic) has great potential to reduce the use of pesticides by farmers. Studies should be done to empirically quantify the reduction of pesticide use together with the increase in resilience and productivity that comes with deployment of host plant resistance.1. In terms of native genetic resistance to FAW, the proposed priorities are: a) Varietal release and widespread deployment of \"first-generation\" white maize hybrids with FAW resistance, developed recently by CIMMYT and now available to partners, especially in SSA; these hybrids can also be potentially tested in Asian countries where white maize varieties are grown and consumed by local populations.b) Fast-tracked introgression of sources of native genetic resistance to FAW into Africa-and Asiaadapted germplasm, and release of next-generation products with native genetic resistance to FAW in Africa and Asia. c) Discovery/validation of genomic regions for resistance to FAW in maize using appropriate populations and exploring the possibility of genomic prediction for developing novel Africaadapted/Asia-adapted FAW-tolerant/resistant maize varieties.d) Strengthening the capacity of NARS institutions in Africa and Asia in breeding for resistance to FAW along with other important adaptive and agronomic traits relevant for the smallholders.2. Regarding transgenic resistance to FAW, the priorities are: a) Accelerated testing and deployment of Bt maize with proven efficacy, biosafety, and environmental safety with appropriate support from policy makers and regulatory authorities.b) Pyramiding transgenes with different modes of action (e.g., cry + vip genes), instead of singlegene deployment, as a part of IRM strategy. c) Implementing IRM and proper stewardship wherever Bt maize varieties have been deployed in Africa and Asia, to ensure sustainable protection against the pest.Sustainable control of FAW is best achieved when farmers use host plant resistance as part of an IPM strategy, together with good agricultural practices, pest scouting, biological control, agro-ecological management, and judicious use of safer-use pesticides. Intensive efforts are being made in Africa by CIMMYT and partners to identify, validate, and develop elite maize germplasm with native genetic resistance to FAW. These efforts need to be further accelerated and intensified in both Africa and Asia to derive elite tropical/subtropical germplasm suitable for different agroecologies and market segments. Such products must combine FAW resistance with other desirable and relevant traits for resource-constrained smallholder farmers in the target geographies.Bt maize varieties carrying lepidopteran-specific transgene(s), wherever released in Africa and Asia, can become an important tool in the IPM toolbox for FAW management. Bringing the benefits of Bt-based solutions for FAW management more extensively into Africa and Asia would, however, require overcoming the current regulatory, political, and consumer acceptance hurdles. In countries where Bt maize is already being commercialized, it is important to devise and implement a well-coordinated regional IRM strategy.Synergies also need to be explored between native genetic resistance and Bt maize for offering better and sustainable host plant resistance options to the farming communities.","tokenCount":"5984"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"53f2a4c809f2dbdf81bf7f33d1bf4256","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/76c473dc-448c-4af4-9d1d-66491be8cd55/content","id":"-1373091448"},"keywords":["Surveillance Maize lethal necrosis Maize chlorotic mottle virus Sugarcane mosaic virus Recombination Kenya MCMV, Maize chlorotic mottle virus","MLN, Maize lethal necrosis","NPPOs, National Plant Protection Organizations","SCMV, Sugarcane mosaic virus"],"sieverID":"a891c9f7-2283-494b-b318-ef105e628447","pagecount":"13","content":"Maize is the most important food crop in Kenya accounting for more than 51 % of all staples grown in the country. Out of Kenya's 5.3 million ha total crops area, more than 2.1 million ha is occupied by maize which translates to 40 % of all crops area. However, with the emergence of maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in 2011, the average yields plummeted to all-time lows with severely affected counties recording 90-100% yield loss in 2013 and 2014. The disease is mainly caused by Maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) in combination with Sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) or other potyviruses. In this study, a country-wide survey was carried out to assess the MLN causing viruses in Kenya, their distribution, genetic diversity, and recombination. The causative viruses of MLN were determined by RT-PCR using virus-specific primers and DAS-ELISA. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) data was generated, viral sequences identified, genetic diversity of MLN viruses was determined, and recombination was evaluated. MCMV and SCMV were detected in all the maize growing regions at varying levels of incidence, and severity while MaYMV, a polerovirus was detected in some samples through NGS. However, there were some samples in this study where only MCMV was detected with severe MLN symptoms. SCMV Sequences were highly diverse while MCMV sequences exhibited low variability. Potential recombination events were detected only in SCMV explaining the elevated level of diversity and associated risk of this virus in Kenya and the eastern Africa region.Maize (Zea mays L.) is the third most important crop in the world and has become an integral part of modern society. Over 4.5 billion people use it as a staple food and as animal feed (FAO, 2016). The annual yield of maize in Kenya in 2016 was 3.39 million tons, and its value exceeded $65 billion (FAO-STAT, 2016). However, with the emergence of maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in the country in 2011, the maize yield losses have increased significantly compared to the yield loss recorded from the combination of all other biotic and abiotic factors (Wangai et al., 2012). Yield losses due to MLN in Kenya in the marketing year 2014/2015 was estimated to be up to 10 %, which translated to over 50 million US dollars (USDA Gains report, 2015). A community survey assessment on the distribution and impact of MLN in Kenya in 2013 revealed that the disease affected 22 % of maize produced that year, which translated to about 187 million US dollars in losses (De Groote et al., 2016). Nearly all commercial maize varieties in Kenya have been confirmed to be susceptible to MLN, both under natural and artificial infection in studies done in 2012-2013 (Prasanna, 2015;Semagn et al., 2015;Marenya et al., 2018).MLN in Kenya is caused by double infection of maize plants with Maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV), a Machlomovirus (Nutter et al., 1989;Lommel et al., 1991a), and Sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV), a Potyvirus (Jones et al., 2007;Adams et al., 2012). However, MLN can also be caused by MCMV in synergy with other potyviruses, namely Maize dwarf mosaic virus (MDMV) in the genus Potyvirus, Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) in the genus Tritimovirus (Pruss et al., 1997), or the recently described Johnsongrass mosaic virus (JGMV) also in the genus Potyvirus (Stewart et al., 2014(Stewart et al., , 2017)). Any potyvirus that infects maize can potentially interact synergistically with MCMV to cause MLN (Adams et al., 2012). The possibility of MCMV to combine with other native potyviruses of cereals poses a big challenge to maize production in Kenya. Amongst these potyviruses, SCMV is more dominant in East Africa while MDMV and JGMV have been reported only in Kenya (Wangai et al., 2012;Mahuku et al., 2015a;and Stewart et al., 2017). WSMV is not known to occur in Africa but is found in North America, South America, Europe and Australia (Hadi et al., 2011).SCMV was first recorded to infect maize by Brandes (1920) in the USA. In Eastern Africa, SCMV was reported in sugarcane (McDonald, 1936;Wallace, 1937;Hansford, 1935) and in maize (Riley, 1960). Later, SCMV was found to occur in all maize growing regions in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (Kulkarni, 1973). Louie in his survey confirmed the presence of SCMV in 20 districts (now counties) of the Central highlands, Rift valley highlands and western regions of Kenya (Louie, 1980). Since then, SCMV has been endemic in Kenya and described as the main MLN causative agent in coinfection with MCMV in most studies of MLN emergence in eastern Africa (Adams et al., 2014;Mahuku et al., 2015a,b andWamaitha et al., 2018).Maize lethal necrosis has spread fast in the eastern and central Africa region after its first report in Kenya (Wangai et al., 2012). For instance, in Tanzania, the disease was first reported in 2012 in regions around Lake Victoria and Arusha (CIMMYT Periodic Newsletter, Dec 2012). MLN was also reported in Uganda in 2012 in the Kenya border districts of Busia and Tororo (CIMMYT Periodic Reports Newsletters, Dec 2012) and has been detected in eastern Uganda districts of Iganga and Mbale (Kagoda et al., 2016). In Rwanda, it was first reported in 2013 and was found endemic in all maize-growing districts (Adams et al., 2014). The disease was officially reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) predominantly in the western provinces of the north and south Kivu in 2014 (Lukanda et al., 2014). In Ethiopia, maize plants with MLN symptoms were first observed in 2014 prompting surveillance efforts which led to the first report (Mahuku et al., 2015b). There are reports of MLN in Southern Sudan (Mahuku et al., 2015a,b, unpublished results) and Burundi (Ministry of Agriculture surveillance reports, 2017).Insect transmission of MLN causing viruses has been documented in Kenya (Mahuku et al., 2015a and Nyasani and Sevgan (unpublished results), 2012. Chrysomelid beetles have been demonstrated to transmit MCMV (Nault et al., 1978). The seed transmission rate of MCMV in maize has been documented to be very low, 0.04 % in the USA (Jensen et al., 1991), but MCMV seed transmission rates are not well documented in Kenya and eastern Africa.Previous MLN distribution studies conducted in Kenya focused on a few counties where MLN viral diversity and other viral metagenomics studies were conducted (Mahuku et al., 2015a;and Wamaitha et al., 2018).This study analyses the geographic distribution of MLN, its causative viruses, incidence and MLN symptom severity in 28 important maize growing counties covering all the maize growing Agro-ecological zones in Kenya. The study also highlights the genetic diversity of the viruses that cause MLN and examines recombination and its contribution to the evolutionary forces shaping the population of these viruses.A survey was carried out in 118 farms in 28 counties during the maize growing seasons in Kenya in 2015 and 2016. A questionnaire was administered to capture the survey data in the field. The counties surveyed were Kajiado, Bomet, Narok, Baringo, Nakuru, Marakwet, Nandi, Trans Nzoia, West Pokot, Uasin Gishu, Bungoma, Busia, Kakamega, Siaya, Migori, Homa Bay, Kisii, Kiambu, Kirinyaga, Embu, Meru, Machakos, Kitui, Makueni, Taita Taveta, Kwale, Kilifi and Tana River. Disease incidence and disease prevalence were determined by the percentage of the plants showing MLN symptoms in individual farms and the percentage of farms in a county with MLN symptoms, respectively. The recorded figures for incidence and symptom severity were the means from the farms visited in each county. A disease severity score was recorded using the 1−5 MLN symptom severity scale (CIMMYT Periodic Newsletter, June 2013). Fields having a maize crop as a pure stand or intercropped with other crops were selected and surveyed along designated routes in each county.Seed fields were also surveyed in 11 counties under this study (Baringo, Nakuru, Taita Taveta, Tana River, Trans Nzoia, Elgeyo Marakwet, Machakos, Makueni, Meru, Embu and Uasin Gishu). The sampling protocol was the same as for farmers' fields outlined.Filled questionnaires were keyed into excel sheets and analyzed to provide information regarding disease incidence, prevalence and severity scores. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey HSD of transformed data (arcsine transformation of proportion) was used to determine the significant difference and hierarchy of the reported data. Evaluation for varietal susceptibility to MLN was not done for all the popular commercial varieties/hybrids are susceptible to MLN (Semagn et al., 2015).The staggered \"X\" pattern, recommended for most maize fields' inspection and surveys (CDFA Phytosanitary Certification Manual, 1985), was adopted in the 118 sampled farms. Maize plants were examined for MLN symptoms along one side of the field then diagonally in a staggered pattern across rows to the far maize plants, and across the far side of the field and diagonally back to starting point. Young symptomatic leaves from five plants were sampled along the transect in each farm. Plants with MLN symptoms spotted away from the chosen pattern were also included in the five samples collected in each farmer's field. The five samples from each farm were pooled together to make a composite sample representing that farm. In total, 118 maize leaf samples were collected from the field during the survey. This field inspection pattern ensured that all parts of the farm were adequately and proportionately represented in the plants inspected and sampled. This procedure was also used for the sampling of leaves from infected plants in seed fields. Three seed fields were visited in each of the 11 counties surveyed. A total of 33 composite samples were collected from these seed fields.The samples were labeled, put in khaki bags, placed in a cool box containing dry ice, and transported to the laboratory for storage at −80 °C pending further laboratory analysis.RNA was extracted from the 118 samples and 33 samples from seed fields using the ZR RNA MiniPrep™ kit (Zymo Research Corporation, Irvine, CA) following the manufacturer's recommendations. The overall quality of RNA was assessed by denaturing agarose gel pre-stained with GelRed™ staining dye (Biotium, Inc. Fremont, CA). The characteristic RNA 18S rRNA and 28S rRNA bands on the RNA gels were evaluated to ascertain the RNA integrity. The selected RNA samples for library preparation were treated with RNase-free DNase I (New England Biolabs inc., UK). The quality of the total RNA for library preparation was evaluated on the 2100 Bioanalyzer TapeStation system (Agilent Technologies, Inc., CA, USA). The RNA concentration was checked and determined on the Qubit® 2.0 Fluorimeter (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wilmington, DE).2.4. RT-PCR and DAS-ELISA cDNA was prepared from 1 μg of RNA using a Maxima First Strand cDNA Synthesis kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wilmington, DE) as per the instruction manual. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was conducted as described by Chen and colleagues (Chen et al., 2005). A two-step RT-PCR for MCMV was done on all the samples from the farmers' fields and the seed fields to ascertain the presence of MCMV. MCMV-specific primers used were MCMV F 5′ −CCG GTC TAC CCG AGG TAG AAA -3′ and MCMV R 5′ -TGG CTC GAA TAG CTC TGG ATT T -3′. The 195 bp MCMV RT-PCR amplicons were analyzed by electrophoresis on a 1% agarose gel and visualized under UV light.SCMV was detected by DAS-ELISA since the detection by RT-PCR with already existing published SCMV-specific primers (Alegria et al., 2003) did not work. DAS-ELISA for the detection of SCMV was done on the 118 samples from the farmers' fields and the 33 samples from the seed fields. The commercial SCMV antiserum (Agdia, Elkhart, IN, USA) was used in a double antibody sandwich (DAS)-ELISA according to the manufacturer's instructions.The TruSeq® Stranded Ribo-Zero RNA Sample Preparation Kit (Illumina, San Diego, USA) was used to prepare the libraries as per the manufacturer's guidelines. Total RNA (500 ng) was used as starting materials for each sample in the protocol. The 48 samples were selected based on the geographical regions of the country surveyed for the analysis to reflect the national situation of MLN. Another important consideration was the RNA quality which determined the quality of the libraries generated from these samples for NGS analysis on the Miseq Illumina platform.The samples tested positive for MCMV by RT-PCR and positive for SCMV by DAS ELISA but two negative samples each for MCMV and SCMV were also included.The total RNA for each sample was converted into a library of template molecules for subsequent cDNA synthesis, cluster generation and eventually sequencing. The library concentrations generated for the 48 samples were checked using the Qubit® High Sensitivity D1000 Kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wilmington, DE, USA) and sizing of individual libraries was done using the Agilent High Sensitivity D1000 ScreenTape System (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA). Sequencing was done on the Illumina MiSeq platform (Illumina, San Diego, USA) at the BecA-ILRI Hub, Nairobi, Kenya. The samples were sequenced in two 150 bp paired end cycle runs with each run having 24 samples.Quality control of the data was performed using Fastqc (Andrews, 2010). Low-quality bases and adapters were trimmed off using Trimmomatic V 0.33 (Anthony et al., 2014). De novo assembly was performed on the remaining reads using metaSPAdes V 3.10. (Sergey et al., 2017). The resulting contigs were analyzed by BLASTN and TBLASTX (Zang et al., 200;Johnson et al., 2008) against a local download of NCBI nucleotide plant virus database and visualized using Krona (Ondov et al., 2011). The resultant contigs were also further analyzed by BLASTN to determine the sequence identity and similarity. Reference mapping of the assembled contigs to the most similar viral genomes was performed using CLC Genomics Workbench 5.5.1 (https://www.qiagenbioinformatics.com/). The resulting contigs were used in the phylogenetic analysis in MEGA V6 (Tamura et al., 2013).The recombination detection program RDP4 v4.84 (Martin et al., 2015) was used to analyze both MCMV and SCMV sequences from this study for recombination events. The program RDP4 detects recombination breakpoints accurately and presents a friendly graphical interface for assessing various attributes in a recombination analysis process. The program simultaneously uses a range of different recombination detection methods to detect recombination events within aligned sequences. These methods include the BOOTSCANNING method (Salminen et al., 1995;Martin et al., 2005b), the GENECONV method (Padidam et al., 1995), the Maximum Chi-Square method (MAXCHI) (Maynard Smith, 1992;Posada and Crandall, 2001), the CHIMAERA method (Posada and Crandall, 2001), the Sister Scanning method SISCAN (Gibbs et al., 2000), the 3SEQ method (Boni et al., 2007), the VisRD method (Lemey et al., 2009) and theRDP4 BURT method. Only recombination events identified by at least four methods were further evaluated for the possibility of recombination.The SCMV and MCMV sequence alignment files were used as input in RDP4. The default settings used by all the detection methods were utilized to complete automated analysis. There were two major phases in the automated analysis: the first involved the detection of recombination signals in the alignment and the second involved inference of the number and characteristics of unique recombination events that had been generated by the detected signals. The output of these analyses included the recombination region and breakpoint matrices, recombination positions and the analysis of the recombinant sequences detected with their deduced minor and major parents. The recombinant sequences were checked for the threshold parameters and only those that were analyzed by at least five implemented methods and those that had the required with p-values of < 1.0 × 10 −6 were accepted and considered to be a positive recombination event (Martin et al., 2005). Several analysis outputs were generated and recorded for further analysis and interpretation.Maize lethal necrosis disease was reported in the major maize growing regions of Kenya (Fig. 1). Counties in the south of the Great Rift Valley region (Kajiado, Bomet, Narok and Baringo) recorded the highest incidences of MLN as documented in Table 1. Kajiado county registered the highest MLN incidence countrywide with an incidence score of 68 % while Embu county in the Eastern region recorded the lowest disease incidence of 38 %. Coastal counties (Taita Taveta, Kwale, Kilifi and Tana River) had moderate MLN incidences (48 %-59 %).Bomet county registered the highest disease symptom severity of 3.6 while Homa Bay registered the lowest (1.6) on the 1−5 MLN disease symptom severity scale (Table 2). The counties in coast region namely Taita Taveta, Kwale and Kilifi had moderate symptom severity between 2 and 2.8. Similar results were observed in counties in the regions of Western Kenya (Kakamega, Bungoma, Busia, Siaya and Migori).The highest MLN incidence in seed fields was recorded in Baringo County and the neighboring Nakuru County where all the seed fields visited had MLN incidences of 100 % (Table 3). Baringo county also recorded the highest disease symptom severity of 3.5 followed by Nakuru and Taita-Taveta counties with symptom severity of 3.1 in seed fields. In general, seed fields in the counties of the north rift, south rift and the coast had higher disease incidence and symptom severity (Table 3). However, counties in the eastern part of the country recorded the lowest incidences and symptom severity in seed fields. These include Machakos, Makueni, Meru and Embu with an incidence range of 18%-45% and disease severity scores of 1.6-2.2 (Table 3).MCMV was detected by RT-PCR in 95 pooled leaf samples out of the 118 samples while SCMV was detected by DAS-ELISA in 85 samples out of the same 118 (Table 4 and Fig. 2). Seventy-three (73) samples showed a double infection of MCMV and SCMV). The high percentage of positive samples reflected the high number of symptomatic plants sampled. MCMV and SCMV were detected in all the 33 samples collected from the seed fields.The paired-end sequencing yielded 102,169,109 reads (35-151 bp) but 53,297,590 good quality reads were obtained (17-122 bp) after performing quality control. Following contigs assembly and BLASTN identification, most samples strongly showed the presence of MCMV and SCMV while a few samples showed the presence of Maize Yellow Mosaic virus (MaYMV), a recently described polerovirus (Adams et al., 2017 andMassawe et al., 2018). It was also demonstrated that there were no artefactual sequences that were generated in this study for the MCMV, SCMV and MaYMV had significant genome coverage by de novo and reference assemblies. No recombinant sequences were also detected in MCMV samples further indicating that artefacts were not introduced during the sequence assembly.A total of 14 MCMV genomes were assembled in this study with genome lengths of 4403-4437 bp. Seven MCMV sequences were deposited in the NCBI nucleotide database (accession numbers: MH238449-MH238455). The isolate S6 with the accession number MH238454 was selected as a representative for further nucleotide and amino acid comparison with other MCMV isolates available in the NCBI nucleotide database. The Kenyan MCMV isolates identified in this study showed 99.75 % identity (Table 5) to previously reported isolates from Kenya, Ethiopia (Mahuku et al., 2015b) and Rwanda (Adams et al., 2014). The genomes assembled in this study were, however more divergent from those in Asia, Ecuador and the USA (Fig. 3). Table 5 shows the differences of the nucleotides and amino acids (aa) identified in the seven MCMV ORFs, namely P32, P50, P111, P31, P7a, P7b, and CP. The most diverse region was the ORF P31 showing 93.18 % identity with an isolate from Nebraska. However, MCMV isolates from these regions were similar in the P32, P11, and P7a ORFs. The CP region was the most similar with an aa identity range of 99.15-99.57 % while full genome sequences showed an overall similarity of 96.6-99.75%. The phylogeny of MCMV in Fig. 3 depicts 3 clades and shows that the samples in this study fall under clade A grouping with other Eastern Africa MCMV isolates. Clade B had isolates from China while clade C had isolates from the USA and Ecuador.In this study, 18 full genomes of SCMV with lengths ranging from 9440 to 9647 bp (all including the polyprotein and variable lengths in the 5′UTR and 3′UTR) were recovered together with 21 partial SCMV genome sequences (1500-6900 bp). The SCMV phylogenetic tree in Fig. 4 shows the presence of 2 clades: 11 SCMV genomes detected in this study clustered with SCMV isolates from Rwanda and Ohio, USA, Ethiopia and Iran (Clade A), while 7 SCMV genomes clustered with SCMV strains from China and Mexico (Clade B). The genome sequences of SCMV were quite diverse, the sequence identity of the polyprotein gene in our samples ranged from 89.8%-100%. Amino acids identity analysis for the SCMV polyprotein revealed that SCMV isolates from neighboring counties of West Pokot and Marakwet were 99 %-100 % identical in composition. Real time qPCR primers and probe were designed for these Kenyan SCMV isolates using the qPCR Primer Quest tool, Integrated DNA Technologies Inc.(https://www.idtdna.com'primerquest). The primers target the 7375-7521 SCMV genomic region with an expected amplicon of 186 bp. These primers are F: 5′-AGCCGAAATCAGACCAATAGAG-3′, R: 5′-AAGCGATTCCAACCTCCATAG-3′ and the Probe: TCACACCATTTAG AAGGCCCATGGAC.Partial sequences of MaYMV were generated by de novo and reference sequence assembly in this study. They were analyzed by BLASTN against a local Plant Virus Genome Database (PVGDB) (http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/viruses). Our MaYMV sequences were highly similar to already documented MaYMV accessions in the NCBI nucleotide database. They were 99.4 % similar to MH205607 (Wamaitha et al., 2018) hereby described as MYDMV-RMV from Kenya and MF684367, MaYMV from Ethiopia. They were also 99 % similar to MF974579, a Kenyan isolate (Massawe et al., 2018) and MF425856 Ethiopian isolate (Adams et al., 2017).There were 4 samples where only MCMV as an MLN causing virus was recovered. These were S9-Bomet, S12-Kajiado, S16-Machakos and S-18_Machakos (Table 6). These samples, however, posted high MLN symptom severity (3.0-3.5 on a 0-5 MLN severity scale) showing full development of MLN just like those samples with co-infection with SCMV. The specific samples tested negative for SCMV by DAS-ELISA, NGS, and other potential potyviruses and poleroviruses, especially MaYMV, detected in this study were absent. No SCMV sequences were generated from these samples and the BLASTN results showed only the presence of MCMV and Maize Yellow dwarf virus (Table 7). The Krona BLASTN display for these four samples also showed only MCMV presence while all other samples with MLN showed the presence of both MCMV and SCMV.Potential recombination events were detected in 11 out of 18 SCMV genome sequences but MCMV sequences recovered in this study did not generate any recombinants. However, only 2 SCMV genome sequences were considered to be recombinants with different possible major and minor parents by at least four different RDP4-implemented methods with acceptable P values of < 1.0 × 10 − °6 (Table 8). The recombinant SCMV isolates detected were S2 Bungoma and S35 Nyeri (Table 8). Means in the same column are not significantly different at P ≤ 0.05.In the S2 Bungoma recombinant sequence, the major parent was KF744392, an SCMV isolate from Rwanda while the minor parent was S7 Marakwet isolate. S35 Nyeri had S27 Taita Taveta as a major parent and S7 Marakwet as the minor parent.The Neighbor joining trees illustrated in Fig. 5 shows sample S2 Bungoma and S35 Nyeri as recombinants sequences. Isolate S7 Marakwet was used to infer unknown minor parent and S27 Taita Taveta was identified as the major parent for the S35 Nyeri recombinant sequence.It was also observed that some SCMV accessions in the GenBank had some of our isolates as minor parents e.g. MG 932079.1, a Kenyan isolate from Kirinyaga county having KP880903, an Ethiopian isolate, as the major parent and S7 Marakwet, as a minor parent. The same was observed for MF467403.1 (Tanzania) which had MF467404.1 (Tanzania) as a major parent and S2 Bungoma as a minor parent. As such, several other SCMV accessions had our sequences either as minor or major parents. There were also weak recombinant signals showing Nigeria and USA isolates as minor parents of our isolates.Recombination analysis through RDP4 also allows elucidating the exact points along the viral genome where genetic recombination has occurred, as illustrated in Fig. 6. The recombination event occurred along position 4619-9567 on the SCMV genome for sample S2 Bungoma having KF744392 and S7 Marakwet as major and minor parents, respectively. The size of the fragments from both the major and minor parents can be determined in each recombinant sequence.This study presents an update on the occurrence, distribution and genetic diversity of MLN-causing viruses in Kenya and gives a pioneer report on the viral recombination profiles for SCMV. MCMV and SCMV were prevalent in the country; however, MCMV was more prevalent than SCMV in all the 28 counties surveyed. MaYMV was also detected in some samples. MCMV and SCMV were present in all the seed fields surveyed. This may be due to the natural occurrence of insect vectors (aphids, thrips and beetles) and abundant sources of inoculum because of the continuous cropping in seed production fields. It has been demonstrated that the prevalence of SCMV is dependent on many factors but the sources of inoculum through vector populations can influence the periodicity of SCMV development and establishment (Louie, 1980).The counties in the South Rift region had the highest incidences and symptom severity of MLN (Tables 1 and 2). It was evident that MLN was severe in the regions where there is continuous maize growing especially in counties with supplementary irrigation like Baringo, Kajiado and Taita Taveta compared to areas with one or two distinct maize growing seasons. Higher incidence and severity of the disease symptoms in seed fields were recorded in Baringo, Taita Taveta and Tana River counties (Table 3). Many seed companies contract farmers in irrigation schemes in these counties for seed production leading to accumulation of the viral inoculum to the ever-present host maize plantsThe low to relatively moderate incidence and prevalence of MLN in  counties of the north rift region like Trans Nzoia, West Pokot, Marakwet and Uasin Gishu and counties in western Kenya was partly related to the existence of one major rain-fed maize cropping season. Farmers in these counties also have a higher certified seeds' adoption rate compared to farmers from other counties due to higher levels of awareness and proximity to local seed sellers (Ouma et al., 2014). As such, these farmers might be using seeds with low levels of infection and contamination by MLN causing viruses. The low MCMV levels in certified seeds may also be attributed to the recently implemented strict MLN seed certification regulations by the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS), the official seed certification agency in Kenya for MLN viruses-free seed production (www.kephis.org).Counties in the eastern part of the country recorded the lowest incidence and symptom severity. (Tables 1 and 2). This is attributed to one maize growing season while pulses (mainly beans and green grams) are grown in short season with unreliable rainfall. This helps to lower the viral inoculum in the fields that breaks the vector lifecycles that leads to low levels of MLN infections (https://www.cabi.org/isc/ datasheet/119,663).Monitoring MLN incidence in seed fields is very important for seed lots infected by these viruses may fuel the spread of MLN. The rate of transmission of MCMV through seed is low as reported in previous studies (Jensen et al., 1991). However, the presence of MCMV in commercial seed lots may lead to amplified spread by insect vectors endemic in the maize growing areas. The high MLN incidence in Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu and Baringo counties with many seed production fields may result in many seedlots infected by MCMV. Precautionary measures need to be put in place to limit seed infection and transmission.Molecular analysis of the samples through NGS showed that SCMV was the only potyvirus identified in this study that coinfects maize together with MCMV thereby causing MLN. However, MaYMV, a polerovirus was also found in a few samples. Coinfection of MCMV and SCMV viruses in farmers' fields was recorded in 73 samples (Table 4) evenly distributed across the country (Fig. 1 and 2). Moderate to high MLN severity scores were also recorded in these 73 samples during the survey. In the United States, it was found that when maize plants are coinfected with MCMV and one of several potyviruses including MDMV, SCMV or the tritimovirus WSMV, leaves and stems of infected plants developed severe systemic necrosis known as corn lethal necrosis (CLN) disease which is an MLN synonym (Scheets, 1998). The same scenario was observed in this study where samples with both MCMV and SCMV exhibited severe MLN symptoms. Studies on coinfection of MCMV and SCMV demonstrated increased accumulation of MCMV and virus-derived small interfering RNAs (vsiRNAs) from MCMV (Xia et al. 2016). This indicates increased RNA silencing activity by the plant's defense mechanism against the virus infection. In one such study, it was demonstrated that the helper component protease (HC-Pro) encoded by potyviruses mediates suppression of post transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) enhancing the pathogenicity and accumulation of other heterologous viruses (Pruss et al., 1997;Gonza´lez-Jara et al., 2005;Syller, 2012). Though they belong to the same family (potyviridae), WSMV HC-Pro has been shown not to influence disease synergism with MCMV (Stenger et al., 2007). Instead, WSMV mediates synergistic interactions with other viruses by utilizing a gene other than HC-Pro for PTGS suppression. Fig. 3. Phylogenetic analysis of the full genomes of 14 MCMV isolates recovered in this study with other full MCMV genome sequence accessions. The phylogeny was based on 4284 aligned nucleotide bases. The evolutionary history for MCMV viruses was inferred using MEGA version 6, Maximum Likelihood method based on the Tamura 2-parameter model at 1000 bootstraps (Tamura et al., 2013).Investigation on ultrastructural damage on chloroplasts in bundle sheath cells of maize leaves infected by both MCMV and SCMV had much smaller starch grains in the chloroplasts (Wang et al., 2017) which indicates that co-infection leads to the severity of the disease. It has also been demonstrated that there is an increase in the MCMV virus titer in mixed infections with Maize dwarf mosaic virus (MDMV), strain-B (Goldberg and Brakke, 1987) or with Johnsongrass mosaic virus (JGMV), a potyvirus that has been recently reported to co-infect maize with MCMV causing MLN (Stewart et al., 2017); however, these viruses were not detected in this study.MaYMV was detected in 5 samples in this study. MaYMV has been detected in maize samples from recent MLN survey studies in eastern Africa and other MLN endemic countries worldwide (Asiimwe et al., 2019). In eastern Africa, MaYMV has been found present in all recent MLN related studies though some publications have described it as Maize yellow dwarf mosaic virus (MYDMV) (Adams et al., 2017: Massawe et al., 2018: Wamaitha et al., 2018;Read et al., 2019;Asiimwe et al., 2019;Kiruwa et al., 2019: Stewart et al., 2020). The recent study of maize infecting viruses in South Korea (Lim et al., 2018) identified MaYMV prevalence but no link to MLN related symptoms. Though MaYMV is frequently found in samples with MLN causing viruses, there has been no direct link to it contributing to the MLN disease complex. Polerovirus, just like potyviruses, are known to suppress post transcriptional gene silencing but it is not yet clear if this factor excerbarates MLN proliferation (Baumberger et al., 2007).However, there were some samples in this study that were SCMV negative by DAS-ELISA and MCMV positive by RT-PCR but showed severe MLN symptoms. These isolates were S9-Bomet, S12-Kajiado, S6-Machakos and S18-Machakos. These samples posted moderate to high MLN symptom severity scores (1.9-3.5 on a 1−5 MLN severity scale) showing full development of MLN just like those with co-infected with SCMV (Table 6). Samples S9 and S12 had symptom severity scores of 3.5 and 3.2 respectively. This indicates that MCMV alone can lead to severe infections like those arising from coinfections. This observation was also supported by the NGS data where samples that had clear MLN symptoms showed infection by only MCMV through recovered MCMV sequences, BLASTN results (Tables 6 and 7).MCMV genome sequence comparison with accessions from China, Africa and the USA reveals that MCMV is a highly conserved virus with identities ranging from 96 % to 99 %. This is typical of members of Tombusviridae where the diversity of nucleotides documented are between 0−0.02 with MCMV in the genus Machlomovirus recording lowest nucleotide diversities of 0.01 (Varanda et al., 2014 andBraidwood et al., 2018). Comparison of the amino acid sequences of the viral proteins also exhibited high similarities, especially in the P7a, P111 and the CP regions as indicated in Table 5. The 5′ and 3′UTRs were highly conserved in all the isolates under investigation confirming reports from previous studies (Mahuku et al., 2015a;Braidwood et al., 2018;Wamaitha et al., 2018).Phylogenetic analysis suggested a potentially common origin for Eastern Africa and Asian MCMV isolates. The studied samples clustered in clade A (Fig. 6) together with MCMV isolates from Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda indicating a very close relationship of MCMV strains circulating in Eastern Africa. The closest neighbor (clade B) contains MCMV isolates from China suggesting that the MCMV strains endemic in Eastern Africa may have had its origin from China. The MCMV Fig. 4. Phylogenetic analysis of the polyprotein gene of 18 SCMV isolates from this study, with other polyprotein SCMV accessions from NCBI. The phylogeny was based on 9099 aligned nucleotide bases. The evolutionary history was inferred with MEGA version 6, Maximum likelihood method based on the General Time Reversible model at 1000 bootstraps (Tamura et al., 2013).Samples that showed only MCMV infection both through NGS and laboratory testing for MCMV and SCMV and their corresponding MLN symptom severity.  isolates characterized in this study seemed to be more divergent from the MCMV isolates in the USA and South America. Recent studies on global phylogeny of MCMV by Braidwood and colleagues (Braidwood et al., 2018) also showed a close similarity between the China and Eastern Africa isolates. However, this study reveals a more distinct strain in East Africa which has proved to be more virulent compared to the strains of the Americas and Asia (CIMMYT MLN Epidemiology research Project report, 2019). This is evident from the reported yield losses of 50-100 % in Kenya (Mahuku et al., 2015a;De Groote et al., 2016) and up to 90 % in Ethiopia (Girma et al., 2018). Initial reports alluded to MCMV not varying in its infection and pathogenicity (Wang et al., 2017) but the infection patterns in eastern Africa show a different scenario. Materials tolerant to MCMV in the US have been found to be susceptible to MLN in eastern Africa indicating differences in the pathogenicity of the strains in the US and those circulating in eastern Africa (CIMMYT periodic reports, 2018). Phylogenetic analysis of SCMV recovered sequences revealed 2 distinct clusters of SCMV (Fig. 4). This analysis also showed some geographical clustering as seen for the isolates from Trans Nzoia, West Pokot and Marakwet counties which border each other in the north rift region of the country. The same trend was observed with SCMV isolates from counties of Kajiado, Taita Taveta, Kwale, and Tana River in the South rift and coast region. There were no other potyviruses recovered through NGS in this study, contrary to other studies where a potyvirus, Johnsongrass mosaic virus (JGMV) (Stewart et al., 2017;Wamaitha et al., 2018) was found to be present in MLN infected plants.This study also evaluated the viral recombination of the identified viruses using the recombination detection program RDP4 v4.84 (Martin et al., 2015). Our Sample S2 Bungoma and S35 Nyeri gave strong recombination signals and were recombinants as explained earlier. The recombination events were also identified among SCMV isolates found in the eastern Africa region with an exception of one isolate from China (JX047419), which had our isolate S35 Nyeri and another Kenyan isolate MG932071 (Wamaitha et al., 2018) as a major and minor parent respectively. Generally, recombination signals were strong among eastern Africa isolates mostly from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia. A typical case is a Tanzanian isolate, MF 467403.1 which had our sample S32 Kajiado as a major parent and S2 Bungoma as a minor Table 8 Detected recombination events of several SCMV isolates by at least 5 recombination evaluation methods. The two from the study samples were S2 Bungoma and S35 Nyeri. The corresponding P values and the recombination sites are illustrated. The methods key; R-RDP, G-GENECOV, B-BootScan, M-MaxiChi, C-Chimaera and S-Siscan were the recombination analysis methods used.   (Kimura, 1980).parent. This is expected for Kajiado borders Tanzania and this isolate MF 467403.1 (Kiruwa et al., 2019) originates in Arusha, a district that borders Kenya. Recombination signals were not detected in the MCMV genomes analyzed. This is partly because the virus is largely conserved with little genetic variation across the globe (Braidwood et al., 2018). As illustrated in the MCMV phylogenetic analysis, MCMV isolates are highly similar hence genetically conserved with minimal evidence of rapid evolution. There is a clear separation of MCMV isolates from different world regions, indicating that there has been no recombination between MCMV genomes in geographically isolated regions (Braidwood et al., 2018).Viral genetic recombination is a natural phenomenon and has been demonstrated to play an important role in the evolution of viruses (King et al., 1982). Recombination in viruses has also been observed to be a pervasive process that generates diversity in most viruses (Valli et al., 2007 andMartin et al., 2015). It occurs when at least two viral genomes coinfect the same host cell and exchange genetic segments possibly creating new variants for viruses to adapt to new hosts and environments by selective pressures (Perez-Losada et al., 2015). Similar studies on SCMV diversity in Shanxi, China revealed that SCMV not only evolves by divergence from common ancestors but also by inter-viral recombination (Xie et al., 2016). A considerable number of potyviruses can be regarded as successful products of several recombination events (Goncalves et al., 2011). Intra-species recombination is important in potyviridae evolution (Li et al., 2013) as demonstrated in this study for the eastern Africa SCMV isolates.The evolutionary pattern of SCMV needs to be continuously assessed in the country to determine if there are any virulent or more severe strains for which commensurate management strategies must be designed. Molecular diagnostic protocols need to be updated by incorporating new primer sequences designed by analyzing the new SCMV sequences generated and publicly available. It has been shown previously by KEPHIS (KEPHIS annual report, 2016) that primer sequences for SCMV from other sources do not work for the Kenya SCMV isolates. This was the case in this study where the SCMV primers used did not amplify the target Kenyan SCMV isolates hence the reason why DAS-ELISA was used in detecting SCMV. This confirms the high level of diversity in the SCMV sequences across the globe hence the need for specific primers for the local isolates. Real time qPCR primers were designed for these Kenyan SCMV isolates. The primers and probe targets the region 7375-7521 with an expected amplicon of 186 bp.There is a need to implement mitigation strategies simultaneously to effectively combat this devastating maize disease based on proposed MLN management models (Hilker et al., 2017). There is an initiative to strengthen the National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) capacity to test for MLN viruses, especially MCMV, in seed lots for seed certification and on seed and grain movement across borders. Adoption of MLN free seed production protocols developed by partners and seed companies in eastern African countries where MLN is endemic will reduce seedlots infected with MCMV (Prasanna et al., 2020). With the current extremely high levels of MCMV and SCMV infections in seed fields, this initiative is very valuable. There is also an initiative aiming at studying various factors affecting MLN epidemiology in eastern Africa (CIMMYT annual report, 2018). Several studies are being pursued to understand MCMV transmission through commercial seed in countries where the virus is endemic to facilitate more effective control (Annual MLN Epidemiology project report 2019). Highly important is generating knowledge about the relationship between seed infestation and seed transmission of MCMV, agronomic mitigation practices, crop rotations (especially with legumes), and prevention measures for the spread of MCMV from endemic to non-endemic areas. There is also a need for further studies to ascertain the sum effect of other viruses and abiotic factors that complicate the etiology of MLN in Kenya and by extension in eastern Africa.Francis M. Mwatuni: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writingoriginal draft, Formal analysis. Aggrey Bernard Nyende: Funding acquisition, Supervision. Joyce Njuguna: Software, Data curation. Xiong Zhonguo: Supervision. Eunice Machuka: Methodology. Francesca Stomeo: Writing -review & editing, Resources, Supervision, Funding acquisition.None.We sincerely thank the KEPHIS Managing Director for granting the study leave for Mwatuni Francis Machabe to undertake this research study at the Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa-International ","tokenCount":"6683"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b9b2837fb5e3d6f7f216020723a2793c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ab1ce6cc-3fa5-425d-9883-06a49ae81fcf/retrieve","id":"-499831709"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"39d4996a-3822-452b-ac6c-00b816b0a911","pagecount":"9","content":"Fund%Council% ! 12 th %Meeting%(FC12)-Brussels,%Belgium% November%4>5,%2014% % ! ! ! WORKING(DOCUMENT( % % % % ! ISPC!Commentary!on!the!extension!proposal! for!CRP!No.!7!Climate!Change,!Agriculture,! and!Food!Security!(CCAFS)!for!2015F2016! ! % % % % %Summary: CRP7 CCAFS aims to tackle 'three of the greatest challenges facing humankind in the 21 st century': food security, adaptation to climate change, and mitigation of climate change. It aims to catalyze positive changes towards Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), food systems, and landscapes by focusing on five IDOs (food security, gender and social differentiation, adaptive capacity, policies and institutions, mitigation). CCAFS is led by CIAT in partnership with all other CGIAR Centers: the list of participating Centers will be revised end-2014.ISPC notes that the subject matter and goals of this program truly represent a \"grand challenge\" for food security and poverty reduction in the 21st century; hence CRP7 fills an important role in the CGIAR. The extension proposal is presented clearly, and the covering letter is particularly helpful in drawing attention to some of the main issues. CCAFS has built strong partnerships with non-CGIAR institutions like ESSP (now Future Earth), and continues to emphasize strategic partnerships with other CRPs and global, regional, and national institutions in relation to its theory of change (ToC). The annual reports illustrate very good progress at a number of levels. Claims of significant outcomes and impacts include farmer-level (50,000 farmers in India insured with weather index-based products, 3 million Senegalese farmers receiving weather forecasts using new approaches, 15,000 Indian and Nepali women village leaders trained in CSA etc.) and policy-level (new adaptation strategy in Nicaragua resulted in major investments for coffee and cocoa, setting breeding strategies for crops etc.) outcomes. There is also evidence that targets are being closely monitored and actions being taken (for instance, gender targets).Further, there is very good discussion of the major contextual changes influencing CRP7 since the inception, but the extension proposal is less successful in providing a rationale for a number of significant changes in nomenclature and possibly changes in emphasis and its evolution. Overall, CRP7 appears to be attempting to move away from \"legacy\" projects and realigning its CGIAR partnerships to its strategic focus. While this reconfiguration likely will become clearer over the next two years, this is indicative of CRP7's willingness to adapt and learn from experience and is highly appreciated.The ISPC identified the following points as areas where improvements could be made.Projects (FPs) with compelling IDOs, and the associated impact pathways are coherent. CRP7 also appears to have adopted some of the ISPC recommendations on theories of change and impact pathways. However, the ToC for the CRP overall and various impact pathways are not sufficiently developed regarding change mechanisms, and are simplistic on how CRP activities influence those changes (both points are discussed in greater depth below for the FPs). 2. More generally, CRP7 needs to better identify the change mechanisms underlying the relationship between outputs, IDOs and SLOs. 3. The 4 CRP7 FPs described, appear to correspond to the 4 themes articulated in the 2011 CRP7 proposal. They each align well with the goal and sub-goals of CRP7 and represent a comprehensive program, but CRP7 could do more to provide rationale for selection of these FPs and address how overlaps (if any) with other CRPs will be handled. Specifically, for FPs 1 & 3 (CSA and mitigation respectively), CRP7 needs to articulate better how these will be mainstreamed across the CGIAR, and assess how (and by when) CRP7 will be able to focus efforts elsewhere. Similarly, FP4focus of which appears to have shifted substantially since the inception proposalcould better explain its research hypotheses on policy and institutional change, particularly mechanisms in varying contexts. 4. The extension proposal and the two most recent CRP7 annual reports describe substantial action on all themes. In comparison to the inception proposal, which had significant sections on \"research approach to international public goods\" and \"new content and innovation\" for each theme, the \"research areas\" for each FP and the workplan in this proposal gives little basis for judging potential for advancing knowledge in the coming years. 5. CPR7 should describe activities and components that are being phased-out, and those that are receiving increased attention to deliver on IPGs and impacts.What follows are more detailed comments against the criteria we used to review the proposals.The ISPC recommended the initiation of this CRP in early 2011 with the proviso that several issues were addressed during the initial phase. These included: (1) the realism of the timeframe for expected outputs given the geographic spread of place-based research involving a large network of participating Centers and partners; (2) the lack of emphasis on the food security component of the program within the well-developed components on adaptation and mitigation to climate risks; (3) the need to distinguish the outputs, outcomes and target impacts of CRP7 which sometimes overlap with those of the entire CGIAR portfolio; and (4) the degree of independence of the Program's Independent Scientific Panel (ISP).The original response by this CRP (to the ISPC comments) was very thorough and made clear what would and would not change, supported by reasoned arguments. The extension proposal also shows how attention has been given to strengthening independence of the Independent Scientific Panel (ISP). There is no statement of assumptions regarding the ToCwhat are the conditions that need to be met for the program to deliver? While CRP7 has done well to identify which FP is responsible for each IDO (Figure 2), identifying change mechanisms to explain the relationships between outputs and IDOs and SLOs, and framing these as hypotheses for testing is required. These program design concepts are rapidly evolving and only partly formed within CGIAR practice, so CRP7 leaders probably deserve some latitude at this time.The five proposed CRP7 IDOs (food security, gender and social differentiation, adaptive capacity, policies and institutions, and mitigation) seem to align well with SLOs on food security and poverty, particularly through reduction of risks faced by poor households, and sustainable management of natural resources. The connection is perhaps most tenuous to the SLO on human nutrition. But it is not obvious that all the IDOs are on the same level: an argument could be made that IDOs 2, 3, 4 and 5 all contribute to food security (IDO 1). The CRP7 IDO on mitigation arguably is of only indirect consequence for SLOs because the scope for impact on climate change appears small and the effects on SLOs therefore are indirect; indeed mitigation may involve tradeoffs with some SLOs.CCAFS has identified indicators and quantitative targets for 2019 and 2025 but, in the absence of clear statement of assumptions, some of these appear to be a substantial leap. For example, a 20% reduction in GHG emission intensities while enhancing food security in at least 8 countries. It is also not obvious if the following 2025 targets: '20 million additional farmers, at least 50% women, have climate smart practices', and 'adaptive capacity enhanced of 20 million farmers, at least 50% women, through advisories and safety nets' overlap. Overall, do all these targets represent CRP7 contributions or, as seems likely, are they part of broader efforts involving many organizations and partners? The proposal does briefly address the question of measurability, and it is encouraging that CRP7 is cognizant of issues that can arise in measurement and aggregation and is planning for this.As discussed in the next section, feasibility of impact pathways differs significantly among flagships. Potential barriers to uptake need to be identified.The 4 CRP7 flagship projects (FPs) described in the extension proposal apparently arise from the four themes articulated in 2011 CRP7 proposal; they each align well with the goal and sub-goals of CRP7 and, together, they represent an innovative, and comprehensive program. But CRP7 could do more to provide a rationale for selection of these FPs, and overall, address how CRP7 (and other CRPs) will handle overlap if they are all working towards the same goals. There is also a question of how FP progress (both in process and in outcomes) will be assessed within the new CGIAR, particularly for FP1 and FP3. Specifically, when and how will other CRPs be judged to have internalized these competencies, freeing CRP7 to focus on the needs of other CRPs that are progressing more slowly or to shift resources to other CRP7 FPs?While the reframing from the original 4 themes to the current 4 FPs is in many ways straightforward, no explanation is provided for the choice of those FP names. Theme 1 \"Adaptation to Progressive Climate Change\" apparently corresponds to Flagship 1 \"Climate Smart Agriculture\" (CSA). The CSA definition introduced by the FAO, as explained in a footnote on page 17, is buried at the very end of the renewal proposal.While the FAO definition cited in that note appears to align well with the goals and sub-goals of CRP7, the launch of high-level CSA political alliances and the assertion that \"CSA is now a major global movement\" is not sufficient support for CSA being accorded \"a preeminent role for CCAFS in the next five years.\" Similarly, the related concept of \"climate smart villages\" raises questions regarding rationale, purpose, and strategy. On a related note, it would be helpful to have a map of CRP7 sites and a tabulation (by site) of key criteria for selection, in line with broader efforts at CGIAR activity mapping. Apart from being appealing devices for external communication (not a minor issue), these new labels may represent important advances: unfortunately this is not obvious and not amenable to evaluation from the extension proposal (or on review of documents on the website). Specific comments on FPs follow. FP 2 Climate information services and climate-informed safety nets (ex. \"Adaptation through managing climate risk). FP2 is arguably the most innovative in its approach and partnerships of any in CRP7 (and possibly among the most innovative among the CRPs). In light of that, the lack of a clear research for development agenda, including testable hypotheses in a theory of change, is a particularly noteworthy gap. Implicitly, the theory of change would seem to rest largely on the notion that better (more targeted, more timely, more salient, more reliable) information will lead to appropriate changes in behavior, particularly better decisions regarding risk management and adaptation. And yet there is a growing literature in social psychology and behavioral economics that raises questions about the ability of people to process information for better decisions, particularly when they are poor or otherwise marginalized. These issues seem central to FP2, and FP2 could be an excellent vehicle to pursue research for development in this vein.FP 3 Low-emissions agricultural development (ex. \"Pro-poor climate change mitigation\"). Both FP1 and FP3 include climate change mitigation through cropping systems and practices (as distinct from the mitigation opportunities offered by forests and other tree-based systems, which have been viewed as the domain of CRP6 FTA).As with FP1, creating and mainstreaming capacity for assessment of mitigation potential (and climate impact more broadly) across CGIAR CRPs is an important function.The rationale for investment in financial and institutional aspects of mitigation in these systems is less compelling. As stated explicitly in the CRP7 inception proposal (2011 page 12: \"It is also assumed that mitigation initiatives by smallholder farmers will be rewarded, with incomes being supplemented by up to US$50 per household per annum in some cases.\") and largely implicit in this extension proposal, payments for mitigation are a crucial mechanism of the theory of change for FP3. But, in contrast to forest protection, REDD, REDD+ (not to mention mitigation in the energy and transport sectors), what are the prospects that transactions costs can be low enough and C storage/emission reductions can be large enough to create significant benefits for these farmers? (This risk is recognized in the inception proposal on p. 68.) Can those opportunities really compete with forestry and energy sector mitigation? It seems that characterization of what conditions/context (if any) would provide significant, pro-poor mitigation income streams (net of transaction costs) is a prerequisite to further pursuit of these institutional dimensions of FP3. Alternatively, would the mitigation and pro-poor prospects be greater if CCAFS shifted inquiry toward alternative energy (including biofuel production) by and for farms and communities in the developing world?FP 4 Policies and institutions for climate-resilient food systems (ex. \"Integration of decision making\"). This seems to be the most significant change in emphasis within CRP7 between the theme described in the 2011 inception proposal, which placed greater emphasis on the internal \"analytical and diagnostic framework for the whole of CRP7\" (2011, p. 78) and the current extension proposal, which emphasizes changes in \"national, regional and global policies and institutions\" (2014, p. 7).Certainly this policy engagement should be part of CCAFS, but it is well understood both how unpredictable and time-intensive this work is if there are to be reasonable prospects for impact. Once again, for this shift in emphasis to be justified and prospects for impact assessed ex ante, a much deeper articulation of mechanisms of policy and institutional change must be stated for specific contexts and opportunities. At the same time, this shift in emphasis raises questions about whether the essential functions of \"integration for decision making\", including identifying \"hotspots of vulnerability\" (2011, p. 80) to guide regional and site prioritization within CRP7, are receiving adequate attention and resources.Each FP is presented with its research areas, impact pathways, and the IDOs to which it contributes. The various contributions of the four FPs to CRP7 IDOs are similarly cogent. Issues related to impact pathways and IDOs have been identified in section 1.One of the recommendations from the 2010 Consortium Office scoping study on past CGIAR gender analysis work was to mainstream gender analysis in the CRPs. While the initial CRP7 proposal had an explicit goal on gender impact, the CGIAR-wide gender strategy was still in development at the time of its writing. Integration of gender (and marginalized groups, generally) research, outreach, and capacity building activities in this extension proposal is clear in presentation, and appears appropriate in approach. For example, CCAFS has established a Gender and Climate Change Network and facilitated the formation of region-specific gender impact pathways with partners in 5 regions; and included gender-related information in baseline surveys for all CCAFS sites, that along with gender-disaggregated quantitative research is being used by partners to design research that addresses gender constraints to adoption of adaptation/mitigation practices. But it is unclear how mainstreaming gender in FPs feeds back to shape FP priorities and activities; developing hypotheses and clarifying mechanisms within theories of change, as suggested above, should help to clarify these adaptive relationships within the CRP impact pathways.While it is difficult to compare the levels and trends in CRP7 metrics for \"gender in the workplace\" to the CGIAR and other reference organizations, CRP7 deserves praise for monitoring its own benchmarks and articulating clear targets. The 2013 Annual Report noted that progress in terms of gender-differentiated tools and products were slower than expected because of human resource constraints in many Centers, and this potentially will be improved with recent hiring of staff. ISPC encourages CRP7 to continue monitoring this closely as this has implications for the gender strategy.Overall, CRP7's substantive focus offers important opportunities to advance our understanding of differentiation of vulnerabilities, outcomes, and opportunities by gender (and other characteristics). Unfortunately, it is not possible to access CRP7 prospects for important advances in this neglected area of knowledge, which is the main weakness in the approach to \"gender and differentiation\" in the extension proposal. The roots of this shortcoming are in the superficiality of the CRP7 ToC discussed in sections above and, in particular, lack of critical discussion of change mechanisms or articulation of testable hypotheses regarding gender and other aspects of differentiation. Additionally, in its gender and social differentiation framework, it would be helpful for CCAFS to explicitly consider and anticipate how conflicts of interest within households and communities and unintended consequences may arise, exacerbated by existing power imbalances at various levels. The 2013 annual report did note how institutional and policy constraints were limiting the benefits reaching women and other disadvantaged groups from climate-finance related initiatives, and this informed the call for proposals in the low-emissions development work (Theme 3) for Phase II.In its October 2010 review, ISPC recognized one of the strengths of CRP7 was the involvement of a wide range of partners in the preparation of the proposal, and an indication of their relative roles and responsibilities under each of the Themes. And, in its September 2011 review, ISPC cautioned that having a significant influence on global and regional policy processes is not a trivial matter and does not follow directly from research expertise and products. It emphasized that CRP7 will need to constantly review partnerships (upstream and downstream), particularly consider how this leads to outcomes and impacts on policies, and fine tune this as the program develops.ISPC notes that CRP7 continues to be outstanding in its commitment to work through a comprehensive and relevant range of strategic partnerships for key functions (research, capacity building, knowledge management, action on practices, policy and institutional change, and management and governance), even as ISPC recognizes that assessing the quality of these partnerships at this stage is difficult. Over the past three years, CCFAS has passed on 23-30% of its budget to partners annually and in the extension period, aims to spend 25-30% of its budget on partners even as it states that many of the most critical partnerships do not entail financial transfers.Relevance of main changes in CRP governance, structure, partnerships that will be implemented between 2015 and 2016: CRP7's original partnership with the Earth Systems Sciences Program (ESSP) held much promise as an important innovation for the CGIAR in collaborative global change science and as a means of augmenting both high-level human resources and significant financial resources. In response to ISPC's concerns in 2011, CRP7 proposed to add more explicit sections on the ESSP role. Accordingly, it seems appropriate that Future Earth (the successor organization to ESSP) will be represented as an ISP ex officio member. The current status is a bit uncertain because of the transition from ESSP to Future Earth, but it is hoped this new relationship will be mutually beneficial and certainly seems to merit continued involvement.CRP7 has been highly innovative in building new partnershipsfor e.g., with national meteorological agencies, insurers, and national and international organizations that are central to prospects for constructive impact on practices, institutions, and policies. CCAFS intends to continue developing and deepening its relationship with IFAD, FAO and the World Bank for policy and institutional work and CSA implementation. At the regional level, CRP7 has an impressive set of collaborations with national (and sub-national) agencies and institutions as well as regional organizations. It is encouraging that CRP7 tracks metrics such as publications with NARES: in 2012, 26% of CCAFS journal papers were published with NARES co-authors. The proposal summarizes regional collaborations for each Flagship, and there may be lessons here for other CRPs to learn about the breadth and relevance in choice of partners.Other CRP partners: CRP7 seems committed to cross-CRP collaboration, especially as a vehicle for FP 1 on Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA). The main changes anticipated are regarding shedding of \"legacy\" projects and realignment based on performance. However, operational aspects of coordination mechanisms are not described in sufficient detail here to comment. Lessons of success and failure in these operational arrangements have strategic importance for the CGIAR as a whole and thus these experiences would seem to deserve particular attention in any future evaluation of CRP7.6.1. Evolution of the 2 year extended workplan from the original CRP proposal: CRP7 leadership have consistently signalled their determination to sharpen strategic focus and reduce \"legacy projects\"; this continues to be a work in progress, but it is apparent that necessary governance and organizational structures are well established (p. 35, 2014 IEA Governance and Management Review). The covering letter states that CCAFS will choose the best teams for strategic objectives (no longer based on relative contributions by the Centers), and the proposal states that the main constellation of Centers in different FPs will be decided in late 2014 based on past performance, strategic fit, and ISP discussion on the detailed workplan for 2015-2016.6.2. Relevance of the new components to the improvement of the CRP overall expected outcomes and the changed context? While CRP7 has described major changes in context (CSA Alliance, role of information age in addressing poor extension services for farmers etc.), there is not sufficient discussion of what specific new components have been introduced (besides how their CSA strategy will be further embedded in global bodies) and how these relate to these contextual changes that CRP7 considers important, and what components are coming to an end.7.1 Coherence of the year 2 extended period budget with the one originally proposed by the CRP: About 65% of CCAFS proposed budget for 2015-2016 is from W1&W2, and 35% from bilateral donors and W3. Their 2011 proposal projected an expenditure of US $86 million for 2014 and US $90.3 million for 2015 (a year-on-year increase of 5%). The current budget for 2015 is US $74.2 milliona decrease of 18% below their initial projectionand, their budget for 2016 is US $77.3 million (an increase of 3.8% over the latest 2015 component).The largest funding in 2014-2015 goes to Flagship 1 (~40%) consistent with 2011 allocation of about 38%. But, there is a slight shift in the overall allocation to Flagship 4 between 2011 and 2014-2015: from comprising about 28% of the Themes budget to 18% of the total FP budget now. The limited information provided in this proposal makes it difficult to assess these changes, and more importantly, whether the allocation between FPs is appropriate.","tokenCount":"3599"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"12ea68e361f8399b76c90c07cad62220","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/34fda492-79ff-4850-8af5-4b771a0b2364/retrieve","id":"1043708160"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f07c4c6a-a1db-47e0-8403-28f9ea3cf44b","pagecount":"60","content":"ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used Acknowledgements: The authors thank Rosekellen Njiru for her contributions to organizing this meeting.1. At primary and secondary education levels COHESA will work to achieve OH integration in curricula and capacitate teachers. 2. At undergraduate level, COHESA will facilitate implementation of a general OH module that can be implemented across disciplines. 3. At graduate and postgraduate levels, the use of a survey is already in progress to identify gaps and strengths in OH education. From this review COHESA WP3 team members can develop a stand-alone OH program and/or OH modules as best suited to ESA. 4. Within higher education institutes, it will also be relevant to improve capacities of those implementing OH education through use of existing resources and building skills around communication, collaboration, coordination, and resource mobilization. 5. Finally at the level of in-service professionals, continuous professional development (CPD) on OH at both the basic and advanced/applied level will be applied/developed/adapted as needed with the plan to have CPD accreditation to ensure the active workforce is capacitated in OH in their respective fields.This workshop provided opportunities for regional collaboration and strengthened existing capacities in OH education and training in the ESA region. COHESA aims to understand the OH education landscape and build upon numerous already existing OH education programs/courses/modules to adapt solutions for ESA. When gaps are identified, COHESA will work with country partners and stakeholders to develop new OH education materials (considering benchmarks) and facilitate implementation to ensure the future workforce can work locally, regionally, and across disciplines in the OH field.As we increasingly recognize the inter-connecting factors that influence the health of people, animals and the environment, 'One Health' -defined as an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems -is seen as a very promising way to frame and take action at different levels -international, regional, national and local.Essentially, the argument for One Health says that successfully reducing future health risks and impacts for people and livelihoods, as well as for animals and ecosystems, is most likely to come when we bring together and draw on diverse expertise across public, veterinary and environmental health.The importance of adopting the One Health approach has been reinforced by lessons from recent disease outbreaks including COVID-19, Ebola and avian influenza. In addition, One Health thinking is embedded in current efforts to reduce the spread of antimicrobial resistant pathogens, to ensure food safety, reduce water and waste-borne contamination, manage human and livestock interactions with wildlife, and reduce aflatoxin contamination in crops and livestock products, to name only a few examples. It can also be seen in structural efforts to establish 'One Health' collaborative, cross-departmental organizational structures, and the like. To succeed, all require a triple 'input' of public, veterinary and environmental health expertise together with an understanding of the wider systems involved.While the overall approach has been around for some time, implementation of genuine One Health faces several challenges, key being the many sectoral, domain, disciplinary, academic, organizational and investment silos that limit the necessary cross-communication and integration of efforts and which ultimately segregate people and their ideas, restricting the development of integrated, comprehensive solutions.Furthermore, while each domain or discipline -such as medicine, public health, veterinary science or ecosystems health -has its own specific organizations and expertise, there are individual and institutional gaps in One Health capacities both at the various between-domain interfaces and more globally around how people think think about, plan, and implement health 'as one.'With funds from the European Commission OACPS Research and Innovation Programme, the 'Capacitating One Health in East and Southern Africa' (COHESA) project is tackling key One Health capacity gaps in the region. This is implemented through enhancing the knowledge base for research and policy-making, strengthening national and subregional cross-sectoral collaboration, building academic and research capacities and One Health education, and growing the abilities of government and non-governmental actors to deliver One Health solutions.COHESA is led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD -Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).Convened by ILRI and CIRAD and hosted by the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN), this workshop of project partners and 'multipliers' (local project implementors) brainstormed and set priorities for the COHESA 'education' work package to equip higher education institutions to train the next generation in the One Health approach. Under this package, COHESA aims to benchmark tertiary One Health training, identify and co-develop new short courses and content to fill priority gaps, capacitate secondary and tertiary education institutes and research institutions to deliver One Health courses and content, train the next generation of One Health researchers and trainers, strengthen One Health research better connecting research and policy.Over three days, some 50 people (47% women; 53% men) from eleven ESA countries (Rwanda participants were unable to secure visas in time) examined One Health problem scenarios, identified target actors and stakeholders requiring training and education in One Health, mapped country capacity and curriculum efforts. The team additionally reviewed ways to benchmark and develop One Health curricula, identified essential capacities of One Health training efforts, set out curriculum development priorities of key groups, and identified some initial One Health research collaboration areas to follow up.Participants were welcomed by Flora Pule-Meulenberg from the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN). She explained the importance of the One Health agenda for the country and region, emphasizing the important roles of academic institutions to develop necessary capacities in students and the wider society and workforce. An introductions exercise asked participants to explain where they fit on spectrums of their involvements in One Health domains (animal, human, environment) and across different roles (policy, evidence, capacities).Thereafter, the facilitator introduced the overall agenda of the three days in relation to the formal objectives of the workshop:• Develop a stronger Work Package team with increased mutual understanding.• Team members have an agreed plan and way forward.• Agreed key action points and milestones for 2023.• New collaborative opportunities identified for the team.As inputs for the country teams to develop their work plans, the agenda included several short presentations designed to frame the discussions and inspire the participants.After the day one introductions, the morning session comprised the following presentations; These were followed by reflection and discussion to identify the key points relevant to the objectives of the work package teams.Reflecting on the initial set of presentations, participants noted several key insights and implications for the project, including:• SARUA offers an existing framework and model for curriculum development that can be leveraged and adapted to develop a One Health curriculum • This is a packed space and One Health players should aim to coordinate and shift to prevention as well as mutual information sharing between the players     • To what extent are social science aspects included in the various efforts?• What is benchmarking and how does it result in the new courses taught in the countries?• Can IUCEA and SARUA harmonise their assessments?• Are IUCEA benchmarks shared between EA and SSA?• Does SARUA mandate extend to benchmarking and harmonisation?• Do we need a regional approach for benchmarking for Southern Africa Countries?• Where does Ethiopia fit as they are not members of IUCEA or SARUA?• How do we ensure sustainability in an open-source platform?• How does the curriculum development fit into the international setting standards such as WOAH, WHO?• Are the two regions going to harmonise the curriculum?• Where is the community involvement and impact? Visits to academic groups at University of Botswana and Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources were used to expose participants to real One Health 'problem scenarios' and provide space to dive deeper into the types of capacities and competencies needed and implications for One Health curriculum development. Seven problem areas were interrogated (see Annex 6.1 for the group products):• Domestic animals, challenges at the human-animal-environment interface.• Human, wildlife, domestic animals' interaction.• Climate change and mycotoxin contamination on cereals and groundnuts.• Excessive use of pesticides in agriculture.• Engineering FMD vaccine appropriate for southern Africa.Reflecting on them all as a group, participants highlighted the following:• Despite the diverse themes, there are common competencies, especially across soft skills like communication and collaboration • Similar competence gaps were encountered, particularly domain/organization silos, recurring capacity needs, and non-existing One Health implementation platform. • Some of the cases identified many actors involved and potentially needing capacities, raising a question of who to prioritise. • Where curriculum changes or innovations may be needed, it is important that academic curriculum regulatory bodies are involved. • While One Health needs were often recognized, there are many gaps in the knowhow needed to implement them. • Looking beyond research and academia, we need to find promising ways to connect to grassroots audiences. • Features that participants wanted to see included: Integrated approaches, enhanced collaboration and awareness, cost-benefit analysis tools, and expanded access to resources and information.Reflecting on their field visits and other discussions, participants brainstormed in small groups to identify some necessary academic capacities to be able to design and deliver One Health curricula, courses and content.Essential capacities we need to have or enhance to be able to effectively DESIGN One Health curricula, courses and content:-Needs assessment to determine baseline.-Clear county specific objectives -be good listeners.-Curriculum development specialist.-Integration of subject matter experts (curriculum coordination).-Curriculum development expertise/skills.-Wider capacity content (detail), different stakeholders (talented).-OH sensitization of faculty members (so they can see their roles within OH).-Systems thinking capacity. -Advocacy on social media, newsletters, online platforms.-Advocacy and communication.-Networking capacity.-Dedicated platform (CPD, research group, network).-Accessible platform for multiple sectors.-Digital networking tools.-Advertising/marketing CPD opportunities.-Soft skills -communication and facilitations, linkages.Capacity-enhancing 'magic beans' we can grow together:-Create community of practice (COP) for continued engagements.-Continuous professional development.-One health resource platform (online/distance).-Adaptable material (open source).-Develop information sharing platform (COHESA project level).-Open-source ambassadors (advocacy).Siobhan Mor of ILRI framed this session with a short presentation outlining some important elements of One Health research (see Annex 6.2)She introduced the notion of 'One Health-ness' developed by the Network for Evaluation of One Health (NEOH) as a useful framework and set of questions that could be used to help determine the extent that an intervention -a course or a piece of research for example -truly meets 'One Health' outcomes or is just focused on a single domain issue or question.Building on the frequently-used image of One Health as a series of overlapping circles (see page 1) where the different domains intersect and where activities in the center show high degrees of integration and 'One Health-ness', participants noted that developing capacities to integrate around the core is critical within COHESA.To achieve this integration, Dr Mor explained that people employ different modes of collaboration -Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary. The degree of togetherness is highest in transdisciplinary work -where One Health aspires to be -and where the frequently-mentioned soft skills are necessary for productive interaction and integration.John Becker reported the results of a short survey of participants to determine their interest in collaborating on different research ideas (see Annex 6.3). Thereafter participants formed groups around self-identified potential collaborative research issues and sketched potential areas of work, see below. In a final session, participants zoomed in on 5 priority groups to identify curriculum development priorities and how to approach/deliver them.Tables below provide the detailed group notes, the key points are summarized below:• For schools, integrate One Health into their curricula and activities, training teachers, providing model assignments, and explore the potential for games and out of school activities. The official closing was preceded by a short self-assessment of the meeting to highlight stronger and weaker points. Inspired by the earlier discussion around the concept of 'One Health-ness', participants also ranked their overall assessment of the meeting in terms of our aspirations to include all One Health domains and be integrative in our deliberations. The table below captures that assessment together with some comments of participants Recognizing the powerful network effect of enhanced collaboration among participating countries and institutions, the planning session began with a group exercise to identify innovative actions or ideas that can reinforce collaboration among the Education work package team. The ideas included:1. Act as a collective/collaborative advocacy forum on One Health education 2. Co-design the programme using online and face to face participatory approaches 3. Enhance relationships and institutionalize partnerships between multipliers and in-country partners 4. Capacity sharing and mentoring• Facilitate CPD accreditation at COHESA workshops and events (CPD) on OH at both basic and advanced/applied levels through online short courses or hybrid blended with CPD accreditation to ensure the active workforce is capacitated in OH in their respective fields. -Both SARUA and IUCEA offer an existing framework that can be leveraged to develop a One Health curriculum for EA and SA countries. Shared learning between the IUCEA benchmarking and the Southern African countries as well as Ethiopia can avoid duplicating work. An IUCEA model for curriculum development is available to develop curricula on One Health -Collaborate with AFROHUN moving forward to leverage their existing OH education activities and align with COHESA WP3 activities. -Involve local regulatory entities as well as aligning to regional and continental bodies to ensure sustainability.Across these actions, the workshop participants felt it was imperative to involve local regulatory entities, as well as regional and continental bodies to ensure sustainability of WP3 initiatives. This will also help to harmonize curricula and facilitate professional mobility in the One Health field. To this end it may also be helpful to map the education stakeholders and develop a mutual information sharing system (this could be the COHESA Observatory) to promote One Health institutionalization and reduce duplication of efforts.Annex 1: Opening remarks by BUAN Vice Chancellor I am happy that my university is participating in this very important project as the country lead multiplier.The Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources came into existence when the then Botswana College of Agriculture transformed into a university in 2016 through an Act of Parliament.Although as a University we are almost seven years old, the history of my institution spans over sixty (60) years.Our mandate as a university is to provide high education and training in the fields of Agriculture and Natural Resources through innovative teaching and research.To operationalize that mandate, BUAN has a strategy which is based on four key pillars; Research Intensification, Academic Excellence, Entrepreneurial Drive, and Agile Operations.One of the thematic areas of the Research Intensification pillar is to have increased collaboration with external partners.It is my firm belief that this COHESA project is helping us to achieve that thematic area.The COHESA project also talks to our pillar of Academic Excellence.I am informed that curricula development in the 11 COHESA countries is one of the key discussion items in this workshop.This project has come at the right time. Currently, the world is faced with unprecedented, interconnected threats to the health of people, animals, and the environment; addressing these threats requires cross-sectoral, systems-wide approaches.According to the World Health Organization, \"One Health is an approach to optimize the health of humans, animals and ecosystems by integrating these fields, rather than keeping them separate\".It is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. One Health recognizes that the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment are closely linked.Essentially, One Health unpacks the Agricultural and Natural Resources sphere across its value chain and therefore presents a compelling argument for multidisciplinarity in research.One Health is an issue of global concern. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Scientists estimate that \"more than 6 out of every 10 known infectious diseases in people can be spread from animals, and 3 out of every 4 new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals\".The World Bank reports that \"the pace of (Emerging Infectious Diseases) EID outbreaks has increased at an average annual rate of 6.7% from 1980 and is compounded by the global movement of goods and people, which enables local outbreaks to spread worldwide\".In fact, the next outbreak might be just around the corner.Furthermore, the World Bank highlights that, \"COVID-19 killed more than 6.3 million people as of June 2022, with true mortality being possibly three times higher and numbers continuing to rise. The IMF projected the cumulative output loss from the pandemic through to 2024 to be about $13.8 trillion\".The One Health Approach can prevent the next epidemic. According to the World Bank, \"One Health is designed as an integrated, practical, multisectoral framework for pandemic prevention\".The key words here are \"Integrated\", \"Practical\" and \"Multisectoral\". Preventing the next pandemic cannot be a one person show, but should rather be a holistic, diverse multi-stakeholder approach.Therefore, in our case here in Botswana, gone are the days when Ministries of Health, Agriculture, Environment and Education planned in silos. One Health forces us to adopt multifaced intervention measures against the next pandemic.Food production, which is the source of life, happens at the interface of Agriculture and the Environment, which is a prefect crucible for zoonosis.Therefore, mitigation against Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID's) outbreaks, or should I say the first responders, are those involved in food production systems. This is where we need cutting edge research and innovation to assist us to foretell the future, so that we are better prepared.This thinking is aligned to a recommendation from the World Bank which advises that the foundations for global health security should be implemented at the country level.It is difficult (of course) to predict where the next pandemic is necessarily going to come from, therefore, countries are encouraged to mainstream One Health into their development frameworks.Therefore, it is inevitable that a university like BUAN should be in the forefront of this initiative (in Botswana).Because of its special nature, as a university whose mandate encompasses both Agriculture and Natural Resources, I urge government to facilitate the development of a Center of Excellence on One Health in Botswana at BUAN.As a public institution, it is our responsibility to be an implementing partner of government initiatives.Therefore, assisting government to mainstream the One Health approach into its development framework dovetails into our mandate.Our aim is to drive technology and knowledge transfer to stakeholders across the entire value chain, from a cattle herder in the communal areas, to commercial cattle ranches, to arable farmers at all levels, to communities that subsist on natural resources, to scientists in state-of-the-art facilities.BUAN can use this platform to facilitate knowledge transfer and generation about potential EID's in Botswana.We are ready, willing, and waiting.With these few remarks, I declare this workshop open. Assignments Each team will visit 1 host organization Your task is to 'map' and characterize one or two problem scenarios in terms of core actors, core competencies, core curriculum content, and preferred ways to acquire/deliver the competencies. The host organization will present these and answer your questions.Your team has an overall process facilitator -to help you stay on track and coordinate any needed actions.You need to prepare a short presentation summarizing your insights -using the slides here. Ideally you elect one or two people to be the rapporteurs/presenters for each problem scenario.Your presentation should draw conclusions and implications for the development of one health curricula for diverse core actors/stakeholders/audiences. You will need to discuss/report on: 1) what the problem/challenge is and how is it manifested; 2a) who is affected by the problem/challenge and 2b) who is tasked to find/provide/determine/assure solutions 3) what competencies the core actors/stakeholders need to have in order to be able to carry out their responsibilities 4) what forms of learning/training/awareness are appropriate to enhance core actor/stakeholder competencies and 5) any particular bottlenecks or accelerators that are especially significant or critical to shape the skills or capacities that core actors/stakeholders need to have…. Focus always on the One Health -an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. • To be defined by competencies and needs Delivery?• Make use of technologies to widen range of participating expertise (geographically, across sectors, etc.)Outreach?• Collaboration/communication of research results; bring guest lecturers for an integrative approach  • Human expertise available wildlife management and range management.• Academic programs cover relevant issues but students sill don't get to the final level.• Have programs that help address problems Needed technical competencies:• One Health principles and concepts • Social and economic human resources (behavioural economics, behaviour, social inclusion, etc.)For the core actors involved (see earlier slide), list the core technical competencies they need to have to carry out their roles Optional: are there any stand-out strengths or gaps you observe?• Soft skills for collaboration, coordiantion, communication, and advocacy• Systems thinking/approach-would help in write comprehensive proposals; and facilitate whole-of-value-chain understading (farm to fork)   • \"…involves combined assessment of health risks across the three domains of humans, animals, and the environment, and it involves design and implementation of intervention and prevention strategies that address all three sectors with a goal to produce integrated knowledge\" (Davis et al., 2017)• \"…aims at generating change in a social-ecological system (context) towards improved health of humans, animals and/or ecosystems\" @OneHealthHORN [email protected] www.OneHealthHORN.net One Health evaluation framework (cont'd)• Degree of \"One Health-ness\" relates to: ","tokenCount":"3526"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"145c9791173ffe3c0900500d786e8de6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6286bf80-a284-4107-a207-8fca4e044a3f/retrieve","id":"1918027177"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d8b5ea8a-c8b7-43e3-9978-8b70187c54cb","pagecount":"1","content":"Los resultados sugieren que la asociación de leguminosas y gramíneas con alta capacidad de IBN podría tener beneficios en términos de IBN y de fijación simbiótica de nitrógeno.La intensificación de la agricultura requiere altas dosis de fertilizantes nitrogenados, los cuales son transformados en el suelo mediante procesos biológicos (nitrificación-denitrificación), donde se ocasionan pérdidas de nitrógeno en lixiviados de nitratos (NO 3 -) y emisiones hacia la atmósfera en forma de óxido nitroso (N 2 O), gas con alto potencial de calentamiento global (298 veces más que el CO 2 ). con el fin de establecer estrategias productivas sostenibles, se estudiaron tres sistemas de manejo de praderas (Naturalizado, Mejorado y Silvopastoril) en una región afectada por periodos secos prolongados, en el suroccidente de Colombia, en donde se evaluó la capacidad para la inhibición biológica.Se obtuvo la mayor tasa de nitrificación (conversión de amonio a nitrato, 4.4 mg N -NO 3 -kg suelo/día) en el sistema silvopastoril, debido probablemente a la presencia de leguminosas (Leucaena leucocephala, Desmodium sp, Cannavalia brasiliensis y Gliricida sepium, entre otras) que actúan de forma simbiótica con las bacterias nitrificantes para la trasformación del nitrógeno atmosférico y que reportan mayores tasas de nitrificación en suelo. Para el sistema con pasturas mejoradas, la tasa de nitrificación post fertilización fue de 3.9 mg N-NO 3 -kg suelo-1día-1.Sin embargo, es de resaltar los registros obtenidos en una de las fincas (0.26 mg N-NO 3 -kg suelo/día), explicado por la presencia de forrajes mejorados El trabajo, presenta resultados del \"Estudio de emisión de gases efecto invernadero y captura de carbono en sistemas de pequeños y medianos productores de carne en los municipios Patía y Mercaderes, Cauca.\", el cual se desarrolla en el marco del programa de investigación \"Desarrollo y uso de recursos forrajeros en sistemas sostenibles de producción bovina para el Departamento del Cauca\" financiado por el Sistema Nacional de Regalías, ejecutado por la Gobernación del Cauca y operado por la Universidad del Cauca, el Programa de forrajes tropicales del CIAT y las asociaciones de productores ASOGAMER y COAGROUSUARIOS.Este trabajo está alineado al programa de investigación del CGIAR en cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria (CCAFS). ","tokenCount":"354"}

data/part_2/0270419228.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9566f12b1296af77d46dcfa4c523f62e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8946cce4-5129-4e44-8a76-aacea21caaa3/retrieve","id":"-1714915920"},"keywords":["Postbus 380","6700 AJ Wageningen","Pays-Bas (www.cta.int) Production et gestion du contenu Web : Contactivity bv","Stationsweg 28","2312 AV Leiden","Pays-Bas (www.contactivity.com) Coordination rédactionnelle : Rutger Engelhard / Rédacteur : Jim Dempsey / Correction : Valerie Jones (anglais)","Jacques Bodichon (français) / Conception du magazine : Frissewind (www.frissewind.nl) / Réalisation graphique : Anita Toebosch / Traduction : Patrice Deladrier / Photo de couverture : Charles Sturge / Alamy / Conseillers scientifiques : Peter Ballantyne","Oumy Ndiaye","Dorothy Okello","Kevin Painting"],"sieverID":"9d17bab7-3ca6-47da-9608-048e1748a115","pagecount":"24","content":"ICT Update numéro 50, août 2009. ICT Update est un magazine multimédia disponible à la fois sur Internet (http://ictupdate. cta.int), en version papier et sous forme d'une newsletter diffusée par courriel. Le prochain numéro paraîtra au mois d'octobre 2009. Le CTA, Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (ACP-UE), est un institut du Groupe des États ACP et de l'UE, créé dans le cadre de l'Accord de Cotonou. Il est financé par l'UE.Sommaire A u départ, ICT Update était un webzine bimestriel qui résumait les pages de sites consacrés à l'actualité des TIC au service du développement. Comme la plupart des PED n'avaient à l'époque qu'un accès limité au web, le CTA diffusait également ICT Update dans son intégralité par courriel et sur papier. Les partenaires pouvaient consulter les sources Internet mentionnées dans le courriel grâce à des prestataires « web-courriel » européens et nord-américains. Ce 50 numéro spécial est l'occasion de jeter un coup d'oeil en arrière, sur neuf années de chroniques retraçant le développement de nombreux projets TIC, les tendances dans les pays ACP et la contribution des TIC au développement rural et agricole de ces pays.À l'aube du deuxième millénaire, la communauté de développement international était persuadée que les TIC pourraient booster le développement socio-économique des pays ACP et les relier à un commerce qui se mondialise au pas de charge. Des organismes comme l'UIT, le PNUD, l'UNECA, la Banque mondiale et d'autres bailleurs et ONG internationales ont dominé l'agenda des TIC au service du développement et initié de nombreux programmes visant à promouvoir la mutualisation des connaissances, les réseaux collaboratifs et l'e-commerce via Internet dans les pays ACP. Comme la connectivité était médiocre, voire inexistante dans la, plupart de ces pays, ces organismes ont massivement investi dans un large éventail de solutions d'accès initial allant des satellites de communication en orbite basse à l'installation de télé-centres communautaires en zone rurale.Depuis 2000, ICT Update a suivi les débats internationaux sur les TIC, mais s'est surtout intéressé aux organisations locales qui y faisaient appel pour proposer des services aux paysans et à leurs familles. ICT Update leur a demandé de raconter leur parcours, leurs réussites, les défis et les raisons de leur choix technologique.Au fil des ans, ICT Update a ouvert ses colonnes à des initiatives de toute nature : services de vulgarisation agricole, centres de santé ruraux, institutions bancaires et de microfinance, stations de radio locales, stations métés … qui, pour la plupart, n'avaient pas d'accès adéquat à Internet mais se sont rabattus sur d'autres TIC -portable, ordinateur de poche ou PDA, carte à puce, cédérom, système d'information géographique (SIG), GPS, radio et télé numériques, système d'identification à radiofréquence (RFID), technologie acoustique et d'imagerie, et bien entendu des programmes utilisant le web, le web 2.0 et la messagerie.Ces initiatives conjuguent souvent plusieurs TIC et s'avèrent profitables au développement rural et agricole. Elles prouvent aussi qu'on peut utiliser les TIC au niveau local et les laisser aux mains des organisations locales et des communautés qu'elles accompagnent.Dans les pays ACP, l'essor du portable aura sans conteste été l'évolution technologique la plus spectaculaire de ces dernières années. Qui aurait cru en 2000 que les réseaux clairsemés des opérateurs de téléphonie mobile grandiraient si vite ? Avec leurs connexions internationales, ils font désormais partie du paysage mondial des communications mobiles.Le portable n'est plus un outil de communication de poche, c'est une plate-forme de services divers et variés. Au fond, ce sont les précurseurs qui ont ouvert la voie du succès aux nombreux services TIC dont bénéficient les familles rurales des pays ACP. Les entrepreneurs locaux ont en effet immédiatement compris que, au Sud comme au Nord, tout le monde voudrait avoir son portable et que beaucoup auraient les moyens de s'en offrir un. Cette prise de conscience a suscit�� le développement de services mobiles répondant spécifiquement aux conditions et aux besoins locaux.En décembre 2002, ICT Update découvrait Manobi, le premier service téléphonique africain multimodal permettant à des paysans isolés de recevoir sur leur portable des informations sur les marchés actualisées et adaptées à leurs besoins. Depuis, ICT Update a évoqué d'autres mobiles présents dans les pays ACP : Wizzit, première « banque mobile » sud-africaine pour non-bancarisés, ou encore Celpay, un service de paiement par portable utilisé en RDC et en Zambie. ICT Update a rapporté diverses utilisations du portable dans des projets de développement rural et agricole. Le dossier de ce numéro spécial dresse l'inventaire des nombreux services de mobilophonie évoqués dans nos colonnes.Le système mondial de localisation (GPS) est une autre application TIC ayant inspiré de nombreuses solutions pratiques aux problèmes rencontrés par les organisations de développement. Il est souvent utilisé en conjonction avec des capteurs à distance, des systèmes d'information géographique (SIG) et le portable. Développé à l'origine par et pour l'armée américaine, il servait depuis longtemps à la navigation aérienne, maritime et routière.L'application GPS qui a attiré l'attention des praticiens et entrepreneurs locaux des pays ACP n'était toutefois qu'un petit appareil de poche permettant à des explorateurs et à des secouristes de connaître leur position exacte. Ce récepteur GPS a fait un malheur chez les randonneurs, les cyclistes et les géomètres et est désormais produit en masse pour le marché mondial de la consommation et disponible à souhait dans les PED.Dès mai 2003, ICT Update rapportait qu'en Guyane française des récepteurs GPS avaient été installés à bord d'ULM pour lutter contre la mouche de la carambole (n° 11). Très vite, d'autres récits du même genre ont été rapportés. Aujourd'hui, ici et là dans le Sahel, des bergers se servent du GPS, de cartes issues des SIG et du portable pour discuter avec d'autres bergers et éleveurs des pâturages et sources d'eau disponibles, et pour décider de l'endroit où ils feront paître leur troupeau pour éviter le surpâturage (n° 15).Au Botswana, des chasseurs traditionnels et des traqueurs se servent du GPS pour rassembler des informations sur la faune locale. Une fois transférées sur un PC fonctionnant à l'énergie solaire, ces données peuvent être affichées sous forme de cartes, de tableaux et de graphiques, et utilisées pour concevoir des programmes de gestion du gibier (n° 28).En Afrique de l'Ouest, des pêcheurs guinéens ont troqué leurs mitraillettes contre des récepteurs GPS afin de combattre les chalutiers qui braconnent dans leurs zones de pêche traditionnelles (n° 16). En Jamaïque, le Forestry Department utilise des GPS pour déterminer l'étendue du défrichement illégal dans les réserves forestières (n° 19). En RDC, la technologie a permis aux pygmées mbendjeles de protéger leur forêt et ses ressources en concertation avec les sociétés forestières internationales.Mais s'il est un domaine où les GPS de poche ont transformé la vie des communautés rurales, c'est celui des droits de propriété. ICT Update a rapporté plusieurs exemples de programmes cherchant à résoudre les litiges cadastraux (Somaliland, n° 17), à délimiter les terres communes (n° 42), à recueillir le savoir local, à favoriser la participation locale aux projets de gestion des ressources naturelles (n° 27), et à tester de l'agriculture de précision (n° 30).ICT Avec plus de 200 articles assortis de nombreuses ressources Internet et de liens annotés vers d'autres projets, documents et informations corrélés, ICT Update se veut une chronique de l'évolution des TIC et de leur utilisation par les organisations de développement des pays ACP. Ses archives en ligne sont un témoignage inépuisable de la créativité, de l'inventivité et de l'entrepreneuriat locaux. On y trouve aussi les enseignements à retirer de l'usage des TIC au service du développement agricole et rural, les défis qui se profilent à l'horizon et les succès auxquels on peut s'attendre.Dans les années '90, Africa One était un ambitieux projet visant à enceindre le continent africain d'un câble en fibre optique. En juillet 2009, ce câble sousmarin de 17 000 km et de 600 millions de dollars a finalement atteint les côtes du Kenya, faisant entrer l'Afrique de l'Est dans l'ère de l'Internet à haut débit. Des entrepreneurs s'intéressent déjà aux opportunités offertes par le secteur profitable de l'externalisation des services informatiques et des processus professionnels ; les premiers centres d'appels téléphoniques ont déjà été créés.En reliant l'Afrique à l'économie mondiale de la connaissance, ce câble annonce un souffle de changement non seulement dans les capitales, mais aussi dans les campagnes. Cette fois-ci, grâce aux entrepreneurs pionniers de la téléphonie mobile et autres services TIC, l'Afrique est bien plus « technologiquement prête » qu'elle ne l'était il y a 10 ans. ICT Update poursuit sa chronique de l'innovation en matière de développement rural et agricole, dans les pays ACP et ailleurs. ■Le web-courriel est une application TIC qui permet à tout un chacun de recevoir des pages web par courriel. Un outil particulièrement intéressant pour ceux qui vivent dans les pays en développement où l'accès au web est limité. Pour obtenir des pages web, il suffit d'envoyer un courriel reprenant l'adresse de la page web à récupérer et de l'envoyer à un serveur web-courriel, qui ira chercher cette page pour vous et vous la renverra par courriel. Les services web-courriel ont connu leurs heures de gloire au début de ce siècle. Ils n'ont toutefois jamais pu donner leur pleine mesure car trop souvent perturbés par des attaques de polluriels.  Pour créer ce lien entre les paysans et les autres intervenants de la chaîne d'approvisionnement, KACE a ouvert des centres de ressources franchisés (CRF), qui communiquent les prix aux paysans par texto ; ces centres proposent aussi des services de communication (Internet, messagerie électronique et téléphone).Toujours au Kenya, DrumNet travaille avec un réseau de points d'information ou « info-kiosques » auprès desquels les paysans obtiennent des renseignements commerciaux. Chaque info-kiosque est pourvu d'un ordinateur connecté à Internet et de téléphones portables pour appeler la base centrale, située á Nairobi. C'est cette base de données qui centralise les informations en provenance des quatre coins du pays et les renvoie ensuite vers les infokiosques et les portables des paysans.On retrouve le même genre de prestation en Afrique de l'Est, avec notamment le projet FICOM (Farmers Information Communication Management) qui desservait à l'origine les producteurs laitiers ougandais, ou encore FoodNet qui diffuse des informations sur les marchés via la mobilophonie et les ondes FM.BusyLab, une société ghanéenne de logiciels, a quant à elle mis au point TradeNet, un programme qui permet au paysan d'envoyer un texto pour proposer ses produits sur la toile. Cette information est également envoyée par texto à tous les abonnés du système qui cherchent ce produit. Ce service à l'immense avantage de diffuser les offres de produits à une vaste clientèle potentielle -tous les internautes -et de favoriser ainsi les échanges transfrontaliers, voire intercontinentaux.L'Association nationale des organisations professionnelles agricoles de Côte d'Ivoire (ANOPACI) utilise le système TradeNet pour communiquer les cours des produits à la radio et via des panneaux d'information installés sur les marchés locaux.Au fil des ans, ICT Update s'est penché sur les nombreuses applications du téléphone portable au service du développement agricole et rural. Le portable s'avère si utile qu'il est probablement appelé à rester le principal outil de communication pour quelque temps encore. Toujours dans le domaine de la santé, l'organisme néerlandais de recherche scientifique appliquée (TNO) a conçu un dispositif qui fixe un téléphone portable sur l'oculaire d'un microscope afin de prendre des photos (de sang infecté par le paludisme, par exemple) et de les envoyer par MMS (service de messagerie multimédia) à un laboratoire spécialisé aux fins de diagnostic. Les résultats sont renvoyés par texto au téléphone qui a pris la photo.Le texto a beau s'avérer un support utile et efficace pour l'envoi d'informations relatives aux marchés et aux récoltes, son usage nécessite de savoir lire et écrire, voire de connaître une langue étrangère. La communication vocale, en revanche, évite cet écueil, surtout si l'on peut parler sa langue maternelle.Difficile, par exemple, d'expliquer une procédure complexe et détaillée au travers d'un texto de 160 caractères. Une autre voie est nécessaire pour transmettre des informations plus précises concernant les récoltes ou le contrôle des ravageurs. Les émissions de radio sont efficaces pour expliquer des procédures détaillées à un grand nombre de personnes simultanément. Mais si le programme diffusé cette semaine parle de la récolte du maïs, cela n'aide pas vraiment le paysan confronté à une infection fongique sur ses plants de tomates.En décembre 2007, nous vous avons parlé de la Ligne Infos Bananes, un projet pilote d'information « à la carte » mené au Kenya. Les paysans peuvent appeler un numéro et, via un menu vocal, écouter un enregistrement -en anglais ou en kiswahili -qui leur apporte les informations dont ils ont besoin au moment même.Cette première expérience a donné naissance au NAFIS (National Farmer Information Service) : les agriculteurs appellent ce numéro spécial pour obtenir des conseils pour la culture de diverses variétés (maïs, tomates, mangues, haricots) ou l'élevage d'animaux (bétail, volaille, chèvres et abeilles).En Afrique du Sud, la fondation Shuttleworth, la société de télécommunications Dabba et quelques autres partenaires ont développé le projet Village Telco. L'équipe a mis au point un routeur de base, sans fil, lowcost -baptisé « Mesh Potato » -, auquel les clients peuvent se brancher via un téléphone traditionnel. Le routeur les connecte à un réseau sans fil local et le signal téléphonique est transmis vers un pôle central, généralement le cybercafé du coin.Les clients peuvent ainsi utiliser un téléphone ordinaire, bien moins coûteux qu'un portable, pour passer ou recevoir un appel vers un portable ou un numéro national, voire international. Le modèle d'entreprise du Mesh Potato incite les entrepreneurs locaux à développer leur propre réseau téléphonique local dans les zones privées où le portable ne passe pas.   Ces dernières années ont vu la banque mobile s'implanter dans les pays ACp. Des millions de personnes profitent ainsi de services financiers sans passer par une agence.  Depuis dix ans, les innovations se succèdent dans le monde des TIC : grâce aux fabricants, bien sûr, mais aussi à des particuliers qui adaptent les TIC à leurs besoins locaux. Le portable a certes fait de l'ombre au PC, mais pas à l'informatique portable qui a connu de nettes avancées (laptops, netbooks, etc.), en grande partie grâce aux travaux avantgardistes de la Fondation One Laptop Per Child, avec son laptop révolutionnaire XO « à 100 dollars ». L'exemple même d'une initiative à visée développementale qui chamboule le paysage technologique. Depuis sa sortie, tous les fabricants se sont empressés de développer leur propre appareil aminci et bon marché.Le web lui-même a connu une sorte de révolution après la bulle informatique de 2001. Avec le web 2.0, la construction de sites a été délaissée au profit d'une structuration de la toile en fonction des personnes et de leurs relations. C'est ainsi que sont apparus les réseaux, médias et marque-pages sociaux et le « crowd-sourcing », pour ne citer qu'eux. Les relations sont devenues un paramètre de recherche sur la toile, les scores de pertinence tenant également compte d'une valeur sociale (notations ou références, par exemple).Cette utilisation des médias numériques à des fins de réseautage n'est pas neuve. Songeons aux années 1980 et 1990 -pré-Internet -où les BBS et autres services commerciaux comme Compuserve faisaient fureur, puis aux débuts d'Internet où Relay Chat, ICQ et Instant Messenger préfiguraient les actualisations de statut (les « tweets »). L'utilisation des médias numériques à des fins de réseautage n'est toutefois entrée dans les moeurs qu'avec l'arrivée du web 2.0, lui-même rendu possible par l'explosion des capacités induite par l'informatique en grille et dans les nuages.Nous commençons à peine à apprivoiser les changements introduits par la révolution du web 2.0 et par l'abondance des outils, applications et sources d'information bon marché désormais disponibles en ligne. Avec le succès des fils RSS et de services de micro-blogage comme Twitter, on peut dire que le web est devenu un flux en temps réel de bribes d'information, de réflexions partagées, d'actualisations de statut, d'images et de vidéos. Autant d'outils qui permettent à chacun de participer à l'actualité à grande échelle -souvenons-nous de l'influence de Twitter après l'élection présidentielles iranienne de 2009.La connectivité ayant toujours été un problème dans les PED, une des avancées les plus significatives de ces dix dernières années aura été celle des technologies sans fil, qui permettent de se connecter avec d'autres et de partager des ressources, voire, d'accéder à Internet. On se souviendra en particulier du Wi-Fi pour le réseautage sans fil (n° 41), du Bluetooth pour les réseaux personnels, des réseaux mesh et des normes et protocoles donnant accès à l'Internet mobile en haut débit (WiMAX, 3G, par exemple).  Nous envisageons de créer une base de données des utilisateurs, de faire venir de nouveaux blogueurs pour discuter de questions comme le VIH/ sida, la santé, la génération de  Cela ressemble à la définition d'un wiki, mais la différence, c'est que les nouvelles applications de réseaux collaboratifs extraient automatiquement leurs données de diverses sources en orbite de la toile, ce qui permet aux utilisateurs de développer des « mashups » (applications composites, formées de plusieurs applications web) pour répondre à leurs besoins spécifiques. Les membres des réseaux collaboratifs peuvent également synchroniser leurs données sur plusieurs ordinateurs, partager des fichiers et éditer des documents qui sont instantanément mis à la disposition des autres membres.À la différence des bases de données traditionnelles, les données d'une application de réseau collaboratif ne sont pas stockées sur un disque dur en particulier. L'information sera plus probablement hébergée sur un serveur, bien loin de tout utilisateur. En fait les données, voire l'application elle-même, sont stockées sur Internet, souvent décrit en l'espèce comme « les nuages ». De plus en plus d'applications font désormais appel à l'informatique dans les nuages.On peut se servir des applications en ligne, pour la plupart gratuites, en lieu et place de programmes installés sur son ordinateur. Les comptes de messagerie Yahoo!, Hotmail et Gmail figurent parmi les exemples connus. Les abonnés de ces services peuventL'Internet évolue rapidement : deux ans après avoir consacré un numéro aux projets utilisant les applications web 2.0, la nouvelle génération de services est déjà là ! L'usage des applications et du stockage en ligne a bien entendu des inconvénients. Aussi fiables et réputés que soient le service et la société qui héberge les données, les choses peuvent tourner au vinaigre : l'application peut être momentanément indisponible, voire des données perdues. La plupart des grandes applications de messagerie ont d'ailleurs connu des interruptions de service de plusieurs heures pour cause d'entretien ou de problèmes de serveur.Le web 2.0 a indubitablement facilité la création, la publication et le partage d'informations en ligne. De plus en plus de gens produisent régulièrement du contenu, ne serait-ce par exemple que via les « Quoi de neuf » sur les réseaux sociaux. Ce flux incessant de contenu supplémentaire n'a fait qu'accroître la demande d'actualisations instantanées. Un message mis sur Twitter (justement appelé un « tweet ») risque d'être dépassé au moment où il sera détecté par un moteur de recherche, lequel ne peut fouiller et indexer l'ensemble de la toile 24h/24. Même les fils RSS, qui permettent de diffuser l'actualité d'un site web, ne sont pas instantanément disponibles sur les applications qui les lisent (comme Google Reader, FeedReader), les liens n'étant réactualisés que quelques fois par heure.Une poignée d'applications « en temps réel » sont aujourd'hui capables de répondre à cette demande d'infos à la minute, mais la plupart d'ente elles ne font qu'agréger des données issues de sites sociaux ou de marquage comme Facebook et Digg. Les principaux moteurs de recherche essaient d'incorporer les contenus dès leur création mais des applications comme Notify.me, OneRiot et la fonction de recherche de Twitter fournissent déjà des résultats en temps réel.Les développeurs planchent aussi sur des moteurs de recherche qui arrivent à comprendre le « langage naturel ». Pour l'instant, la majorité des moteurs renvoient une liste de sites en fonction de mots-clés mais sont incapables de fournir une réponse précise à une question parce qu'ils ne maîtrisent pas la complexité du langage humain. L'idée est donc qu'ils arrivent à décoder l'intention qui se cache derrière une recherche.Wolfram Alpha franchit un pas supplémentaire en essayant d'apporter une réponde directe. Wolfram Alpha n'est pas un moteur de recherche stricto sensu mais un moteur de connaissances informatisé.Bing et Kosmix sont deux moteurs de recherche récents qui essaient de comprendre le langage naturel. Pour établir un lien entre la requête de l'utilisateur et les sites correspondants, la plupart de ces applications s'appuient sur les diverses technologies sémantiques offertes par le web, mais au travers d'une définition et d'une indexation des informations présentes sur la toile afin d'établir des corrélations et de les rendre plus accessibles aux utilisateurs.Une de ces applications sémantiques s'appelle Zemanta. Les utilisateurs peuvent l'ajouter à leur navigateur habituel sous forme d'un « add-on ». Dès qu'ils écrivent un blogue ou envoient un courriel, Zemanta essaie de comprendre le sens des mots pour suggérer des vidéos, des photos, des mots-clés ou des liens pertinents.Mais à quoi bon toutes ces nouveautés si vous n'avez pas accès à Internet ? Or la connectivité reste le problème numéro un pour des millions d'habitants des pays ACP. La bonne nouvelle, c'est que les techniques de fourniture d'accès à Internet évoluent aussi rapidement qu'Internet luimême : le coût des équipements, des téléphones portables et des ordinateurs baisse constamment. Et vu le nombre de projets enthousiastes d'installation des TIC en zones rurales, on ne peut qu'être optimiste. Le jour n'est sans doute pas si loin où chaque petit paysan pourra contribuer et profiter de cette manne de renseignements collectifs qui s'accumule sur la toile. ■ XInhUA/phoToshoT/Anp Depuis 2001, Women of Uganda network a pris de nombreuses enlever d'initiatives afin de donner aux agricultrices, entrepreneuses et associations féminines un meilleur accès aux TIC.Ouganda les femmes ont trois fois moins de chances d'être au fait et de se servir des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) que les hommes. Or des femmes qui ne profitent pas des avantages des TIC, notamment pour améliorer leur statut socio-économique, risquent de se retrouver marginalisées au sein de leur propre communauté.Le soutien apporté depuis 2003 par le Fonds national de développement des communications rurales a favorisé le déploiement d'équipements et de services de TIC dans les zones rurales et mal desservies. Ces projets ont néanmoins profité davantage aux hommes qu'aux femmes du point de vue de la propriété et de la gestion des nouvelles entreprises TIC. Par ailleurs, on sait que les femmes les principales clientes des centres de formation à l'informatique, surtout pour améliorer leurs compétences en secrétariat -activité typiquement dévolue aux femmes -en acquérant des notions informatiques de base. En mai 2000, plusieurs associations féministes se sont rassemblées pour créer WOUGNET (Women of Uganda Network), une organisation non gouvernementale chargée de promouvoir les TIC auprès des femmes. WOUGNET milite pour une société dans laquelle les femmes se servent de la technologie pour partager des informations et s'atteler collectivement à des problématiques locales ou nationales visant à promouvoir le développement durable. Pour l'heure, le réseau compte plus de 90 organisations membres, établies pour la plupart dans des zones et des districts urbains où l'accès à Internet existe plus ou moins.Une des premières activités de WOUGNET a été de développer un logiciel de conception de site pour que ses membres puissent créer leur propre site web et promouvoir leurs actions sur Internet. Les sites sont un vecteur utile pour la prise de contacts, le montage de partenariats, la collecte de fonds et la commercialisation de services et d'objets d'artisanat. À l'origine, le site de WOUGNET mentionnait les principales activités Internet de ses membres ; il a gardé les profils de nombreuses associations féminines locales ainsi que des informations sur divers projets et sujets afférents à ces associations, en Ouganda et dans le monde.  Mais la question qui me paraît plus fondamentale, c'est celle de l'impact de l'utilisation des TIC sur la gestion durable de nos pays. Il me semble que le monde paysan n'aura d'avenir que s'il trouve un juste équilibre entre ses choix technologiques et la gestion de l'eau et de l'énergie. ■ auxquels s'associe l'Agence de développment de l'informatique de l'État (ADIE). En ce qui concerne plus spécifiquement le monde rural, on sait combien l'information sur les prix est cruciale pour les revenus des paysans. A titre d'exemple, avec « Time-to-market », un système novateur mis au point par la société Manobi, des groupes de paysans reçoivent en temps réel sur leur PDA les prix des produits pratiqués sur les différents marchés de Dakar. Ces prix sont recueillis par des agents de Manobi. ","tokenCount":"4065"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7e182176d17949c5f339af7cf5c89974","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/be09bbec-c5ed-44ee-abce-a459d6a07e60/content","id":"-682415913"},"keywords":["Zea mays L.","heterosis","mejoramiento poblacional Zea mays L.","heterosis","population improvement"],"sieverID":"4f0a1af8-f352-4445-b9ed-13752547e55e","pagecount":"7","content":"El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar los efectos de dos ciclos de selección recíproca recurrente realizados en las poblaciones 902 (A) y 903 (B) de maíz (Zea mays L.), de Valles Altos, México, provenientes del Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), en suelos con alto y bajo contenido de nitrógeno. Con los ciclos 0, 1 y 2 de selección en las poblaciones A y B se formaron nueve cruzas A i ×B j (i, j= ciclo 0, 1, 2). La generación F 2 del ciclo i de la población A y del ciclo j de la población B, las cruzas A i ×B j y los testigos ACROSS96902, ACROSS96903, CMS929001, ASPROS721 y CMS939083, se evaluaron en suelos con alto y bajo contenido de nitrógeno en El Batán, México y en suelos con alto contenido de nitrógeno en Montecillo, México, en 2000 y 2001. El diseño experimental usado fue bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. El rendimiento de grano promedio de las cruzas A i ×B j (8.24 t ha − − − − −1 ) no fue estadísticamente diferente al de los testigos (8.45 t ha − − − − −1 ), y las poblaciones B j fueron las de menor rendimiento (5.55 t ha − − − − −1 ). No hubo diferencias significativas entre genotipos de cada población. La ganancia en rendimiento de grano por ciclo de selección no fueron significativas y la heterosis respecto al progenitor medio tampoco lo fue.mproved varieties of open pollination and high-yield maize (Zea mays L.) have been obtained through genetic improvement (Duvick, 1984). Selection methods are divided into intra and interpopulation methods (Hallauer and Miranda, 1988). In the former, additive genetic variance is used and in the latter additive and dominance variances are used. This is the case of reciprocal recurrent selection (Comstock et al., 1949), which has been effective for improving grain yield per se of maize populations, especially of their crosses (Keeratinijakal and Lamkey, 1993;Menz et al., 1999).Thus, high maize yields have been achieved in high production agricultural systems; even so, it is necessary para mejorar el rendimiento de grano per se de poblaciones de maíz, sobre todo de sus cruzas (Keeratinijakal y Lamkey, 1993;Menz et al., 1999).Así se han logrado altos rendimientos de maíz en sistemas agrícolas de alta producción, pero aún es necesario incrementar el rendimiento en las grandes áreas agrícolas marginales con suelos de baja fertilidad carentes, principalmente, de nitrógeno (Bänziger y Lafitte, 1997). Para ello se requiere aumentar la aptitud combinatoria general de las poblaciones base y la divergencia genética entre las mismas, para que sus cruzas tengan mayor heterosis. Según Falconer y Makay (1996), heterosis es la diferencia del valor de la cruza F 1 menos la media de sus progenitores y, de acuerdo con Prasad y Singh (1986), y Melchinger (1999), depende de la divergencia genética entre progenitores.El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar dos ciclos de selección recíproca recurrente en dos poblaciones de maíz blanco precoz de Valles Altos, en suelos con alto y bajo contenido de nitrógeno. La hipótesis fue que las poblaciones poseen variabilidad genética y son divergentes, por lo que la selección tendrá éxito.En las poblaciones 902 y 903 (A y B) de maíz de Valles Altos, provenientes del Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), se efectuaron dos ciclos de selección recíproca recurrente (Comstock et al., 1949). La Población A se formó mediante recombinación de 18 líneas S 3 y S 4 de alta aptitud combinatoria específica (ACE) con la línea CML246. La B se formó recombinando 25 líneas de alta ACE con la línea CML242. La mayoría de las líneas que de selección de las poblaciones A 1 y B 1 se formó por recombinación de 40 líneas S 3 de A 0 y B 0 , seleccionadas con base en los mestizos de mayor rendimiento y por el buen rendimiento per se de las líneas S 2 .En forma similar se formó el ciclo 2 de selección de las poblaciones, A 2 y B 2 , pero el probador de las líneas de A 1 fue ACROSS96903 (variedad sintética derivada de B 0 ), y el de las líneas de B 1 fue to increase yield in the large marginal agricultural areas with low fertility soils that lack, principally, nitrogen (Bänziger and Lafitte, 1997). For this, increasing the general combining ability of the base populations and genetic divergency among them is required so that the crosses have greater heterosis. According to Falconer and Makay (1996), heterosis is the difference between the value of the F 1 cross and the mean of its progenitors and, according to Prasad and Singh (1986) and Melchinger (1999), depends on the genetic divergence among progenitors.The objective of this study was to evaluate two cycles of reciprocal recurrent selection in two early white maize populations for the Highland Valleys in soils with high and low content of nitrogen. The hypothesis was that the populations have genetic variability and are divergent, and thus the selection will be successful.In the High Valleys maize populations 902 and 903 (A and B) from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) two cycles of reciprocal recurrent selection was performed (Comstock et al., 1949). Approximately 380 S 1 lines were obtained from the original populations A (A 0 ) and B (B 0 ); these were advanced to generation S 3 .Three hundred sixteen mestizos were formed by means of the cross of 316 S 1 lines from A 0 with B 0 , and 307 S 1 lines from B 0 were crossed with A 0 to form 307 B mestizos. populations A 1 and B 1 were formed by recombination of 40 S 3 lines from A 0 and B 0 , selected on the basis of higher yielding mestizos and of the good yield per se of the S 2 lines. In a similar way selection cycle 2 of populations A 2 and B 2 was formed, but the tester of the A 1 lines was ACROSS96903 (synthetic variety derived from B 0 ), and that of the B 1 lines was ACROSS96902 (synthetic variety derived from A 0 ). These mestizos and the S 2 lines were evaluated in the same environments and locations indicated, except in Toluca.The F 1 generation of the selection cycles i and j (i, j=cycle 0, 1, 2) of the populations A (A 0 , A 1 , and A2) and B (B 0 , B 1 and B 2 ) was advanced to F 2 . Later, the F 2 generation of cycle i (i=0, 1, and 2) from populations A 0 , A 1 and A 2 was crossed with F 2 of the j cycle (j=0, 1 ACROSS96902 (variedad sintética derivada de A 0 ). Estos mestizos y las líneas S 2 se evaluaron en los mismos ambientes y localidades indicados, excepto en Toluca.La generación F 1 de los ciclos de selección i y j (i, j = ciclo 0, 1, 2) de las poblaciones A (A 0 , A 1 y A 2 ) y B (B 0 , B 1 y B 2 ), fue avanzada a F 2 .Posteriormente, la F 2 del ciclo i (i = 0, 1 y 2) de las poblaciones A 0 , A 1 y A 2 se cruzaron con la F 2 del ciclo j (j = 0, 1 y 2) de las poblaciones B 0 , B 1 y B 2 , y se formaron nueve cruzas A i ×B j .Las F 2 de las poblaciones A i y B j , las cruzas A i ×B j y los testigos Los caracteres medidos fueron días a floración masculina (DF), altura de planta (AP) y rendimiento de grano (RG) ajustado a 13% de humedad. Debido a la variación del suelo, en particular en el de bajo contenido de nitrógeno, cada bloque se dividió en cuatro subbloques de cinco tratamientos cada uno, y el valor de DF, AP y RG de cada parcela se ajustó por el valor promedio del subbloque y del bloque al que pertenecía (Molina, 1979).Para cada variable se hizo análisis de varianza y comparación de medias con la prueba de Tukey (p≤0.05). La respuesta a la selección (R) de los ciclos de selección en las poblaciones A i y B j y en sus cruzas A i ×B j (i, j=ciclo 0, 1, 2), se calculó como R=100b 1 /Y 0 , donde b 1 es el coeficiente de regresión del carácter sobre ciclos de selección, y Y 0 es la media de la población original A 0 , B 0 , A 0 ×B 0 , según el caso (Molina, 1992).El porcentaje de heterosis (%H ij ) de una cruza A i ×B j se calculó sustituyendo el rendimiento de cada cruza A i ×B j (F 1 ) y el rendimiento promedio de los progenitores (MP), de acuerdo con Falconer y Makay (1996); es decir, %H ij = [(F 1 −MP)/MP]×100. También se calculó el coeficiente de regresión (b 1 ) de la heterosis sobre la media de los progenitores.La aptitud combinatoria general (ACG) para rendimiento de grano de las poblaciones A i y B j , se calculó como el promedio del rendimiento de las cruzas de cada ciclo A i con todos los ciclos B j , y de cada and 2) of the B 0 , B 1 and B 2 populations, and nine A i ×B j crosses were formed.The F 2 of the A i and B j populations, the A i ×B j crosses and the controls T1 (ACROSS96902), T2 (ACROSS96903), T3 (CMS929001, simple cross from CML 246×CML242 from CIMMYT), T4 The traits measured were days to male flowering (DF), plant height (AP) and grain yield (RG) adjusted to 13% moisture. Because of the variation in soil, particularly in the low nitrogen soil, each block was divided into four sub-blocks of five treatments each, and the value of DF, AP and RG of each plot was adjusted by the average value of the sub-block and of the block to which it belonged (Molina, 1979).For each variable, analysis of variance and comparison of means with Tukey (p≤0.05) were performed. The response to selection (R) of the selection cycles in populations A i and B j and in their crosses A i xB j (i, j=cycle 0, 1, 2), was calculated as R=100b1/Y 0 , where b 1 is the regression coefficient of the trait over selection cycle, and Y 0 is the mean of the original population A 0 , B 0 , A 0 ×B 0 , depending on the case (Molina, 1992).The percentage of heterosis (%Hij) of an A i ×B j cross was calculated by substituting the yield of each A i ×B j (F 1 ) cross and the average yield of the progenitors (MP), following Falconer and Makay (1996), that is, %H ij = [F 1 −MP)/MP]×100. The regression coefficient (b 1 ) of the heterosis over the mean of the progenitors was also calculated.The general combining ability (ACG) for grain yield of the A i and B j populations was calculated as the average yield of the crosses of each A i cycle with all of the B j cycles, and of each B j cycle with the A i cycles, consistent with the definition of ACG of Sprague and Tatum (1942).In the average of environments, the controls were the latest (days to flowering) and tallest genotypes, and the B j populations the shortest (Table 1). The grain yield of ciclo B j con los de A i , de acuerdo con la definición de ACG de Sprague y Tatum (1942).En promedio de ambientes, los testigos fueron los genotipos más tardíos (a floración) y más altos y las poblaciones B j las de menor altura (Cuadro 1). El rendimiento de grano de las cruzas A i ×B j no fue estadísticamente diferente al de los testigos, y las poblaciones B j fueron las de menor rendimiento.Los testigos T5 y T4 tuvieron mayor rendimiento, y ambos superaron en altura a T1; T3 y T4 fueron los más tardíos.Ningún genotipo de las cruzas A i ×B j , o de las poblaciones A i o B j rindió más que el mejor testigo (T5), que produjo 9.61 t ha −1 . Entre genotipos de cada uno de los tres primeros grupos no hubo diferencias significativas; en el grupo de cruzas el rendimiento promedio fue 8.24 t ha −1 ; en el grupo de la población A 1 fue 7.84 t ha −1 ; y en el de la población B 2 fue 7.55 t ha −1 .Al igual que en el promedio de suelos (Cuadro 1), con contenido alto de nitrógeno las cruzas A i ×B j y los testigos fueron los mejores genotipos, las poblaciones A i fueron intermedias, y las poblaciones B j las peores (Cuadro 2). En suelos con bajo nitrógeno el comportamiento fue similar, excepto que el rendimiento de las poblaciones A i no fue diferente al de las cruzas A i ×B j y testigos, y que las poblaciones B j rindieron menos respecto a estos últimos grupos. En suelos con alto y bajo contenido de nitrógeno sólo hubo diferencias estadísticas en rendimiento entre genotipos del grupo de testigos, donde T4 y T5 superaron a T1, T2 y T3.Las ganancias en rendimiento de grano por ciclo de selección (coeficientes b 1 ) no resultaron significativas en ninguna de las dos poblaciones (A i y B j ) y en ningún ambiente (Cuadro 3). El rendimiento sólo tendió a mejorar con la selección por ciclo: para A i fueron 3.75, 3.33, 5.67%, y para B j 4.51, 4.47 y 4.66%, con alto y bajo nitrógeno.Estos incrementos son ligeramente mayores a los obtenidos para rendimiento por Eyherabide y Hallauer (1991), Keeratinijakal y Lamkey (1993) y Menz et al. (1999) a través de selección recíproca recurrente en maíz. Las bajas ganancias posiblemente se deben a que no sólo se seleccionó por rendimiento de grano, sino también para la sanidad, el aspecto de la planta y de la mazorca, el acame y la buena cobertura de la mazorca. Además, la selección de líneas para formar los nuevos ciclos de selección se hizo con base en el análisis combinado de alto y bajo nitrógeno y no para cada ambiente, y algunas líneas con las que se formaron las poblaciones A 0 y B 0 estaban emparentadas. the A i ×B j crosses was not statistically different from the controls, and the B j populations had the lowest yield.The T5 and T4 controls had higher yields, and both surpassed T1 in height; T3 and T4 were the latest.No genotype of the A i ×B j crosses, or of the A i or B j populations, yielded better than the best control (T5), which produced 9.61 t ha −1 . Among the genotypes of each of the first three groups there were significant differences. In the group of crosses, average yield was 8.24 t ha −1 ; in the group of the A 1 population yield was 7.84 t ha −1 ; and in the B 2 population it was 7.55 t ha −1 .Like in the average of soils (Table 1), with high nitrogen content, the A i and B j crosses and the controls were the best genotypes, the A i populations were intermediate, and the B j populations the worst (Table 2). DSH=Diferencia significativa honesta (p=0.05). Medias de grupo con la misma letra mayúscula en la misma columna y con la misma letra minúscula dentro de cada grupo de genotipos en la misma columna, no son estadísticamente diferentes (Tukey, 0.05).Los coeficientes de regresión del rendimiento respecto al número de ciclos de selección para las cruzas A i ×B j , no fueron estadísticamente significativos (Cuadro 3). Las ganancias fueron 3.34, 3.04 y 4.84% por ciclo de selección en cada suelo (PA, AN y BN). Estas ganancias se atribuyen a que la divergencia genética entre las poblaciones A y B aumentó ligeramente con la selección, pero no en magnitud suficiente para inducir incrementos significativos del rendimiento en las cruzas, como ocurrió en los trabajos de Eyherabide y Hallauer (1991) y Keeratinijakal y Lamkey (1993). Los coeficientes de regresión de la heterosis del rendimiento de grano sobre la media de los progenitores tampoco fueron estadísticamente significativos.La heterosis respecto a la media de los padres, en promedio de suelos, de las cruzas A 0 ×B 0 , A 1 ×B 1 y A 2 ×B 2 (Cuadro 4) fue 10.88, 6.14 y 9.28%. Esos valores indican que no se logró incrementar la heterosis mediante selección, como lo obtuvieron otros autores al aplicar With low nitrogen soils, performance was similar, except that the yield of the A i populations was not different to that of the A i ×B j crosses and controls, and that the B j populations yielded less compared to the two latter groups.With high and low nitrogen content soils, there were statistical differences in yield only between genotypes of the control groups, where T4 and T5 surpassed T1, T2, and T3.The gains in grain yield per selection cycle (coefficients b 1 ) were not significant in either of the two populations (A i and B j ) or in either environment (Table 3). Yield only tended to improve with selection per cycle: for A i responses were 3.75, 3.33, 5.67%, and for B j 4.51, 4.47, and 4.66%, in high and low nitrogen.These increases are slightly higher than those obtained for yield by Eyherabide and Hallauer (1991), Keeratinijakal and Lamkey (1993) and Menz et al. (1999) with reciprocal recurrent selection in maize. The low gains may be due to the fact that selection was not only for  Medias de grupo con la misma letra mayúscula en la misma columna y con la misma letra minúscula dentro de cada grupo de genotipos en la misma columna, no son estadísticamente diferentes (Tukey, 0.05).selección recíproca recurrente en maíz (Eyherabide y Hallauer, 1991;Keeratinijakal y Lamkey, 1993;Menz et al., 1999). La aptitud combinatoria general (ACG) de las poblaciones A i y B j tendió a crecer con la selección (Cuadro 5). En las poblaciones A i , la ACG de A 2 creció 10.1% respecto a la de A 0 , en el suelo de bajo nitrógeno, y en las poblaciones B j la ACG aumentó 3.1% sobre B 0 en suelo de alto nitrógeno. Pero en ambas poblaciones la ACG fue más alta (42 a 48%) en suelos de alto nitrógeno que en bajo nitrógeno.Las poblaciones 902 y 903 mostraron alto rendimiento en suelo de alto o bajo contenido de nitrógeno. Los dos ciclos de selección recíproca recurrente no produjeron ganancias significativas, tal vez porque las poblaciones base no tienen suficiente variabilidad. Con la selección probablemente se acumularon genes favorables que produjeron un ligero aumento en la divergencia genética entre poblaciones, pero no en grado suficiente para que en las cruzas se expresara alto rendimiento. En consecuencia, la heterosis fue baja y la selección no tuvo éxito.  grain yield but also for health, the appearance of the plant and ear, uprightness, and good cover on the ear. Also, the selection of lines to form new selection cycles was done on the basis of the combined analysis of high and low nitrogen and not for each environment, and some of the lines that formed populations A 0 and B 0 were related. The regression coefficients for yield regarding the number of selection cycles for the A i ×B j crosses were not statistically significant (Table 3). The gains were 3.34, 3.04 and 4.84% per selection cycle in each soil (PA, AN and BN). These gains were attributed to the fact that genetic divergence between populations A and B increased slightly with selection, but the magnitude was not enough to induce significant increases in the yield of the crosses, as occurred in the studies of Eyherabide and Hallauer (1991) and Keeratinijakal and Lamkey (1993). The regression coefficients of the heterosis of grain yield over the mean of the progenitors were also not significant.Heterosis, relative to the mean of the parents in the average of soils, of the crosses A 0 ×B 0 , A 1 ×B 1 and A 2 ×B 2 (Table 4) were 10.88, 6.14 and 9.28%. These values indicate that increases in heterosis were not achieved through selection, as other authors have obtained by applying reciprocal recurrent selection in maize (Eyherabide and Hallauer, 1991;Keeratinijakal and Lamkey, 1993;Menz et al., 1999).The general combining ability (ACG) of the A i and B j populations tended to increase with selection (Table 5). In the A i populations, ACG of A 2 grew 10.1%, relative to A 0 , in the low nitrogen soil, and in the B j populations ACG increased 3.1% above B 0 in high nitrogen soil. But in both populations ACG was higher (42% to 48%) in high nitrogen than in low nitrogen soil.  ","tokenCount":"3508"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d33ae71c33e35bc9c0b00cdc0f00078c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8b2d3b3b-9f2f-4a68-a4cc-4e154bebebf0/retrieve","id":"1135081539"},"keywords":["Agroecology","Business model","Cacao","Incentives","Peru","Sustainable"],"sieverID":"8a557085-d89f-449d-b72e-2333ccee8c74","pagecount":"46","content":"The Agroecological Transitions for Building Resilient and Inclusive Agricultural and Food Systems (TRANSITIONS) program is funded by the European Union through its DeSIRA initiative and managed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). This publication was produced by the PSii Project under the European Commission grant agreement No. 2000003771.For more information, please visit the TRANSITIONS webpage hereThe contents and opinions expressed in this publication are not peer reviewed and are the sole responsibility of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, IFAD or affiliated organizations.Peru is internationally recognized as a significant producer and supplier of fine and aroma cacao. It is the second-largest global producer of organic cacao and has 60% of the world's cacao biodiversity (MIDAGRI, 2022). In 2009, Peruvian cocoa production was stagnant; however, since 2010 cocoa production has grown at an average annual rate of 12.6% (MIDAGRI, 2022), with the three main national cacao varieties being Trinitario, Amazonian Forastero, and Criollo. Among the various regions in Peru, San Martín is the primary national producer, followed by Junín, Ucayali, Huánuco, and Cusco (Charry et al., 2020). The Netherlands is the primary destination for Peruvian cacao, followed by Indonesia, Mexico, and other countries. Cacao holds paramount economic importance in Ucayali, Peru. It is the second-largest export product and contributes significantly to the local economy. In 2017, cacao exports from Ucayali amounted to USD 2.7 million, accounting for 10% of total exports. The department is renowned for its cacao production, with a substantial area planted in cacao farms. The crop plays a crucial role in supporting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Additionally, cacao production provides employment opportunities and significantly contributes to the department's overall agricultural sector (Charry et al., 2020).This study, integral to the Private Sector Incentives and Investments (PSii) project, conducts a meticulous exploration of cacao business models and agroecological transitions in Ucayali, Peru. Employing a combination of focus group discussions and the Business Model Canvas tool, the study provides a deep dive into the operational intricacies of cacao producers. The primary objective is to furnish cacao value-chain stakeholders with empirical insights, enabling a nuanced understanding of existing gaps and potential synergies.The findings highlight critical facets of cacao producers' business models. Despite regional variations, underlying similarities persist, underscoring the resilience of certain operational aspects. However, a marked discrepancy emerges concerning crucial partnerships, particularly in sparsely populated regions. Producers in these areas face isolation and limited support, emphasizing the urgent need for targeted interventions. Challenges faced by cacao producers encompass a spectrum of issues, from cost control and plant diseases to insufficient institutional support. Addressing these challenges is imperative for effectively facilitating agroecological practices and environmental conservation. To this end, stakeholders must focus on delivering comprehensive support, including making resources more accessible, disseminating knowledge, and fostering sustainable cacao farming practices. This report unpacks incentives that are essential for steering agroecological transitions. Monetary incentives, training workshops, and access to vital resources, such as organic fertilizers, are pivotal catalysts. Furthermore, innovative contracts linking international with local buyers and global initiatives are identified as crucial strategies to propel departmental agroecological transitions.The TRANSITIONS program goal is to align policy, investment, and technical support to enable climateinformed agroecological transitions by farmers in lowand middle-income countries. The program promotes developing and adopting holistic metrics for food and agricultural systems' performance, inclusive digital tools, and transparent private-sector engagement to foster incentives and leverage investment. The Private Sector Incentives and Investments (PSii) project contributes to the broader TRANSITIONS program objectives. It aims to develop inclusive incentive structures for private sector and publicprivate stakeholders, and to provide insights on how to leverage investments that support agroecological transitions at multiple levels. This report is an output of Component 1 of the TRANSITIONS project. The primary objective of this field research is to identify the business model structure of cacao producers and the agroecological practices within these businesses. These insights provide evidence for all stakeholders in the cacao value chain, enabling them to pinpoint gaps in their agroecological practices and discover potential synergies that align with client requirements. Furthermore, this research delves into the realm of incentives, seeking to uncover existing mechanisms and identify additional incentives that can effectively drive the transition towards adopting agroecological practices in the region, while considering social and economic contexts.The report is structured in eight sections: Section 1, comprising this introduction, provides a general background to the project and sets out the purpose and scope of the work. Section 2 offers a comprehensive overview of Peru's cacao industry within the global, national, and regional contexts. Section 3 presents the theorical framework, which is based on: The Business Model Methodology, Incentives, and the Principles of Agroecology. The fourth section outlines the methodologies employed during the workshops. Subsequently, section 5 emphasizes the case study's context and relevance. Section 6 delves into the outcomes of implementing these methods in the field, with subsections focusing on range of results from the implementation. Subsections focus on i) the Business model results, ii) self-performance evaluation, and iii) a mapping exercise. Section 7 proposes significant recommendations supporting the advancement of agrological transitions for the department study area, including strategies and reflections for all the stakeholders involved in the cacao value chain. Finally, the last section presents the final reflections of each methodology implemented in the fieldwork.These insights offer a valuable and comprehensive overview of the business models adopted by smallholders in Peru, considering both their challenges and opportunities. These smallholders often face challenges in accessing inputs and adopting innovative agricultural practices. Consequently, this report aims to provide guidance to researchers, the private sector, and policymakers, facilitating the decisionmaking and development of more effective initiatives to support smallholders and foster the establishment of sustainable agri-food systems, creating a win-win strategy for all stakeholders involved in the cacao value chain.CIAT Exploring Cacao Business Models and Agroecological Transitions in Ucayali, PeruThis section delves into Peru's positioning within the global cacao industry, outlining its global, national, and worldwide standing. It explores key aspects, such as primary client demographics for product commercialization, export volumes at a global scale, and principal competitors. Furthermore, it provides an overview of Peru's domestic landscape in relation to cacao production regions, ending with a focus on the study area.The cacao industry stands as a pivotal force in the global agricultural landscape, with fermented and dried seeds serving as the foundation of the lucrative chocolate industry (Silva et al., 2004). Remarkably, approximately 90% of the world's cacao production is carried out by small-scale farmers (Bermudez et al., 2022). In 2021, the international cacao market saw significant activity, with a total Free on Board (FOB) export value of USD 10.4 billion, corresponding to a production volume of 5.5 million tons (FAOSTAT, 2023). However, 2022 witnessed a downturn in global cacao production by 12.37%. This decline was attributed to several factors, including inflation, which led to increased agricultural input costs and reduced fertilizer use, as well as unfavorable climatic conditions and prevalent diseases, primarily in Africa. Despite these challenges, Africa remained the lead cacao-producing region, contributing 75% to global production, followed by the Americas (20%) and Asia-Oceania (5%) (ICCO, 2022).The dynamics of cacao bean exports have had fluctuations over the past decade. Since 2014, there has been a steady annual increase of 1.6% in global cacao bean exports (ICCO, 2022). Table 1 provides a deep dive into the global cacao industry, spotlighting the lead exporters that shape the international market. Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Ecuador, and Cameroon stand out as the primary players, contributing significantly to the world's cacao supply. Notably, Peru has secured its position as the tenth largest cacao exporter, demonstrating its growing role in the industry by exporting 57,625 tons in 2021. There is strong demand for cacao in Europe and Asia. Importers are becoming increasingly demanding regarding quality, responsibility, and traceability, an example of this is the minimum acceptable levels of cadmium in cacao and chocolate products set by the European Union as of 2019 (López et al., 2021). Simultaneously, the market for specialty cacao, constituting 10% of the market, has exhibited more growth compared to the conventional market. This sector encompasses distinct cacao types, such as Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance (now merged with UTZ), FyA (Flavor and Aroma), and single origin cacaos. These are distinguished by their unique taste, aroma, quality, and socially and environmentally responsible production attributes (Charry et al., 2020). The top importer -the Netherlands -boasts a diverse chocolate market, with consumers open to innovative flavors and products. In the second top importer, Germany, the chocolate market is also thriving. Germans consume an average of 5.8 kilograms of chocolate per year in 2022 making Germans among the world's top chocolate consumers (Statista,2023).While price remains a significant factor, there is a growing preference for high cacao content and quality driven by sustainability concerns. Ethical consumption is also rising, focusing on fair trade and eco-friendly packaging. Among the various regions in Peru, San Martín leads as the primary producer, contributing 48,000 tons (35.6%) to the country's overall production. Junín follows closely with 25,000 tons (18.8%), followed by Ucayali at 17,000 tons (12.5%), Huánuco at 13,000 tons, and Cusco at 10,000 tons. Combined, these five regions account for approximately 84% of the country's total cacao production (MIDAGRI,2022).In terms of international markets, the Netherlands stands out as the primary destination for Peruvian cacao, with a 28% share, followed by Indonesia (24.6%), Mexico (11.1%), Malaysia (9.7%), the USA (5.9%), Italy(5.2%), Spain (4.7%), Belgium (3.7%), Germany (2.2%), and Algeria (1.1%). Notably, Peru experienced significant export growth to Mexico (21%) and Indonesia (20%) in 2022 (Trade Map, 2023).In summary, Peru's cacao industry has displayed remarkable growth and global significance, due to the recognition for its fine and aromatic cocoa, the growing supply of Peruvian cocoa and the fact that Peru produces 60% of the world's genetic material (MIDAGRI, 2023), positioning itself as a prominent player in international markets as a major producer, but also as a key supplier of organic cacao.Peru is the eighth-largest cacao producer and tenthlargest cacao bean exporter in the world (FAOSTAT, 2023). Furthermore, Peru is internationally recognized as a significant producer and supplier of fine and aroma cacao. Notably, it stands as the second-largest global producer of organic cacao and houses an impressive 60% of the world's cacao biodiversity (MIDAGRI 2022).Figure 1  Cacao is the second most exported agricultural product in the region after timber, which accounts for 81% of Ucayali's exports. Cacao exports were valued at USD 2.7 million in 2017 (10% of the total value of all exports from Ucayali). In 2017, the main cacaoexporting company in the region was the Cooperative \"Colpa de Loros\", located in Neshuya. This company recorded USD 2.5 million worth of exports, which was a 61% increase from the previous year. Following closely was the organization Comité Central con Desarrollo al Futuro de Curimaná (CCC), ranking as the second highest export company with US$0.8 million worth of exports in 2017 (Charry et al., 2020). The main export destination for cocoa beans in 2017 were the Netherlands (Charry et al., 2020).The Ucayali department covers an area of 102,410.55 square km, representing 7.97% of the Peruvian territory, in which 1.4% of the country's population lives. Its capital is Pucallpa, which is located 154 meters above sea level.Ucayali is characterized as a forest region, with more than 70% of the region's area corresponding to forest land, while 12% is protected natural areas (Deperu, 2023).Currently, the department is the third largest producer of cocoa beans in the country, with more than 20,000 tons produced in 2022 (MIDAGRI,2022). In 2022, cocoa production in Ucayali increased by 23% compared to 2021 (MIDAGRI,2022).Ucayali is divided into 4 provinces and 15 districts, Figure 2 is a choropleth map illustrating the distribution of cacao cultivation across districts in Ucayali in 2016. It shows the varying extent of area planted with cacao in each district and region. Cacao is grown in all four provinces, however, the area with the largest concentration of plants is the province of Padre Abad with a cacao cultivation area of 20,894 ha, representing 70.4% of the cacao area in Ucayali. This is followed by Coronel Portillo (5,101 ha) and Atalaya (3,667 ha). Lastly, the province of Purús has less than 25 hectares planted to cacao. In the province of Padre Abad, the district of Irazola stands out, with an area of 7,300 ha dedicated to cacao cultivation, followed closely by Padre Abad and Curimaná with 4,380 ha and 4,844 ha, respectively. In the province of Coronel Portillo, the three districts of Campo Verde, Nueva Requena, and Raymondi stand out, with 1,567 ha, 1,329 ha and 1,713 ha, respectively (Charry et al., 2020). Source: : Own elaboration based on Charry et al., (2020) This section delves into the intersection and application of three pivotal concepts crucial for the reconfiguration of the agricultural sector. First, it analyzes the Business Model Canvas, an innovative tool that redefines entrepreneurial and strategic structures.Second, it explores the fundamental principles of agroecology, aiming to transform production systems through a sustainable and holistic approach. Lastly, it examines incentives as key drivers for transitioning towards agroecological practices, highlighting their role in incentivizing, and fostering the adoption of more sustainable models in agrifood systems.The Canvas methodology, rooted in the Business Model Canvas developed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur offers a streamlined approach to visualizing and designing business models. Its graphical nature simplifies complex concepts, allowing a swift grasp of the various business components. By mapping out ideas on a canvas, businesses can discern how each element interconnects and contributes to the overall business framework. Through a detailed analysis of each component, organizations can point out areas ripe for improvement, innovation, and operational efficiency. Moreover, this methodology facilitates proactive problem-solving by aiding in the early recognition of potential challenges. In essence, the Canvas methodology proves invaluable in fostering a comprehensive understanding of business models, enabling businesses to adapt and thrive in dynamic market landscapes (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) This study uses the Canvas tool considering the Link Methodology toolkit to understand the businessCIAT model of cacao producers and cacao buyers to identify potential gaps, economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and agroecology indicators to provide recommendations for agroecological transition and improve the value chain. Link Methodology allows one to analyze a business from a general perspective, understand how it works, and discover new opportunities for innovation. This is based on applying a participatory toolkit that includes the value chain map, Business Model Canvas, new business model, and prototype cycle (Lundy et al., 2014).Using business model analysis in agriculture is increasingly popular, as agricultural businesses face a range of challenges related to sustainability, profitability, and competitiveness. Case studies have been an essential tool for demonstrating the practical applications of business model analysis in agriculture by providing examples of how businesses have adapted to changing market conditions and adopted more sustainable and responsible business practices. Sivertsson and Tell (2015) use the business model canvas methodology in focus groups with farmers or farm business managers to identify and describe some of the barriers that Swedish small farms encounter when they consider innovating their business model. W i t h i n t h e r e s u l t s , s o m e b a r r i e r s w e r e c l a s s i fi e d as \"human-related barriers,\" such as traditions and cultures; \"contextual barriers\" related to the business sector; and \"exogenous barriers,\" such as government regulations, position in the value chain, and climate.Additionally, business model analysis is helpful in promoting social and environmental dimensions in agricultural business models. A case study of Colombian meat and milk supply chains employed participatory activities in the department of Caquetá, using Link methodology. The approach helped study the sector, analyze market opportunities, and develop strategies for improvement. As a result, necessary actions were prioritized for developing meat and milk value chains in the department. They proposed linkages with programs for payments for environmental services (PES), the creation of a technical assistance network, and inclusive commercial alliances (Enciso et al., 2018).Similarly, a case study titled \"Rural women on the road to prosperity\" in Guatemala (peanuts); Honduras (honey); and Nicaragua (honey), was developed t o b u i l d a n d p r o v i d e s o c i a l a n d fi n a n c i a l s u p p o r t for business models led by women in rural areas. Link methodology was applied t o these cases in a c o m m u n i t y -l e v e l a p p r o a c h w i t h a t o t a l o f 2 9 r u r a l entrepreneurial endeavors, which included cashew, coffee, honey, peanut, and pig value chains. Some of the most noteworthy results show a lack of capacity to respond to innovative product demands from buyers. However, due to the application of the business model tool, the three businesses' value propositions improved. The new value propositions included a change in image and a new marketing strategy for that business. Accordingly, the health registration process was initiated for sweet or caramelized peanuts, salty peanuts, and chili peanuts. In Guatemala, the processing center was remodeled, and new equipment and necessary technology were acquired, restarting production (Hurtado et al., 2016). The methodology helped identify improvement opportunities for each business by i) analyzing production and operating costs to define prices; ii) creating savings and loan committees; iii) preparing investment plans; and iv) strengthening trading relationships with formal and informal customers.A sustainable transition occurs when there is a fundamental change in a system, both temporally (over time) and spatially (in a specific territorial location) (Marsden 2013 cited in Wezel et al., 2020). In that sense, agroecology represents a starting point for this transition to shift from businesses as \"usual' to sustainable agroecological systems. Agroecology can be seen from different theoretical approaches: 1) a scientific research approach, 2) a set of practices that improve the sustainability of food and agricultural systems, and 3) a socio-political movement (CIDSE, 2018). Agroecology is thus seen as a dynamic and holistic approach to agriculture that combines science, a set of agricultural practices, and a social movement to support the transition of agri-food systems toward more sustainable practices and fairer outcomes (Ewert et al., 2023).The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) first presented a comprehensive formal definition of agroecology, describing its ten elements. These ten elements are: diversity, cocreation of knowledge, synergies, efficiency, recycling, resilience, human and social values, food culture and traditions, responsible governance, and the circular and solidarity economy. In 2019, the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) report synthesized different existing publications on principles and elements of agroecology into a list of 13 principles based primarily on the FAO guidelines (Wezel et al., 2020), shown in Table 3 below.Preferably use local renewable resources and as close as possible to nutrient and biomass resource cycles.Reduce dependence on purchasing inputs and increase self-efficiency.Ensure and improve soil health and functioning to enhance plant growth, especially by managing organic matter and improving soil biological activity.Ensure the health and care of animalsEnrich the biodiversity of agroecosystems at different scales by preserving species diversity, functional variety, and genetic resources over time.Promote complementarity between the different elements of agroecosystemsDiversity of income that ensures financial stability and independenceEncourage co-creation and knowledge exchange, especially among farmers.Build food systems based on the culture, identity, tradition, and social and gender equity of local communities that provide healthy, diversified, seasonal, and culturally appropriate diets.Promote equitable livelihoods for all participants in the food system, with particular attention to small-scale food producers, through fair trade, labor practices, and intellectual property rights.Ensure proximity and trust between producers and consumers by promoting fair and short networks in local economies.Improve support to peasant families, producers, and peasant food systems for managing natural and genetic resources.Promote social organization and participation in decision-making processes through local mechanisms of the involvement in the food system.Table 3: Thirteen consolidated principles of agroecology based on FAO elements.Source: Taken from Wezel et al. (2020).This study utilizes these 13 principles as a framework to evaluate the implementation of agroecological practices among producers in the four different localities. The research team developed a survey, namely the Performance Self-Assessment tool, for producers. The survey was rooted in agroecological practices and employed the Business-Agroecology Criteria Tool (B-ACT) to analyze the fieldwork results. This method for analysis data will be explained in section 4.The  Agroecological practices (e.g., minimum tillage, agroforestry)Market incentives (e.g., price premiums, subsidies, taxes, etc.) Non-market incentives (e.g., Membership in farmer groups, extension, training etc.)Regulatory incentives (e.g., certification, sustainability, standards, certification labels, etc.) Cross-compliance incentives (e.g., payment for ecosystem services) Source: Taken from Mockshell et al. (2023) For this study, three different methods were used, including the qualitative and quantitative approach to achieve the objectives mentioned above. Firstly, the research team applied the business model canvas, considering the link methodology and its guidelines questions. In the second part, a mapping exercise was utilized regarding incentives for agroecological transitions. In this order, this study addresses three main questions: 1) How do producers perceive the concept of incentives? 2) What existing incentives promote the adoption of sustainable practices among Curimaná producers? 3) What do producers consider the key incentives for a successful and sustainable transition to agroecology-based production systems. This allows to identify suitable incentives for Curimaná producers, based on their economic, social, and environmental needs.In the last part of the workshop, the team developed a survey based on B-ACT tool for the analysis of the self-performance evaluation that was applied to the producers for measuring how they are implementing the agrological principles in their daily routine.The principal location for collecting data among cacao producers was a pre-established meeting place in each village. The workshops for cacao producers were developed through four focus discussion groups with the expectation that ten cacao producers would participate in each one. Most of them were small producers. For a greater inclusion of producers, these groups were held in the center of Curimaná and the villages of Nueva Alianza, Dos de Mayo, and Nuevo Amazonas de Curimaná located in the Ucayali region of Peru. Each focus group discussion was divided into three sections: The first was the application of Canvas; the second sought to identify the current and potential incentives to move forward an agrological transition; and the last was a self-performance survey on the 13 principles of agroecology was conducted with producers. These focus groups are valuable for exploring complex issues, understanding diverse perspectives, and gathering in-depth qualitative data in a social context. Researchers use this method to uncover attitudes, beliefs, and motivations, providing valuable input for decision-making processes in various fields (Van Eeuwijk & Angehrn, 2017).These participatory methods encourage participants to express their opinions, experiences, and ideas, generating rich and detailed insights. Finally, to obtain additional information about the cooperative, data was collected at the offices of the Banaqui Cooperative. The Performance Self-Assessment tool for Agroecological Practices was developed as a selfevaluation instrument to gauge farmers' engagement in agroecological practices. Drawing inspiration from established frameworks such as The Business Agroecology Criteria Tool (B-ACT) and Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) developed by Biovision and FAO in 2019, the tool comprises a comprehensive questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of 43 specific agroecological practices aligned with 13 fundamental agroecological principles, questions were designed to be contextually relevant and comprehensible to the respondents.Participants used a structured rating scale for self-assessment, ranging from 0 to 3. A rating of 0 means no interest or alignment with our vision; 1:Not implemented yet, but we would like to do so; 2: Implemented but needs improvement; 3: Fully adopted, extensive experience with the practice.In cases where a particular practice did not apply to the type of organization, participants marked their response as N.A. (not applicable). This nuanced rating system allowed for a detailed evaluation of participants' agroecological efforts.The tool was designed to serve as a reflective approach for farmers to comprehensively assess their agroecological practices. By using this tool, participants were able to identify areas for improvement, reflect on their agroecological efforts, and track their progress in adopting sustainable agricultural practices. The performance self-assessment outcomes were analyzed after digitization, providing valuable insights into the participants' agroecological initiatives, and paving the way for informed decision-making in sustainable agriculture.Producers of Curimaná doing the performance self-assessment for agroecological practices. CIATThe Banaqui Cooperative was selected based on several criteria. Firstly, it is a cooperative of organic producers who are deeply committed to environmental sustainability. Secondly, the cooperative's strong regional presence encompasses producers from every locality within the Curimaná district, making it a prime choice. Lastly, the accessibility and established connections with the cooperative's technicians, fostered through prior engagements in various CIAT projects, facilitated seamless communication and collaboration.In this study, 44 cacao producers from the Banaqui de Curimaná Cooperative actively participated in the focus group discussions. The number of producers interviewed constitutes a significant portion (63%) of its total membership. The distribution of participants across various localities is shown in Table 4. It is noteworthy that our sample included a substantial 41% share of women. This high participation of women allows us to have a more accurate overview of the context and variation in responses by gender.Banaqui is a cooperative located in the Curimaná district. It began as an association of producers in 2008 and was registered in 2010 with the support of the SUMAQAO 2 and a Swiss cooperation within the framework of the Peru Alternative Development Program (PDA). The cooperative currently has 70 producer members and collects dry cacao and, to a lesser extent, cocoa beans from its partners. Moreover, it collects cacao from about 200 additional producers who are not official members since they are in the process of changing from conventional cacao to organic cacao production.In addition to its marketing activities, the cooperative provides various services to its members, such as technical assistance, financial support, inputs, project management, and environmental monitoring. Their principal buyer is Alto Mercato, an Italian company that buys conventional and organic cacao. This section presents a comprehensive analysis of key findings to help better understand the cacao business model landscape in Ucayali and develop strategies for improvement. It also presents the results regarding the agroecological practices of cacao farmers; the selfassessment of their performance, and the strategies for effectively applying the principles. Finally, results regarding the incentives that could encourage cacao farmers to make the transition to agroecology are also included. Each segment delves into distinct but interconnected aspects, highlighting the findings, challenges, opportunities, and practical applications that are essential for promoting sustainable agricultural practices and guiding future investments.Surprisingly, despite varying locations, the business models exhibited notable similarities. However, a significant discrepancy emerged concerning their relationships with key partners, especially in areas with fewer producers, like Nuevo Amazonas. In these regions, producers were perceived as more isolated and, while they identified similar partners in other locations, their interactions were less frequent, and the support they received was considerably lower compared with their counterparts in more densely populated areas. Figure 4 presents the overall results of the guiding questions that were formulated in each block of the business model of the cacao producers of the Banaqui Curimaná Cooperative through Canvas. These provide a complete overview of their operations, customer relationships, cost structure, and other key aspects that make up their business ecosystem. The results of all the nine blocks that conform to the Link methodology are explained in detail below.Figure 4. Business Model Canvas for Curimaná.Source: Own elaboration based on focus group discussions.▪ Customers: The main customer of the cacao producers is the Banaqui cooperative, which is responsible for exporting to international clients like Altromercato. However, some producers not only sell exclusively to the cooperative but also engage with other agribusinesses such as Machu Picchu Food, Grano de Oro, and Silvestre. These customers have needs such as cacao quality, which must be of high quality, implying a well-fermented, clean, dry, contaminant-free, organic (certified), low cadmium, and environmentally friendly beans.▪ Value proposition: CCN51 cacao stands as the flagship product among cacao producers and holds the most extensive market presence. This cacao boasts distinct, tangible features, including a minty aroma, citrus undertones, and delicate shells. These characteristics are achieved through a proper fermentation process to enrich the flavor profile. In addition to these tangible traits, Curimaná's cacao embodies several intangible qualities, being organic, possessing low cadmium levels, and exhibiting excellent harvest and postharvest management practices. Notably, what sets the product apart offered by Curimaná's producers is their commitment to preserving both cultural and natural identities within the final product.▪ Channels: The cacao is delivered in a dried state and packed in sacks. The cooperative organizes the collection process in each locality. Producers are responsible for transporting their sacks either to the designated collection point within the farm or to an established location outside the farm. Some use motorcycles, horses, or pickup trucks for transportation. To ensure the cooperative's collection, a minimum quantity (300-500 tons collected by the total of the members per harvest CIAT season) must be met. Consequently, producers from the same locality collaborate, combining their cacao to reach the required amount.Communication with customers is consistent, occurring every two weeks as standard practice. During the harvest season, the frequency of communication intensifies. Producers utilize phone calls and WhatsApp messages as their primary means of interaction. Additionally, there is an active WhatsApp group shared between the producers and the cooperative, ensuring continuous and efficient communication. Producers are satisfied with their relationship with the cooperative, describing it as reliable, swift, and, most importantly, built on trust.▪ Revenue streams: The primary revenue stream comes from cacao sales, constituting approximately 80% of the total income. Producers diversify their income sources by selling other agricultural goods like bananas, cassava, and corn. Additionally, some farmers engage in temporary employment opportunities, such as working on other farms or providing transportation services using motorcycles, to supplement their earnings.▪ Key resources: In the initial stages, tools such as machetes, pruners, bulldozers, chainsaws, and axes are crucial for soil preparation. During cultivation, the use of organic fertilizers and appropriate pruners becomes essential for effective plant management. At the harvest stage, the combination of scissors and skilled labor is indispensable for efficiently harvesting cacao. For the fermentation and drying process, bags, nets, and plastic sheeting are necessary to protect the cacao, along with pallets to elevate it off the ground during drying. Additionally, having a well-equipped nursery with seedling bags is vital for sustainable cultivation. Besides these material resources, expertise in overall plantation management is crucial to maintain plant health and ensure the quality of the produced cacao. This includes pest and disease management, and pod harvesting.▪ Key activities: Pruning is essential for maintaining the health and productivity of cacao trees while preventing diseases. Weed control is crucial to prevent unwanted plants from competing for nutrients and resources, allowing cacao plants to thrive. Implementing effective pest and disease control measures is critical, involving regular monitoring and timely intervention to protect the crop from potential threats. Proper drying and fermentation are paramount for enhancing the flavor and aroma of cocoa beans.▪ Key partnerships: The Banaqui cooperative stands as the primary partner, offering essential services like technical guidance, training, provision of tools and fertilizers, and aiding in organic certification and credit access. Government bodies like DEVIDA 3 and Agrobanco play pivotal roles in cacao production. DEVIDA, the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs, supplies farmers with tools and organic fertilizers. Agrobanco, a Peruvian state-owned public bank, focuses on facilitating credit for small farmers in Peru. Additionally, international financial institutions like Rootcapital provide low-interest loans to select producers and offer financial advice to agricultural enterprises purchasing goods from small-scale farmers. Furthermore, farmers' families directly contribute through labor, serving as crucial allies in the cacao production process.▪ Cost structure: The most significant costs are attributed to pruning, weeding, labor, and disease management. However, it is crucial to note that these costs are often overshadowed by family needs. In many cases, family expenses such as food, education, and healthcare take precedence over investments in production inputs. This situation leads to occasional reductions in resources allocated to improving cacao production, as the priority lies in ensuring the household's basic needs.After identifying the structure of the cacao business, gaps and opportunities for improvement were identified. This allows producers and other actors in the cacao chain to propose innovative strategies and solutions to strengthen not both the producers' business model and the overall cacao value chain.Table 5 delineates key gaps identified within the cacao producers' business models, alongside corresponding opportunities for improvement and the specific blocks in the canvas to which these gaps are attributed. Understanding these gaps and the potential enhancements within the context of the canvas blocks is vital for devising targeted strategies.Table 5. Gap Analysis and Improvement Opportunities in Cacao Producers' Business Models.Source: Own elaboration based on focus group discussion with cacao producers.Producers face significant challenges in the fermentation and drying processes. The use of sacks instead of wooden boxes leads to nonuniform fermentation, a major concern for producers. Additionally, drying the beans in the sun poses difficulties, as lack of access to dryers means beans are spread on plastic on the ground, making them vulnerable to animals and human interference. This challenge intensifies during winter when drying takes longer.Producers have openly admitted their lack of expertise in pest and disease management, recognizing it as a significant cost factor in crop management. Providing training in biological pest and disease control techniques, as well as other non-chemical practices, could greatly benefit their farming endeavors.The cost structure is a crucial aspect as producers currently lack control and understanding of their costs. It is imperative to prioritize effective cost control and management strategies to sustain business profitability.Providing training on production cost and revenue management is essential, and it is equally vital to include women in this process.Cost structureOn average, 80% of farmers' income depends on cacao. Agricultural diversification can reduce dependence on cacao alone, identify complementary crops that are well adapted to the local environment and in demand in the market, and consider reforestation with native timber species. Exploring tourism focused on the cacao plantation, such as guided tours, tastings, and workshops, can generate additional income and increase product-quality awareness.Contact with the cooperative is consistently active during the harvest season, but it tends to wane during other periods of the crop cycle. Strengthening this communication is crucial as the cooperative offers essential services beyond being clients, including training and extension services vital for improving production.Collaboration with government institutions and other organizations is limited in some instances. Exploring strategies to foster stronger relationships with these entities could unlock additional resources and support for the cacao producers. This can significantly enhance their cacao business sustainability and growth.Climate change has reduced the rainy season. Therefore, efficient and sustainable irrigation systems to optimize water use and ensure constant production in the face of scarce rainfall should be explored.Poor transportation infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, impacts logistics and customer relations. Producers located in Nueva Alianza and Dos de Mayo must cross the river and pay for this service to communicate with the rest of the Curimaná District. Exploring strategies to foster connectivity are necessary, for example, provide subsides for local communities in the river transport.The Business Model Canvas analysis highlights critical gaps and opportunities within the cacao production framework. The findings underscore the urgent need to establish uniform processing facilities and protocols that ensure consistent cacao quality, and address challenges in fermentation and drying processes. Additionally, continuous technical assistance is essential, supporting producers at every stage of cacao cultivation and ensuring optimal agricultural practices.Encouraging collaboration among producers to share knowledge and resources expands learning and growth possibilities. Furthermore, researching and applying disease prevention techniques in cacao reduces losses and promotes long-term plantation health.Diversifying income through additional agricultural products such as plantain, maize, and timber present itself as a robust strategy, reducing exclusive dependence on cacao and fostering financial resilience.Establishing price stabilization programs or long-term agreements with the cooperative can mitigate income variability, providing financial stability to farmers. Financial education and expense tracking are powerful tools for better financial management, translating into more informed and strategic decision-making.Investing in local infrastructure, especially roads, bridges, and subsides for river transport stands out as a pivotal step to facilitate transportation and strengthen relationships with customers. This aligns with the identified gap concerning poor transportation infrastructure, especially for remote areas like Nueva Alianza and Dos de Mayo within the Curimaná District.Improved connectivity can significantly impact logistics and customer interactions. As the exploration of efficient and sustainable irrigation systems emerges as a crucial measure, given the impact of climate change on reduced rainfall, such systems become indispensable to ensure consistent production despite environmental challenges.One of the main findings collected from implementing the self-performance evaluation was that, despite most farmers being unfamiliar with the formal concept of \"agroecological principles,\" they instinctively applied numerous agroecological principles in their agricultural practices. For instance, one of the most intriguing findings was that most farmers were already implementing agroecological principle number 1recycling. They reused crop residues to manufacture their own fertilizers, utilized fallen leaves from trees as vegetative cover, and engaged in seed exchange with producers in the same village. However, it was observed that they did not store and reuse rainwater, although there was significant interest among farmers in implementing this technique for domestic use.Additionally, many farmers set aside portions of their land for forest preservation by planting tree species such as Bolaina, Capirona, and Cedro. Some also allocated parts of their land to produce other crops like cassava, plantains, and maize. These activities exemplify how farmers are applying agroecological principle number 5 (conserving and enhancing agroecosystem biodiversity). Nevertheless, it was noted that most producers did not cultivate native or local cacao varieties; instead, the most-produced variety in the area was CCN 51, an introduced variety. Furthermore, the study gathered the opinions of farmers regarding practices they were interested in implementing with the assistance of public, private, or NGO organizations. Examples include installing irrigation systems to reduce input usage, deploying solar panels for alternative energy use, and seeking technical assistance to enhance soil management, animal health, and biological pest and disease control, among other practices conducive to implementing a more significant number of agroecological practices.Figure 5 shows progress in the implementation of the agroecological principal, considering the participation of 38 cacao producers of the Banaqui Curimaná agricultural cooperative. The selfassessment results of each locality's compliance with the 13 agroecological principles indicated very similar results and there is no significant difference in their performance. Based on these insights and data gathered from Table 6, there is clear evidence of robust participation and communication links among the producers in all the localities. Consequently, the principal focus lies in ensuring social equity, demonstrating the strongest emphasis. Conversely, aspects linked to productivity enhancement and resource efficiency rank the lowest. This signifies that producers form a cohesive and well-connected group and are also resilient amid challenges arising from stagnant innovation and limited knowledge in their practices. These hurdles further intensify their struggle to enhance efficiency and increase incomes, particularly as their livelihoods primarily rely on cacao-related earnings without diversification into other activities.Source: Own elaboration based on the results of the Performance Self-Assessment tool for Agroecological Practices implemented with cacao farmers. In the same order, Figure 6 depicts the mean scores derived from the self-performance evaluations conducted by all participating producers. These scores range from 0 to 3, with 3 denoting the highest level of performance achieved. Each producer's score is a composite measure calculated based on their responses to individual questions, as detailed in the methods section earlier. The score is an average representation of the producer's selfassessment, considering their ratings for each aggregated practice aligned with the 13 principles under examination.In terms of the producers' performance in each principle, as shown in Figure 4, they demonstrated better implementation of Connectivity, Co-creation of knowledge, and Justice principles with scores of 3.0, 2.54, and 2.44, respectively. This indicates good connectivity among them. In addition, although they participate in activities related to the co-creation of knowledge and justice, they believe that there is room for improvement. Conversely, the lowest-performing principles were Input Reduction, Animal Health, and Synergies, with scores of 1.62, 1.46, and 1.60, respectively. These scores imply that producers do not engage in enough principle-related actions but are interested in implementing them in the future.This analysis shows that the principle of Connectivity is based on cooperative membership, enabling farmers to access benefits such as training, fertilizers (biol, guano from the island, compost), transportation for their products, and market access. Moreover, being part of the cooperative allows them to adhere to the principle of co-creation of knowledge, as they receive information on good cultivation practices from various institutions, including local and regional governments. Furthermore, the transmission of their agricultural practices to their relatives, particularly children and neighbors, contributes significantly to any principle's fulfillment.On the other hand, the low score in the principle of synergy is partly because their biological pest control is limited to the collection and burial of damaged fruits, and a lack of livestock grazing on cacao farms. Some have chickens that enter their farm from nearby homesteads. But without intending to raising chickens, some producers are starting to use biol provided by the cooperative, and using compost as fertilizer is limited since most of them only raise chickens and in many cases buy animal feed. Additionally, for the principle of Animal health, most only raise one animal species for wholesale (chickens-only one producer mentions rabbits,). Thus, this limits animal care to only disease control. Normally they also consider that the cacao farm is not a place where they graze or raise livestock. Based on the above, and the results, the areas to be prioritized should be improving resource efficiency and strengthening resilience. This includes the lowestscoring compliance for principles of recycling, input reduction, soil health, animal health, biodiversity, synergy, and economic diversification, but with greater emphasis on the principles of synergy, animal health and reduction of inputs.To improve adherence to the principle of Animal Health, in the context of cacao farmers who do not take proactive measures to prevent pain, injury, and disease in their animals, it is important to foster awareness and provide training in more ethical and sustainable livestock husbandry. Even though they do not have animals grazing in their cacao plantations, providing access to fresh water and a suitable living environment are good starting points. Producers could be encouraged to implement practices such as vaccination, parasite control, and providing a balanced diet for their animals, even if they are few. In addition, promoting crop rotation and diversifying their cacao plots could offer more suitable grazing areas. Through agricultural extension programs and collaboration with local organizations, information and resources can be provided to help producers improve their animals' health. This will better align their practices with agroecological principles and promote a more holistic and sustainable approach to cacao production.On the other hand, to improve adherence to the principle of Input Reduction, it is essential to promote sustainable resource management practices. Agricultural organizations and government institutions can offer technical assistance and resources to help producers implement these practices effectively. This can be achieved by training and sensitizing farmers on the importance of rainwater harvesting, the use of organic fertilizers, and the adoption of natural pest control methods. In addition, encouraging the creation of local knowledge-sharing networks among farmers themselves can be beneficial in promoting agroecological techniques adoption. By reducing dependence on chemical inputs and promoting the efficient use of natural resources, progress is made towards more sustainable cacao production, and in line with agroecological principles, which in turn can lead to greater resilience and profitability in the long term.Finally, to improve adherence to the principle of Synergy, it is essential to promote more integrated agroecological practices mainly for their biological pest management using damaged-fruit collection and burial. Strategies that harness beneficial interactions between different components of the agroecosystem can be promoted. For example, raising hens on cacao farms could be boosted with a dual purpose, not only for egg or meat production but also for natural pest control, as chickens can help eliminate harmful insects. In addition, the introduction of animal species that contribute to the fertilization and biodiversity of the farm, such as worm breeding or the incorporation of organic fertilizers, could be promoted. By encouraging these practices, beneficial synergies can be created that reduce dependence on chemicals, improve soil health and cacao production, and contribute to a more balanced and sustainable system in line with agroecological principles. Exploring Cacao Business Models and Agroecological Transitions in Ucayali, PeruGenerally, the results indicate that farmers are partially familiar with the concept of incentives, primarily in the context of financial matters. In the four localities, producers value the workshops and technical assistance that they receive. They empathize with the absence of the State in the zone, for this reason, public subsidies are not well-known by the farmers. The State does not appear to be seen as an authority figure in Ucayali. On the contrary, the cooperative seems to have an important role in the quality of farmer life. They have a high influence on each farmer's productivity and profitability, as they have been supporting producers. They need input or cash in advance, or in some cases, workshops, or technical assistance by the engineers from the Banaqui cooperative.During the workshop, two sets of guidelines and lists of open questions were formulated, which are shown below. The first question seeks to put the issue of incentives on the table and to map how much producers know about this issue, and what are their first associations. After their response, the Alliance team gave them a short instruction related to the theoretical aspect of incentives to start the second part of the section.Based on the 26 responses received, it is evident that the producers are highly familiar with the concept of incentives. According to Figure 7, their primary associations with incentives include technical support and financial rewards: \"money\", \"price\", \"rewards\", and \"bonus\". Additionally, they recognize non-market incentives, particularly the value of knowledge, as essential for their involvement in cacao cultivation. Knowledge is highly regarded, as it is not readily accessible in their day-to-day activities. Notably, training sessions were mentioned at least once in all four villages as well. Based on the feedback provided by 34 respondents across the four localities, it is evident that they deem financial incentives as essential for advancing agrological transitions. They emphasize the necessity of investing in their cacao crops to increase productivity. An illustrative strategy involves adopting organic fertilizers and diversifying their land with multiple crops to bolster their income, considering the physical condition of the flora and fauna of the Ucayali. The training was also an important issue highlighted as they express the need for farmers to be more environmentally conscious in their agricultural practices and crop management.In a surprising revelation, likely influenced by the changing climate, respondents underscore the growing need for water to irrigate their crops, particularly as summers have become hotter in recent years. In many cases, the cacao trees have succumbed to these harsh conditions, resulting in reduced production during this season. Less frequently mentioned were concerns about access to these remote villages and the compensation for environmental services. Respondents noted their efforts in reforestation but expressed a lack of monetary compensation for these vital contributions. The second part explores the landscape of opportunities and investment incentives inherent in the agroecological transition of the cacao value chain. Within this segment, we explore actionable strategies and potential investments aimed at addressing the challenges identified earlier in the report. Through a nuanced discussion of possible actions, we aim to illuminate avenues for leveraging opportunities and incentives to foster an effective transition to sustainable practices within the cacao industry.The use of agroecological principles has been recognized as a viable approach to establishing sustainable food systems. Moving towards sustainable food systems necessitates substantial investments and incentives aimed at encouraging the embrace of sustainable agricultural and agroecological methods (Mockshell et al., 2023). In the context of our study, it is evident that market incentives, non-market incentives, and regulatory incentives are already promoting and encouraging the adoption of agroecological practices among producers. For instance, given the absence of state presence in the intervention area, the cooperative assumes a pivotal role in the lives of producers.Cooperative technicians are crucial in disseminating more sustainable practices among farmers, enabling them to secure a premium price for their products, remarkably certified organic cacao.In transitioning towards a more sustainable cacao value chain, all stakeholders, from states to intergovernmental organizations, civil society, the private sector, and academic institutions, should learn from agroecological and innovative approaches.Promoting the transformation of the cacao value chain towards sustainability involves considering and valuing the diversity of food systems, using relevant performance metrics that encompass environmental, social, and economic impacts, and recognizing the importance of improving the ecological footprint of food systems (HLPE, 2019).Furthermore, there is an emphasis on fostering the integration of transdisciplinary science and local knowledge in participatory innovation processes that transform the cacao value chain (Pretty, 1995;Ramírez-Gómez & Rodríguez-Espinosa, 2022). It is crucial to support diversified and resilient production systems, such as agroforestry and mixed livestock and cropping, that preserve and enhance biodiversity and the natural resource base (Altieri, 2002). Advocacy for healthy and diverse diets is encouraged to support transitions towards more sustainable, diversified, and resilient cacao value chains (Willett et al., 2019). Additionally, there is a proposal to support innovation platforms in the cacao value chain that incentivize sustainable practices and the production of public goods through investment and reward from both the private sector and public bodies (Gereffi et al., 2005). This comprehensive approach aims to enhance resource-use efficiency, strengthen resilience, and ensure social equity and responsibility in the cacao value chain.Elizabeth Ramírez Pérez / CIATOvercoming present obstacles and fostering a supportive environment for agroecological transitions, which aim for more sustainable, healthy, and resilient agri-food systems, necessitates vital components such as access to resources, markets, knowledge creation, and robust policy and institutional support (Sinclair et al., 2019;Place et al., 2022). Some of the incentives that were highlighted are potentially linked with environmental, productivity, and profitability outcomes that aim to build more resilient agri-food systems. One of the main insights of this is that international action can support the transition, focusing on innovative contracts linking international and local buyers that can facilitate and allow bundling incentives such as market premium prices, technical support (e.g., advisory services), and access to inputs (e.g., organic fertilizers, biological control agents, etc. (Mukherji et al., 2023). The most surprising need recognized by cacao producers is optimizing water usage and conserving riverbanks and watersheds. To achieve this, they require assistance in introducing forest species adapted to the area for reforestation processes. Additionally, they seek financial support to sustain themselves while engaging in conservation and reforestation efforts, as this entails costs related to plant acquisition, transportation, and land preparation, among others.Raising awareness and conducting lectures to educate the community about the importance of these practices are also key requirements.Table 7 shows the potential incentives identified by the producer that could facilitate moving forward more sustainable practices. Based on the outcomes derived from the business-model methodology implementation, and the thorough mapping of incentives added in Table 7, a comprehensive analysis identified six contextual challenges impeding the effective shift towards agro-ecological practices in the Curimaná district. By engaging a diverse sample of producers affiliated with the Banaqui cooperative across various localities within the district, it became evident that non-market-related incentives emerged as the most potent catalysts for enhancing productivity and augmenting incomes among these producers. This revelation underscores the persistence of traditional Peru ranks among the top cacao producers globally, renowned for high-quality cacao -especially fine and aroma varieties -while leading in organic production. Hosting 60% of global cacao biodiversity, it preserves genetic diversity. Ucayali's cacao cultivation drives local economic growth, offering jobs and stability to communities. More effort is needed to advance agroecological transitions.Strengths identified in the cacao producers' business models reveal a solid foundation for sustainable development. Stability in relationships, both with the cooperative and international clients, establishes a reliable platform for continuous growth. Additionally, awareness of sustainable practices and organic certification underscores the commitment to quality and environmental responsibility. They have a differentiated product due to the quality, taste, and aroma provided by fermentation that not only meets customer expectations but also sets a high standard in the market. These strengths lay the groundwork for ongoing development and the ability to tackle future challenges.The long-term success of these cacao business models relies on continuous collaboration, the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, smart diversification, and equal attention to both product quality and economic viability. Cacao farmers in the Banaqui cooperative face common challenges, such as the necessity to enhance bean fermenting and drying facilities, effectively control diseases and pests, and diversify income streams to decrease sole reliance on cacao. Essential investments in education and training, encompassing sustainable farming methods as well as business and financial skills, are vital. These investments empower cacao producers, enhancing their productivity and overall quality of life.Most importantly, it is advisable to tailor incentives to the specific context and issues faced by cacao producers. These findings highlight the potential incentives considering the unique social, economic, and environmental conditions of each producer. The alignment of these incentives with the business canvas model results is evident, as it highlights the anticipated benefits from their implementation. However, it is important to recognize that while these incentives aim to foster a change in social behavior, the adoption of sustainable practices is greatly influenced by factors such as farmers' environmental preferences, market dynamics, and cultural and socioeconomic characteristics (Piñeiro et al., 2021). Therefore, we recommend it is recommended to carefully selecting those incentives that are most likely to yield the desired outcomes. Additionally, as suggested by Piñeiro et al. (2021), certain prerequisites must be considered for successful implementation. These include a thorough understanding of the policy's impact and the selection of appropriate institutions and mechanisms for implementation. In this stage, policymakers, donors, and researchers play a significant role in moving forward to more sustainable agri-food systems.Findings from the mapping exercise underscore the significance of both public-and private-sector investments in critical areas, such as irrigation, financial support through cash transfers, and comprehensive training sessions. These particular areas stand out as pivotal points for garnering investment interest from all stakeholders within the cacao value chain. Such investments hold the potential for significantly impacting the quality of life for those involved, contributing to environmental sustainability, increased profitability, and heightened productivity.Conversely, a prevailing challenge emerges in the form of a knowledge deficit regarding crop management, input efficiency and pest and disease management, which substantially hamper the efficient implementation of agrological practices. This knowledge gap places stakeholders at a distinct disadvantage in an everevolving market landscape, characterized by new and demanding market expectations. These remote regions face heightened obstacles in terms of accessing crucial inputs, markets, customers, and organizational resources, thus amplifying their vulnerability within the cacao industry. Undoubtedly, cacao has allowed them to transform the lives of farmers in Ucayali and change their history, as many of them used to grow coca (Erythroxylum coca) before cacao. Therefore, this transition to more resilient agroecological systems should not be the responsibility of small farmers alone. From their side, social outcomes rely on encouraging more formal organization and participation initiatives among producers, which would also help forge close ties that transfer knowledge among producers. Technology and access to information technologies could bring more productivity and profitability outcomes to the producers since the current practices of the Curimaná farmers are still very traditional. This support could come from the private sector.Finally, from a gender perspective, it was evident that there was considerable participation of women in some areas of the workshop, but that overall, they do not seem to be actively involved, as they were listening rather than contributing with active voices. However, it is important to note that women have a fundamental role in the cultivation of cacao and make decisions about spending the income generated from the harvest. Surprisingly, all respondents stated that women do participate and make decisions. However, these women are also in charge of their home care and have long working hours. Women who own their own farms -having received them by inheritance -have greater decision-making power both in the farm and in household.Producers are generally aware of the need to care for the environment and there is evidence of some sustainable practice implementation because they recognize the importance of conservation and its impact on the systems. However, there are still factors to improve, such as synergy, greater awareness of environmental and animal care, and greater crop diversification. Given that the four localities have little State presence, it is difficult to develop effective mechanisms for implementing both public and private initiatives that can generate results and be sustained over time. Therefore, efforts are needed from all the institutions in the different localities, which can be achieved through the Banaqui cooperative that serves as a bridge between small producers and institutional entities and even international cooperation and the private sector.","tokenCount":"9541"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"536deb4cc4b17bf752ddcf89403e50aa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6dec6946-133e-4088-b4f9-72cd78439dd0/retrieve","id":"71130552"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3af15f25-6b2e-4ff9-8291-f47e316836b8","pagecount":"30","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above.The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.The problem 'Is our food safe?' is a fundamental concern of consumers. Moreover, as populations urbanize and food systems develop, concerns about food safety grow. The emergence of food safety science responds to those concerns. Food safety science -drawing on health, agriculture, technology, marketing and psychologyemerged as a separate discipline in the latter half of the last century. Food safety is relevant to domestic and international markets and involves private and public sectors as well as civil society. Recent evidence suggests that the health burden of food-borne disease (FBD) is comparable to that of three major diseases -malaria, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and tuberculosis. Most of the unsafe food health burden is due to contaminated fresh foods purchased from informal markets. Livestock products -milk, meat, offal and eggs -are especially risky. As our understanding of the importance of FBD, and its complicated links with livestock development, has increased, so too has research conducted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and other research organizations in this area.Food safety was historically a minor part of CGIAR research. This was partly due to a lack of awareness that FBD was a major development issue but also because FBD was conceptualized as an aggregation of specific diseases rather than as a systems problem. Donor investments in food safety were small compared with the scale of the problem, with investments in comparable diseases and with the potential return on investments (GFSP, 2019). Most investments have focused on trade rather than on ensuring the health of consumers in low-and middle-income countries. In the early 2000s, ILRI conducted some work on the health aspects of trade in livestock but did not have a major programme in food safety.Rather, food safety was seen mainly as a potential barrier to market access by poor livestock keepers. It was addressed to some extent in dairy projects and initiatives such as the Debre Zeit Dairy Technology Centre. As such, ILRI and its predecessors, the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) and the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD), were one of many research and development institutes seeking to increase the quality of agricultural products through research, training and capacity building. An evolving focus on food value chains in these institutions, however, helped shift the research agenda towards the food attributes desired by consumers, which often included food safety, and towards consumer willingness to pay for food attributes, including safety.In the early 2000s, ILRI began a programme on improving human health through livestock research in three areas: (i) animal-source foods for nutrition; (ii) zoonoses (diseases transmitted between animals and people); and (iii) FBD. This was the first CGIAR group with an explicit food safety mandate (rather than focusing on specific hazards) and with expertise in using research methods for food safety rather than diseases in general. ILRI was also one of the first groups to focus on food safety in the 'informal markets' of developing countries, and by the 2010s, had become the lead research institute globally in this emerging area.ILRI developed, contributed to, adapted and tested tools, methods and metrics, including participatory risk assessment, systematic literature reviews of food safety in informal markets, systems dynamics and food safety system performance assessment. Technology development and testing was a growing area with a focus on appropriate technologies such as disinfectants and pest control. Many publications were produced, often regarding tools and technologies. In addition, publications covered other aspects of evidence generation including reviews, reports of surveys, risk factor analyses, and interaction between food safety and other development issues, such as gender equity.ILRI's initial work on food safety focused on adapting methodologies for developing countries, assessing the extent, nature and drivers of FBD, and piloting potential solutions. Only with the advent of the CGIAR Research Programmes (CRPs) (2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016) did the focus shift to achieving wide-scale development impacts. However, some development potential and realized impacts can be discerned. In summary, pilot projects identified various promising technologies. Moving to the intermediate scale, food safety research has been embedded in high-potential livestock value chains identified by the CRP on Livestock. These CRP initiatives reached hundreds of value chainWhat is the role of international agriculture research in food safety? This chapter looks at ILRI's work on food safety to draw conclusions about its actual and potential impacts. Unlike other aspects of agricultural research, food safety is a relatively new area for CGIAR, and we can easily trace the emergence and growth of its research agenda. The research agenda represents a departure from traditional CGIAR research in two main ways: (i) food consumers rather than food producers are the focus of food safety research; and (ii) the prime motivator of food safety research is improving human health rather than improving farm productivity, food security or natural resource management.Food-borne disease (FBD) includes any illness caused by ingesting contaminated or naturally hazardous food or drink. Food produced in developing countries often contains high levels of biological and chemical hazards and is prone to adulteration (Grace, 2015a,b), therefore creating conditions in which FDB thrives.Only recently has good evidence on the burdens of FBD in developing countries started to emerge. The best assessment was published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, the culmination of nearly 10 years of work by dozens of experts (Havelaar et al., 2015;Gibb et al., 2015). A conservative estimate found that the health burden of unsafe foods (a combination of morbidity and mortality) was comparable to that of malaria, HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis, making FBD a major public health priority. The first part of the study, focusing on 31 hazards for which there was enough information to generate global estimates, found that around 98% of the FBD burden fell on developing countries, and 97% was due to microbes, parasites or viruses, with the remainder due to chemical hazards. FBD from these hazards caused 600 million illnesses and 420,000 deaths in 2010. The second part of the study, using a less conservative methodology, found four heavy metals resulted in an additional 1 million illnesses and 56,000 deaths in 2015. FBDs are estimated to cost the USA US$15-80 billion a year (Scharff, 2012;Hoffmann et al., 2015), which would be as high as 0.4% of estimated 2020 US gross domestic product (GDP). A recent World Bank/ILRI study estimated that FBD costs developing countries at least US$100 billion a year (Jaffee et al., 2019).The WHO study on FBD identified the hazards responsible for most illness and death. In developed countries, most of the FBD burden is attributable to microbes, especially those of zoonotic origin; in developing countries, macroparasites are relatively important in addition to the microbes controlled in developed countries (such as those responsible for cholera and brucellosis) (Havelaar et al., 2015). It is more difficult to ascertain which food is responsible. In developed countries, most of the burden is due to animalsource food and fresh produce, and this seems to be the case in developing countries (Hoffmann et al., 2017;Grace, 2015a).Aside from its health burden and associated economic costs, FBD is important as a barrier to market access. Food export markets, formal markets and provisioning programmes already require food to meet certain sanitary and phytosanitary standards and, as a result, tend to exclude smallholder, women, less educated and more remote farmers, who have less ability than others to meet these standards (Unnevehr and Ronchi, 2014). As concern over FBD increases, meeting food safety standards is likely to become an ever more important constraint to smallholder production. These health, economic and equity concerns show how relevant food safety issues are to pro-poor agricultural research for development.This chapter first summarizes the history of food safety research at ILRI and CGIAR, describing how the discipline grew, became a research agenda and evolved from an ad hoc and hazard-based agenda to one that was more systematic and risk based. The next section sets out the theory of change linking food safety research to economic and health benefits. It identifies two main pathways: evidence that counts and impact that scales. The following sections summarize ILRI progress along both pathways, and we end with conclusions and recommendations for new food safety research. Food safety, as opposed to food technology, research started at ILRI after the institute widened the focus of its predecessors to cover a broader range of livestock issues following the merger of ILRAD and ILCA in 1995. The first food safety research started in the late 1990s. It was conducted within a veterinary public health framework and focused on milk safety in Kenya (Aboge et al., 2000;Kang'ethe et al., 2000, Mwangi et al., 2000;Omore et al., 2000). This work was extended to Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda in the early 2000s. Food-borne zoonoses were specifically considered among other zoonotic diseases in a landmark ILRI volume prioritizing the livestock diseases whose control would most significantly reduce poverty (Perry et al., 2002). Around the same time, another strand of research started on economic aspects of food safety, especially the trade-offs between safe food and other development objectives (Omore et al., 2001). This led to the development of an ILRI programme on Animal Health and Food Safety for Trade, which had the objective of addressing food safety as a barrier to smallholder market access rather than as a constraint to human health. Congruent with the economic perspective, there was research on consumer demand for safety and quality. Ten studies from seven countries in Asia and Africa were brought together in an influential report (Jabbar et al., 2010) In 2003, for the first time, ILRI initiated a programme -Livestock Keeping and Human Health Impacts -with an explicit focus on improving human health through livestock. This marked the start of ILRI research employing a risk analysis framework and focusing on improving food safety outcomes rather than subsuming food safety under market issues or veterinary public health. Following an external review (Science Council/CGIAR, 2008), food safety was again placed in an economic programme: in hindsight, this was a retrograde move given the broad trends of agricultural research towards greater emphasis on human health. Subsequently, the ILRI programme on Animal Health and Food Safety for Trade became Animal Health, Food Safety and Zoonoses, and finally Food Safety and Zoonoses, as it became clear that world export markets were less important to poor people and that FBD was more important than had been realized. In 2017, the wheel came full circle when research groups working on different aspects of human and animal health in four separate ILRI programmes across ILRI's two directorates (biosciences and integrated sciences) were brought together in a new Animal and Human Health Programme. Food safety was one of four major areas in this programme (the others were zoonoses and emerging infectious disease, herd health, and vaccines and diagnostics).The ILRI food safety research agenda focuses its attention on traditional 'informal markets', where most smallholder and poor farmers sell their livestock products. Traditional processing, products and prices predominate in these informal or 'wet' markets, which tend to escape effective health and safety regulation, go untaxed and unlicensed, and sell food at lower prices than formal markets. Informal markets are also closer to and more accessible for poor consumers than formal markets.An ILRI review of food safety and informal markets largely categorized the attitude of officials and donors towards informal markets as one of either neglect or unhelpful attention (Roesel and Grace, 2014). Much attention has been paid to the role of informal markets in maintaining and transmitting diseases but little to their role in supporting livelihoods (especially for women) and nutrition. Informal markets are often seen as outdated and unsafe, destined to be replaced by industrial production and modern retail. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated this belief among many stakeholders, especially those not familiar with wet markets.Nevertheless, informal outlets are much more common and widely distributed than formal sector alternatives and often offer services (such as immediate payment to farmers and provision of credit to consumers) that the formal sector does not provide. Food is perceived by consumers to be fresh, healthy, natural, convenient and less expensive (Roesel and Grace, 2014;Zhong et al., 2020). With these advantages, it is not surprising that the formal sector share of animal-source food markets is less than 10% in most of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (Gomez and Ricketts, 2013). In southern and East Africa, informal markets currently supply 85-95% of market demand and are predicted to still supply 50-70% of market demand in 2040 (Tschirley et al., 2015). In South Asia, traditional food retail occupies 95% of the market, in South-east Asia 71% and in South America 54% of the food retailed. In this context, informal markets are likely to remain important for at least several more decades.The relative neglect of informal markets compared with other CGIAR research areas implies greater marginal utility of research investments. ILRI is almost unique in having a large research programme focused on food safety in informal markets, with a strong focus on generating actionable, high-quality evidence. As such, the group is responsible for much of the research information in this area. Importantly, the group produced the first book on food safety in informal markets (Roesel and Grace, 2014) In parallel with the evolution of food safety at ILRI, there have been developments in the role of food safety in CGIAR, in which ILRI has been a major player. Food safety was not an initial focus of CGIAR research, with the first official mention of food safety in 2000 (Technical Advisory Committee, 2000). However, eight CGIAR centres had started small-scale research related to food safety in the following areas: breeding staple crops resistant to pests (so farmers can reduce pesticide use), breeding staple crops resistant to aflatoxins, controlling aflatoxins using other organisms (biocontrol), breeding ergot (fungus) resistance in sorghum, reducing cyanide levels in cassava, and improving milk quality and safety (Kassam and Barat, 2003). Only research in the last area assessed health outcomes. In 2011, another survey of CGIAR food safety research was conducted, with more centres reporting food safety research. Aflatoxin research dominated, but there was an expansion of risk assessment and prioritization activities and substantial programmes on the safety of perishables (vegetables and animal-source foods), on zoonotic diseases, on occupational hazards and on water-associated diseases. As this list suggests, food safety research was almost entirely supply led, with centres looking at problems in the commodities they specialized in and with no overall alignment to health outcomes. The research effort and budget were very small compared with the overall CGIAR research portfolio.Food safety research became more prominent with the development of the CRP on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), one of 15 CGIAR multicentre research programmes (Box 9.1). The Nutrition and Health programme was originally conceived as a joint venture between ILRI and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). However, the CGIAR Consortium (now the CGIAR System Office) refused a jointly led CGIAR research programme, and, because most of the research in this programme focused on nutrition, it was agreed that IFPRI should lead the programme. A4NH had four main themes, or flagships, three focused on nutrition and one on the diseases associated with agriculture, including FBD. A4NH brought together portfolios on aflatoxin research led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), IFPRI and ILRI, and a portfolio of research on animal-source foods led by ILRI (A4NH, 2011). After two successful external evaluations (Sridharan et al., 2015;Compton et al., 2015), in which the research was deemed to be highly relevant, to have generated important evidence and to have generally met expectations, it was decided to make food safety a new, stand-alone flagship in the second phase of A4NH, starting in 2017.The 2017-2021 strategy for food safety research in A4NH identified two impact paths: evidence that counts and impact that scales (A4NH, 2016). The first pathway, evidence that counts, posits that ILRI evidence, published in peerreviewed journals and actively communicated to users in ways that are clear, compelling and actionable, will lead to better decisions and these will lead to positive impacts. The second pathway, impact that scales, is based on ILRI discovering, developing or contributing to novel technologies or institutions that improve food safety for millions of people. Our big-idea impact pathway is the triple path to improving food safety in mass domestic markets by working with informal traders through a combination of Box 9.1. Justification for incorporation of food safety research at ILRI. Food safety research is a relatively new area for CGIAR and ILRI. It can be seen as a response to changing agri-food systems and as evidence of the ability of CGIAR to take on new challenges. Like most organizations, ILRI periodically revisits its priorities and strategies, but this is typically done based on donor interest, popular wisdom, consultation and expertise rather than by using a systematic framework. Important exceptions at ILRI were: (i) an institutional prioritization in 1998 based on ex ante returns to research, which tightened ILRI's focus but led to a reduction of work in Latin America and with pastoralists; (ii) a geographic information system (GIS)-based mapping of poor livestock keepers, suggesting that Asian poor livestock keepers were neglected clients (Thornton et al., 2002); (iii) an accompanying identification of research priorities based on expert opinion of pro-poor impacts, which showed the importance of zoonoses (Perry et al., 2002); (iv) a non-systematic identification of priority countries for CRPs, which for the first time focused on consumers as well as producers; and (v) a mapping of zoonoses and poverty, which suggested that FBDs were among the most important zoonoses (Grace et al., 2012c). These exercises in general provided justification for increased focus on FBD. In particular, compared with other animal health issues, FBD is relatively important, neglected and tractable, characteristics suggesting that it is a relatively promising area for research investment.increasing their capacity to sell safe food through training and technologies, providing motivation for behaviour change (e.g. by improving business and marketing skills) and providing a more enabling operating environment, so that authorities, instead of ignoring or punishing informal traders, encourage them to professionalize their work.The first pathway -evidence that counts -is well within the traditional research sphere. Our theory of change is that, for 'evidence to count', the right information must be conveyed to the relevant people through appropriate channels.Research efforts can also build capacity of the relevant people so that they can make good use of the evidence generated and better align their incentives with action to improve food safety.Recent decades have seen an increasingly systematic and systemic approach to using evidence across a broad range of fields; ILRI seeks to apply this to the issue of food safety in informal markets. Much of the interest can be traced back to the evidence-based medicine movement, which started in the 1990s in Canada. Evidencebased medicine was defined as 'a systemic approach to analyse published research as the basis of clinical decision making' (Claridge and Fabian, 2005). The approach quickly spread to allied health fields, such as dentistry, and then to areas such as education and housing.Evidence-based approaches explicitly weight different types of evidence. In the evidence hierarchy, scientific evidence trumps anecdote or opinion, and scientific evidence itself is considered weaker or stronger depending on defined characteristics. For example, evidence from a multicentre randomized controlled trial is stronger than evidence from a cohort study, which in turn is stronger than evidence from a cross-sectional study. While the best research evidence is intended to be the major factor in medical decisions, it is acknowledged that research evidence is only one factor, often a minor one, in development decision making. However, there is a consensus in the literature that, especially in developing countries, a more evidence-based, or at least evidence-informed, approach to policy and practice is desirable, and that research can also tackle the process problem of insufficient reliance on evidence in decision making. As a result, important research-for-development donors rely increasingly on evidence. The food safety work at ILRI, which strongly drew on epidemiology, was and is well placed to meet this demand.CGIAR is an important generator of agricultural research evidence in developing countries. Surveys have found that CGIAR science outputs compare well with advanced research institutes in production of evidence (Elsevier, 2014). However, there is less information on how this evidence is used or linked to development impact. In general, the implementation of research evidence is not straightforward. A review of the use of public health evidence in developed countries found that there was no reliable evidence on the extent of its use and that its impact was often indirect, competing with other influences (Orton et al., 2011). The same review suggested that barriers to the use of research evidence included: decision makers' perceptions of research evidence, the gulf between researchers and decision makers, the culture of decision making, competing influences on decision making and practical constraints.Food safety research is more likely to have an impact if the following are true:• The research is of objectively high quality.Our food safety research seeks to drive up quality by publication in high-impactfactor journals, shifting from less to more rigorous protocols and following best practice guidelines for conducting and reporting studies.• Stakeholders are involved. For example, they may take part in the design of the research, serve as advisory members or visit research sites. ILRI's food safety research has often involved national 'champions' who were identified as key promoters and disseminators of the research findings.• The research is produced by scientists in whom decisions makers have confidence. For example, Kenyan policy makers want to see studies on aflatoxins in feed from Kenya, even if studies from Tanzania are likely to be almost as relevant. ILRI's food safety research has taken place in 27 countries as of 2020.• The research is important but non-obvious. For example, our finding in Vietnam that pork in supermarkets was less safe than pork sold in wet markets contradicted policy makers' preconceptions. They initially resisted the information, but when they saw the reasons for this finding, it made more of an impression on them than research findings that matched their preconceptions.• The evidence is timely, coming when decision makers need to do something. For example, research on training dairy traders in north-east India provided a solution for decision makers dealing with public concern over milk safety.We have found that food safety evidence leading to impacts generally occurs as one of three kinds: (i) developing the methods and tools needed to generate evidence of food safety in informal markets; (ii) developing and testing innovations with potential for widespread use; and (iii) influencing policy.Faced with the challenge of informal food hazards but little understanding of their risks to human health, ILRI identified the need for new tools and methods for conducting food safety research in a development context. The overarching framework for food safety work was an approach that ILRI called 'Participatory Risk Analysis'. Over the past several decades, risk analysis has been accepted as the 'gold standard' for assuring food safety. It has been adopted by the international community and underpins trade in foods and livestock. However, risk analysis has not had much success in the informal markets of developing countries, where most of the poor buy and sell their food. Conventional risk analysis is often expensive and time consuming, requires considerable amounts of data and quantitative analysis, and is typically led by technocrats. By taking the core concepts of risk analysis and combining them with proven development analytic methods such as participatory rural appraisal and gender analysis, an approach emerged that could be applied successfully to the food safety challenges in developing countries. Applying this food safety approach was an important innovation of the programme (Grace et al., 2008(Grace et al., , 2010(Grace et al., , 2011(Grace et al., , 2012a,b;,b;Grace and Randolph, 2009). The approach was subsequently used in Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and elsewhere, and its strengths and weaknesses, as well as the recommendations generated, were captured in peer-reviewed publications (Häsler et al., 2018;Nguyen-Viet et al., 2019;Roesel et al., 2019).Within this risk analysis framework, other methods and innovations were developed, including a global mapping of zoonotic diseases and poverty. This involved an updating of the global maps of poor livestock keepers, a systematic prioritization of zoonotic diseases likely to be relevant to the poor, a systematic literature review of the prevalence of these zoonoses in people, livestock and food products, and combining these in global maps (Grace et al., 2012c). This was subsequently used to inform a major call for research on zoonotic diseases funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and British research councils, which subsequently generated important research findings across a range of projects.Economic assessment is another key tool to improving food safety. Collaborative research by ILRI over a number of years on the demand for livestock products in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tunisia in Africa, in Bangladesh and India in South Asia, and in Cambodia and Vietnam in South-east Asia provided strong empirical evidence on food safety (Jabbar et al., 2010). The study identified 'wet markets' as the typical point of purchase of animal products. The quality and safety of livestock food products were mostly defined according to how these attributes were perceived by consumers: by their taste, colour, flavour and smell. Developing-country consumers also judge quality and safety by what they perceive to be the nutritional attributes of the foods, such as freshness, absence of adulteration, fat content (milk) and fat cover (meat), and various aspects of appearance, packaging, geographic origins, indicators of expired shelf life, a government inspection stamp and the cleanliness of the premises selling the products. The same consumers are aware of microbial, chemical and physical hazards in animal-source foods. In general, quality and safety issues were not always clearly demarcated: consumers tended to associate some attributes with both while in other cases the differences were clearer.One ILRI innovation was an adaptation of system dynamics -a model that maps resource flows and management processes within a complex system -to informal food systems (see Chapter 6, this volume, for an adaptation to East Coast fever). This was used to investigate interventions in the pork chain in Vietnam. Desk studies have combined information on the health burden of FBD, the foods responsible and macroeconomic models to predict future trends in FBD in terms of health burden and economic cost (Kristkova et al., 2017). In India, the number of FBD cases is expected to rise from 100 million to 150-177 million in 2030 compared with 2011, and an economy-wide model predicted that this would incur costs equivalent to 0.5% of the GDP.CGIAR identified gender as a cross-cutting issue that should be mainstreamed in research. However, most food safety research does not have a gender perspective. We adapted and applied gender analysis tools to understanding food safety and documented this in several papers (Kimani et al., 2012;Grace et al., 2015d;Kiama et al., 2016).Similarly, although food safety and nutrition are biologically coupled, they are not often well integrated in agricultural development. This can be problematic because interventions intended to improve food safety can work against nutrition and vice versa. We developed a framework for a rapid assessment of food safety and nutrition and applied it to several of the livestock value chains where the CRP on Livestock and Fish was working (Eltholth et al., 2014;Hoa et al., 2014;Häsler et al., 2019) and, along with the lead UK think tank at Chatham House, developed a widely disseminated evidence synthesis on animal-source foods in the first 1000 days of life, covering nutrition and food safety (Grace et al., 2018a).What cannot be measured cannot be managed. When ILRI started work on food safety, there was little understanding of suitable metrics and indicators for food safety in low-and middle-income countries. ILRI led a working group with broad expert inclusion to develop the first synthesis and analysis of food safety metrics for these countries (Grace et al., 2018b). It also developed a tool to measure 'food safety system performance', inspired by a similar tool developed and applied to the countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Currently, ILRI is providing technical support to develop the world's first 'Food Safety Index', which the African Union intends to include in the Malabo Declaration process. This means that all African Union countries will have an obligation to report on food safety and be mutually accountable, driving up food safety in Africa. ILRI is also a partner in the international Global Burden of Animal Diseases initiative.Another suite of ILRI research focuses on generating outputs or products intended for use by value chain agents and implementers, including technologies, approaches and surveillance.• Technologies. Food safety technologies are technical approaches to improving food safety. Nearly all of the technologies researched by ILRI food safety scientists are adaptations of products developed by others. For example, we adapted the insecticide-treated bed nets widely used in the control of malaria to reduce flies in informal markets. In other cases, ILRI had no role in the development of the technology but tested it in order to assess its suitability and/or to suggest improvements to make it more useful (e.g. use of ozone in disinfection). None of the technologies developed, tested or adapted is being delivered at scale but several are considered to have potential for widespread use.• Approaches. These comprise processes or different ways of doing things. Many are oriented around capacity building in new practices or providing information. We can consider that one approach is having impact at scale: this is the triple-path approach to informal traders comprising capacity building, enabling environment and motivation.• Surveillance. The third category of innovations is concerned with disease detection, reporting and response, such as the use of information technology for reporting from slaughterhouses.The most important ILRI food safety products in these categories are summarized in Table 9.1. This summary of product lines gives an overview of ILRI evidence generation. More insight into potential impact can be gained by looking at specific research projects and topics. To give a concrete example, we analysed research outputs on aflatoxins posted on the CG-Space document repository. Over a period of 6 years and with the input of one or two full-time-equivalent ILRI scientists per year working with students and partners, we produced 29 journal articles accompanied by 50 science outreach items (conference presentations, reports), 14 policy outreach items (briefs, technical packages) and 50 public outreach items (videos, infographics, press conference, blog articles). In addition, we communicated the research results to all the farmers and value chain agents participating in this research. This suggests that these projects are indeed producing outputs that go beyond research papers and that plausibly will help to ensure that 'evidence counts'.Outcome and impact assessments carried out by specific projects can also illustrate the potential use and benefits of evidence generated on food safety projects (Box 9.2).  government officials and policy makers to increase their capacity to understand and make good decisions, creating an enabling policy environment; and (iii) training researchers to build their capacity but also to influence future implementers and decision makers. Although we do not have denominator data, we believe this represents a majority of the food safety graduate fellows and researchers in the countries in which ILRI worked, a substantial proportion (around half) of relevant government officials and policy makers, and a much smaller proportion (much less than 1%) of value chain agents.The benefits of training have been documented to some extent by projects that conducted outcome studies, including Safe Food, Fair Food (Box 9.2), which worked in multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and PigRisk, a project working in Vietnam.Influence on international, regional and national policies International and regional agriculture and health organizations are considered crucial to development and this implies that ILRI engagement with them can have far-reaching impacts. Some ILRI inputs were specific to food safety high-level processes (e.g. its participation in WHO, 2013), while others incorporated food safety dimensions into broader livestock or development initiatives (e.g. food safety as an aspect of sustainable livestock development). Another distinction is between initiatives led by ILRI and initiatives where ILRI scientists were part of a broad range of scientists. Some of the most notable contributions are shown in Tables 9.3 and 9.4.The following summary gives examples of where ILRI food safety research has contributed Box 9.2. Evaluation of a multi-country food safety project. Safe Food, Fair Food was the first major ILRI research project to focus on food safety. It conducted a peer-to-peer project assessment whereby teams from participating countries visited another country to conduct a structured evaluation. This was generally positive. For example, the project had five major components, the first being a situational analysis of food safety. The main impacts of this situational analysis work were: (i) raised awareness on food safety in informal markets among food safety stakeholders; and (ii) a coming together of different sectors (especially medical and veterinary) to discuss the common issue of food safety. A semi-quantitative analysis of the situational analysis identified four success criteria, and a peer evaluation was conducted when each of the seven country teams evaluated another country against these criteria (maximum score of 5). The average across seven countries was 16.4 out of 20, equivalent to 82 out of 100, suggesting good overall impact.  to policy. A more detailed explication can help illustrate the specific contributions. WHO undertook the first global assessment of FBDs through its Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG). This showed the high burden of FBD and is likely to lead to increased funding in this neglected area. The WHO's burden of disease studies were highly influential in determining the global health agenda and especially in directing billions of dollars in funding to the 'big three' diseases (Maudlin et al., 2009). It is therefore plausible that the FERG study will also have widespread impacts.A High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) is the science-policy interface of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the foremost international platform for food security. In October 2014, the CFS requested the HLPE to prepare a report on sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock (HLPE, 2016). An important planning meeting was held at ILRI, where ILRI's Delia Grace served as one of ten members of the HLPE livestock project team. HLPE reports are widely used as reference documents within and beyond CFS and the United Nations system, by the scientific community as well as by political decision makers and stakeholders, and at international, regional and national levels.A World Bank-supported task force on risk assessment for food safety comprising researchers and policy makers was formed in 2013 to build capacity for food safety management in Vietnam. ILRI scientists were involved in the task force and A4NH provided funding (Nguyen-Viet, 2012). The task force consisted of researchers in Vietnam working on risk assessment and food safety with representatives of the Vietnamese Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The task force first analysed the situation of food safety policy in Vietnam. Key constraints and areas where research and development interventions could assist policy were identified. Stakeholder workshops were conducted to determine the scope of activities and to prioritize food safety issues. Training sessions with a focus on case studies of risk assessment for food safety were organized to strengthen the risk assessment capacity of task force members and of policy makers. Case studies were conducted to: (i) assess the health risks of vegetables and fish grown/caught in wastewater; (ii) assess the health risks related to antibiotic residues in pork; and (iii) disseminate research results and advocate for risk assessment as a tool for food safety management. The health risks from these case studies were assessed quantitatively, and risk communication and management strategies were developed. Achievements of the task force included the training of policy makers, managers and researchers; the publication of case studies of risk assessment in a special edition of a Vietnamese journal; and the publication of policy briefs. The task force was also requested to run training courses for veterinary professionals of ministries. The process, outcomes, challenges and potential impacts of the task force have been documented by Nguyen-Viet et al. (2018).IITA coordinated the development of technical packages for the East African Community comprising technical papers on aflatoxin situational analysis, the scientific basis for aflatoxin control and policy recommendations for aflatoxin control. These technical packages aimed to assemble the best scientific thinking on the topic as the basis for policy recommendations. Through A4NH, ILRI scientists drafted two of these packages, which were submitted to the East African Community (Grace et al., 2015b,c) and officially launched in 2018.ILRI was commissioned by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop a white paper on the potential need and role of a new Feed the Future Innovation Lab on Food Safety (Grace, 2017). The report recommended this, which contributed to the initiation of the laboratory in 2019.ILRI was asked by the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP; a World Bank hosted publicprivate initiative for supporting food safety capacity building) to participate in a study on previous food safety investment in Africa and to make recommendations for future directions (GFSP, 2019). This led to engagement with the East African Community (EAC) and three-way collaboration between the EAC, GFSP and ILRI to support EAC in developing food safety strategy.ILRI was asked by the World Bank to be a partner and co-author of the Eat Safe Initiative, which sets out global strategy for improving food safety and developed the first estimate of the cost of foodborne disease in low-and middle-income countries (Jaffee et al., 2019).In 2015, the African Union (AU) launched the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Biannual Review (BR) to monitor progress on agricultural development in the continent. The CAADP BR encompassed 43 indicators, seven of which tracked nutrition, but none captured food safety. In discussion with the AU, ILRI partnered to help develop the first African Food Safety Index (AFSI). The AFSI was launched as part of the 2019 CAADP BR, and 50 out of 55 AU Member States reported in at least one of its three elements.International agricultural research has always aimed for widespread impact, first by improving food production in developing countries and later by widening its focus on livelihoods and on the health and environmental externalities of agriculture. Impact assessments show large and well-documented benefits to CGIAR research on crop genetic improvement, most notably rice, maize and wheat, and especially in Asia. There is much less evidence, however, for large-scale benefits from global agricultural research in the fields of policy, natural resource management and livestock (Renkow and Byerlee, 2010;Jutzi and Rich, 2016).There are different models for understanding how innovations in agri-food systems, whether technologies or institutions, could have widespread, sustained impact. In developing countries, agricultural extension services and development initiatives are important but often have limited reach. In recent years, interest has grown in other dissemination actors, especially the private sector and collective action and in novel dissemination pathways such as social media. The food safety research agenda explores the potential of different partnerships to achieve impact at scale.ILRI food safety research partnered with four broad categories of individuals or organizations: researchers, agents in value chains, development programme implementers and enablers. The relative level of involvement of these groups varies -it will grow, reduce or stay the same -based on the particular stage of given research.Specifically, ILRI's food safety research partners include the following:• Researchers. Important research partners in ILRI food safety are the veterinary, agriculture and, to a lesser extent, medical universities, national agriculture and medical research systems and centres of excellence in the countries in which we work. Advanced research institutes are important partners, especially Free University Berlin, Liverpool University, Uppsala Agricultural University, the University of Florida and the University of Sydney. The CGIAR centres IFPRI, IITA and World Fish have been major partners.• Value chain agents. Most of ILRI's food safety research engagements have been with smallscale value chain agents, often via intermediaries such as trader associations, but there has been increased interest in medium-sized formal businesses. We have also worked with public-private partnerships such as the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed).• Development programme implementers.Development-implementing partners of ILRI include non-governmental organizations such as Veterinarians without Borders and large-scale development projects funded by the World Bank, USAID and others.• Enablers. The international and regional enablers include: the Africa Union-Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources(AU-IBAR), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), EAC, Economic Community of West African States, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Intergovernmental Authority on Development, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), World Bank, WHO and the Office International des Epizooties (OIE, World Organisation for Animal Health). We also work with policy makers and implementers at the country level, including national ministries, state veterinary services and municipal authorities.Demand for fresh foods is growing rapidly in developing countries and most of this demand must be met by markets. A study in southern and East Africa found that most food is already obtained from markets (54% in 2010, predicted to reach 70% in 2040) and that the informal sector currently supplies 85-95% of market demand and 51-57% of total demand (Tschirley et al., 2015). ILRI pioneered a 'triple-pathway' approach to improving food safety in informal markets by professionalizing rather than penalizing the informal sector, with the aims of supporting smallholder market access, safeguarding the supply of cheap nutritious food to the poor and reducing the burden of FBD. In the early 2000s, a training and certification scheme was designed and launched in Kenya to improve the quality and safety of informal dairy markets by improving the practices of traders, while also supporting the livelihoods of the dairy value chain agents. The scheme was taken up by a large proportion of eligible traders (with project support).The traders were trained in hygienic milk handling and business practices and at the end of their training could apply for a certificate from the Kenya Dairy Board that entitled them to legally sell milk (Box 9.3).Participant tests before and after the training showed that trader knowledge and practices improved, and microbiological tests showed that there was a substantial and significant decrease in unsafe milk. A later economic evaluation found an important reduction in transaction costs attributable to less harassment by authorities, less confiscated equipment and fewer bribes paid but also fewer losses of milk to spoilage. There was anecdotal evidence of improved business performance. A more recent evaluation found that, although the scheme had encountered some challenges, it was still operational. Eight years after the project officially ended, many traders have continued in the scheme; we estimated that up to 5 million consumers are benefiting from In Kenya, dairy products are a significant expenditure in poor households. The informal, small-scale milk sector dominates the milk marketing chain, with some 60 -70 % of the raw milk market. Milk sold informally from door to door or in milk bars reaches poor consumers who pay a lower price for it than for factory-packaged milk; it also generally provides farmers with higher prices than they can get in the formal sector.However, prior to policy change in 2004, informal vendors, including mobile milk traders and bar vendors, milk transporters and small-scale milk producers (many of them women), were not officially recognized. They were unable to obtain a licence and were frequently harassed by powerful dairy market players, who sought to protect their own interests while professing concern over the safety and quality of milk sold in the informal sector.Efforts to revise the dairy policy were spearheaded by ILRI's Smallholder Dairy Project. Implemented along with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the Kenya Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development, the project generated research-based evidence to reveal the economic significance of the informal milk sector and highlight the potential for improved handling and hygiene practices to ensure milk quality.As part of the ongoing development of pro-poor strategies for small-scale milk market development, the Dairy Traders Association of Kenya was officially launched in September 2009. Its aims and activities include self-regulation based on the training and certification concept originally developed by the Smallholder Dairy Project and further scaled up by other projects. Around 4000 milk traders, offering employment to over 10,000 people, have been trained and certified by the Kenya Dairy Board through the association. Field regulators also ensure that licensed outlets and premises operated by milk traders meet conditions for milk hygiene, testing requirements and sanitation, and that operators know how to comply with these conditions.A key supporting aspect of the Smallholder Dairy Project was the development of modules for training (milk handling, processing and marketing) and certification of vendors to improve milk quality. This training, along with simple innovations such as wide-necked milk cans, were shown to improve the safety of milk significantly. The proportion of milk with high levels of contamination fell from 71% to 55% among traders using plastic containers and from 48% to 42% among those using metal containers. Without the intervention, policy change would have been unlikely (WRENmedia, 2010). milk provided by trained traders and tens of thousands of dairy farmers from market access through trained traders.An evaluation of the Kenya-ILRI collaborative Smallholder Dairy Project was conducted in 2008 (Kaitibie et al., 2010a,b;see Chapter 17, this volume). This showed significant economic benefits derived from changes in dairy policy resulting in lower transaction costs. Some 73% of national benefits accrued to producers and consumers with the balance going to traders and input suppliers. Related evidence showed improvements in milk quality (Omore and Baker, 2011), although it was not possible to link such improvements to changes in market prices.Key lessons from the Smallholder Dairy Project were as follows:• The scheme was successful in improving the quality and safety of milk, at least in the short term, and the focus on quality seems to have improved business performance.• The scheme reduced milk marketing costs and was appreciated by both traders and consumers.• The traders provided information to consumers and can be a practical node for dissemination of nutritional change and promotion of milk consumption to consumers as part of a marketing intervention.• Training in business skills, including a greater consumer orientation, can improve business performance. Key policy lessons were the following:• Policies seeking to exclude the informal sector are unlikely to improve food safety or nutritional quality and may paradoxically decrease food safety and reduce the accessibility of food.• Food safety and nutrition programmes should also help to reform anti-informal sector policies. Merely reducing inappropriate regulatory pressure on small businesses has the potential to increase small business capacities and to create incentives for them to improve the quality of their product.• 'Light-touch' interventions centred around   training can deliver substantial improvements in product quality, even in the absence of major technological or infrastructure upgrades.There was, however, a lack of systematic support to this initially successful project. The original assumption that vendors would pay private business development services to provide training was not valid. However, other development actors did use the modules to provide one-off trainings. More critically, changes in the institutional and political context were not favourable to the informal sector and a subsequent follow up found that, while traders expressed a very favourable opinion to training, there was no systematic training programme in place and moreover milk sold by trained traders was no safer (Alonso et al., 2018).Moreover, the approach used in the Smallholder Dairy Project was never evaluated to see whether health benefits were obtained from safer milk. Although marketing skills were taught, there was no emphasis on teaching vendors how to promote the nutritional benefits of milk. The capacity-building initiative did not benefit from a gender perspective in design or implementation, notwithstanding the importance of women as milk producers, traders and consumers. Sustainability and scalability challenges had not been fully overcome. These deficits are being addressed in a project under way in 2020 (www. ilri.org/research/projects/moremilk-makingmost-milk); accessed 1 August 2020.The trader intervention is a model for improving food safety when approaches based on regulation do not work (Johnson et al., 2015). The model has been adapted and tested in other contexts, including dairy (India and Tanzania) and meat (Ethiopia, Nigeria and Senegal). In two of the three cases, evaluations documented that participating value chain agents increased their knowledge and skills and improved their foodhandling practices. In some cases, better milk quality and higher incomes were found (Lapar et al., 2014) and significant economic benefits were generated (Kaitibie et al., 2010a,b). In the case of Nigeria, the intervention could plausibly be linked with a reduction in diarrhoea and savings in reduced healthcare expenditure worth many times the cost of training butchers (Grace et al., 2012a). However, follow-up research 9 years later revealed a marked deterioration in meat quality as the result of lack of follow-on training and, more importantly, a shift from enabling to disabling environment (Grace et al., 2019).Based on results from early studies, a formal theory of change was developed by Johnson et al. (2015). This identified three components that they considered essential for success. The so-called 'triple-path' model included the following:• Training and technologies. Informal sector agents needed tools to deliver safe food. This usually meant training, awareness raising and simple technologies such as disinfectants. Training in business skills was often included.• Enabling environment. Regulatory authorities had to be on board with the intervention and there had to be some mechanism for institutionalization (e.g. a locally or nationally recognized certificate) and a means of quality assurance.• Motivation and incentives. Incentives were essential for behaviour change but were very context specific. In one case, certificates protected traders against harassment from authorities; in another, the training enabled traders to improve their bargaining power with the public sector. It was originally hypothesized that trained traders would be able to charge a premium for safer food, but in no project were they able to charge more for food, although some may have increased their market share. This triple-path approach is sometimes called 'Training, Certification and Marketing', or TCM, where 'training' refers to the capacity building aspect, 'certification' to the enabling environment and 'marketing' to the provision of incentives for behaviour change.Table 9.5 presents evidence for the outcomes and impacts of food safety interventions, based on five relatively well-evaluated projects.Many rural poor people worldwide subsist on substandard diets consisting largely of the same cheap cereal and tuber staples day in and day out. When they move to cities, their intake of cheap, highly processed foods high in sugar, salt and fats increases. Nutritional deficiencies in such diets are common and are associated with a range of poor health and development outcomes. The first 1000 days of life, from conception to around 2 years of age, are considered an especially crucial nutritional period: setbacks during this period are hard to recover from by later attempts to 'catch up'. Undernutrition, while declining, remains at high levels in vulnerable communities, while diseases associated with too much food consumption trend upwards.An initiative in 1984 brought together 12 CGIAR centres at ILCA, in Ethiopia, to discuss how the centres were addressing human nutrition. At that time, ILCA was including nutritional status in its field research, while ILRAD viewed its contribution to better nutrition as an indirect one made by tackling serious livestock diseases (Doyle, 1984).During the 1960s and 1970s, insufficient energy was thought to be the most serious dietary constraint to improved human nutrition. As a result of research during the 1980s and 1990s and improving levels of energy consumption, attention shifted to micronutrient deficiencies in the diets of the poor. Because milk, eggs and meat are among the richest dietary sources of vitamins and minerals, in addition to protein, this created a new appreciation for the contribution that livestock products can make to ensuring nutritious and diverse diets.In the late 1990s, ILRI conducted its first empirical studies investigating links between livestock keeping and human nutrition. A study from Ethiopia (using data from 1989 to 1998) found that introducing cross-bred cows could improve human health and nutritional status (Thornton and Odero, 1998); similar findings were reported from coastal Kenya (Nicholson et al., 1999). Another Ethiopian study, in 1997 and 1999, indicated that market-oriented livestock activities moderately reduced poverty and improved food security and nutrition of smallholder households (Ahmed et al., 2003). Econometric models applied to data from coastal and highland Kenya in the late 1990s found positive impacts of dairy cattle ownership on chronic malnutrition in coastal Kenya (Nicholson et al., 2003).A major event to bring together nutrition researchers and stimulate nutrition research in CGIAR was held in 2000 in the Philippines (Pinstrup-Andersen, 2000). Discussions at this meeting explicitly addressed the role of highly nutritious foods, including livestock products. The meeting concluded that ILRI efforts to increase the supply of livestock products to the poor could  be presumed to have nutritional benefits while acknowledging that there had been insignificant efforts to measure these benefits (Bouis, 2000). Delgado et al. (2001) examined the effects of income growth on diets using Chinese panel data. As incomes improved, Chinese consumers shifted from high-carbohydrate foods towards high-fat, energy-dense foods, with these changes varying by income levels. These income effects suggested that increased incomes could affect diet and body composition in ways detrimental to health; moreover, the biggest harm would fall on low-income groups due to their increasing incomes. The study argued that higher incomes might reverse health gains achieved in the preceding two decades if diet-related non-communicable diseases could not be controlled (Delgado et al., 2001).In 2003, for the first time, an ILRI programme was initiated with an explicit focus on improving human health through livestock by considering both the associated benefits and risks of livestock to people's health. The new ILRI Livestock Keeping and Human Health Impacts programme focused on nutrition, zoonoses and food safety. This programme sought to leverage expertise through partnerships, and commissioned some important evidence syntheses. These concluded that the available evidence suggested that interventions to promote livestock were generally positive for nutrition, although few high-quality studies took into account the complex links between livestock and nutrition, and most had substantial methodological weaknesses (Leroy et al., 2006). The project also developed an influential conceptual framework (Fig. 9.1) articulating the links among livestock, nutrition and human health (Randolph et al., 2007). These links are context specific. To begin teasing out the roles of different species, a study conducted in Ethiopia demonstrated that ownership of small stock did not contribute to improved child nutrition within the household, whereas poultry might provide direct benefits through egg consumption (Good, 2009).An external review (Science Council/CGIAR, 2008) recommended that human nutrition not be a focus for ILRI. This led to fragmentation of ILRI's first human health programme, and for several years little research was done at ILRI relevant to human nutrition. However, the launch of A4NH in 2012 provided an opportunity to revive this important area of research. ILRI leveraged external expertise to reestablish nutrition work. This included collaborations with senior nutritionists at Emory University in Georgia, IFPRI, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and Washington State University. Exploratory work and pilots were conducted in several field sites. Highlights include the following:• An ILRI study conducted with households representing low, medium and high levels of dairy intensification in rural Kenya indicated that women's increased labour demands as households intensified their dairy production were associated with poorer nutritional outcomes for their young children; in contrast, children in households of high dairy intensity received more milk than children in lower-intensity households (Njuki et al., 2015).• ILRI produced the first reported study showing a link between aflatoxin in milk and child stunting (children who are too small for their age) in two low-income areas in Nairobi (Kiarie et al., 2016).• ILRI conducted a project to develop tools for rapid, integrated assessment of food safety in value chains. Studies in five countries documented the potential importance of livestock products to nutrition and how these were being eroded by poor food safety (El-Tholth et al., 2018;Häsler et al., 2018Häsler et al., , 2019;;Roesel et al., 2019;Nguyen-Viet et al., 2019).• ILRI conducted an analysis of the demand for livestock products, the drivers of this demand and the barriers to consuming livestock products among poor households in Nairobi. Price was found to be the most important barrier to consumption, while taste was reported as the main driver for consumption. Estimated demand elasticities indicated that increases in total food expenditure would lead to the greatest increase in demand for beef meat. Price reductions would increase the demand relatively more for fish, other meats and dairy products (Cornelsen et al., 2016).• A systematic review suggested that food scares linked to livestock disease outbreaks and FBD could harm nutrition due to consumers avoiding the implicated foods (Green et al., 2017).  • A study in Tanzania suggested that participation in a pro-poor agricultural intervention to improve milk production may improve women's milk consumption (Mishkin et al., 2018).• A Women Empowerment in Livestock Index, based on a widely used index to measure empowerment of women in agriculture and adapted to livestock keepers, incorporated nutrition and was used to identify dimensions of empowerment associated with dietary diversity and food security (Galiè et al., 2018).• Work with FAO on the challenges of ensuring livestock interventions in the Sahel had positive nutritional benefits and led to a reformulation of relevant FAO guidelines (Dominguez-Salas et al., 2019).As ILRI also endeavoured to engage with the Millennium Development Goals and the subsequent Sustainable Development Goals, there were increasing efforts to understand the appropriate contributions of livestock products to human diets, especially given the wide and sometimes conflicting concerns about undernutrition, overnutrition, the environmental externalities of livestock systems, livestock-associated human diseases and animal welfare. A series of papers looked at some of the synergies and trade-offs among these societal goals (Enahoro et al., 2018;Salmon et al., 2018;Sirma et al., 2018). ILRI increasingly engaged in broad platforms that addressed all these issues. These included livestock initiatives taking on greater nutritional focus, such as the multi-stakeholder Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock partnership, the Livestock Data for Decisions project, the Global Livestock Agenda to 2020 initiative and the Global Livestock Advocacy for Development project. The links among livestock, livestock-associated disease and human nutrition were also set out in several influential publications that ILRI authored or co-authored (Grace, 2015a(Grace, , 2016(Grace, , 2017;;ILRI, 2019). ILRI's collaboration with Chatham House produced a widely cited and evidenced-based synthesis of livestock-enhanced diets in the first 1000 days of life (Grace et al., 2018a).A few ILRI projects have aimed to improve nutrition through consumption of livestock products as opposed to better understanding this issue or advocating for it. ILRI participated in an mNutrition initiative that involved mobile phone companies providing mobile phone-based health, nutrition and agriculturally based information services to the poor. ILRI helped to build the capacity of local partners to develop appropriate nutrition messages and to ensure the quality of the messages (CABI, 2017). More than 5 million people were reached with these nutrition messages. There was evidence of some behaviour change due to implementing this service, but it proved difficult to develop business models to keep the service going because people were generally unwilling to pay for mobile phone-based health information. A rigorous external evaluation of this project is under way. Preliminary results indicate that aspects of the approach are attractive to mothers, but considerable technological and sociological barriers challenge access and uptake (https://perma.cc/7QSA-Z9DF; accessed 19 August 2020).Another large ILRI-led project focused on behavioural communication change messages to promote dietary diversity, including livestock products, in Kenya. This project gave more than 5000 women training in nutritional issues and reached over 50,000 infants via nutritional messages to their mothers (Kiome et al., 2019). This was not a research project and the impact is not clear. Another project in Rwanda aimed to evaluate the nutritional impacts of a social and behavioural change communication intervention combined with a government initiative dubbed 'One Cow per Poor Family' (Flax et al., 2017). The final results of this project are not yet available, but initial results confirm that families who are given a free cow had lower stunting prevalence than families who were eligible but had not yet received a free cow (Flax et al., 2019).ILRI projects have also been the entry point for other nutrition projects. The ILRI-led African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG) project in Ethiopia has partnered with a Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) project which will promote chicken and egg consumption in the ACGG households benefiting from ACGG provision of 25 imported tropically adapted chicken strains and locally developed indigenous strains. Again, work is ongoing and findings are yet to emerge.In conclusion, the contribution that livestock make to human nutrition has evolved at ILRI from an assumed but unexamined premise, to an active area of research, to relegation outside of ILRI and finally back to renewed recognition that this should be an important focus of ILRI's agenda. The very small investments in this area to date have necessarily constrained its impacts. Research studies did produce useful information on links among livestock keeping, livestock product consumption and nutrition. There were also methodological advances in tools for assessing nutrition in value chains, for formulating diets and for measuring women's empowerment. ILRI advice has also been incorporated in many guidelines. While recent decades have seen livestock production coming under increasing criticism in high-income countries because of environmental, health and animal welfare concerns, the increasing numbers of high-level reports and global engagements on nutrition and livestock issues are likely to draw attention to the importance of livestock and livestock-derived products for nutritionally vulnerable populationsThe Future ILRI and partners have been studying food safety in informal markets for more than a decade. This work has helped confirm the hypothesis that food safety is an important and probably growing constraint to smallholder value chains because of its multiple burdens on human health, livestock production and product marketing. Over the same period, our understanding of the global burden of FBD in developing countries has greatly increased, validating ILRI's emphasis in this area, especially the importance of zoonotic disease and animal-source foods, areas where ILRI is mandated to research.ILRI research on FBD has resulted in many science outputs, including some genuinely innovative tools and approaches, and has already demonstrated outcomes at community, national and regional levels. These include substantial inputs into global, regional and national strategies and national training programmes. The major development-oriented approach -the triple-path for training, motivating and enabling of informal market agents -has been shown to be both scalable and sustainable. While questions remain about its lasting effects on food safety and its application outside those few countries where its success has been demonstrated, the next few years should bring further evidence about this, with benefits lasting for many decades to come.","tokenCount":"10486"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3e28dd6cc4d38113faca664a51adb068","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/16db53cf-ee56-4f17-b712-35d7d0eeda49/retrieve","id":"-197876201"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"224c75ef-f335-4511-9eaf-049e5bd8d3d5","pagecount":"45","content":"Breeders at the Genetic and Crop Improvement Global Program (GCI) know that breeding clones must be suited to the cropping systems and length of the potato growing season of a particular region within their agro-ecological area of adaptation. In this sense, tuber bulking information of clones is of great interest for recommending testing toward final adoption. This information is valuable for assessing performance and adaptation particularly in areas with short growing seasons, where harvesting has to be performed during the bulking period, that is, before top (leaf) senescence.The present protocol aims at providing a practical procedure for the assessment and documentation of tuber bulking maturity of potential varieties and also can be useful in the selection of early bulking maturity clonesThe rate and duration of tuber bulking determines the yield in the potato crop. Tuber bulking rate is the slope of the linear curve described by the increase in tuber weight with time, while tuber bulking duration is the time between tuber initiation and persistence of foliage. Indeed, decline in leaf area by senescence is followed after a short time by the cessation of tuber bulking. Though both factors are important in accounting for yield differences between cultivars, tuber bulking duration is of greater importance as it seems determines final yield. For instance, an early variety with a yield advantage over a later variety during the linear phase of bulking may show a final yield lower than the later one because of earlier senescence, unless early lifting is carried out. Tuber bulking results from two basic processes, tuber initiation and tuber growth. Timing and duration depend upon geographic location, environmental factors, and cultivars. P a g e | 7This phase occurs at about 20 to 30 days or more (up to 45 days under long day conditions) after plant emergence and last for a period of 10 to 14 days. Though additional tubers may continue to form on stolons during later stages of plant development, tubers that are harvested late during a long season will be initiated at this time. During the initiation phase in which tubers are formed on stolons, the orientation of cell division within the sub-apical portion of the stolon changes to produce radial expansion rather than longitudinal growth.The number of developing tubers increases to a maximum of about 15-20 and then declines to some lower value that will be filled by harvest (Figure 1). Initiated tubers not carried to harvest will be re-adsorbed by the plant. Evidence also points toward the presence of more than just one tuber-setting cycle during a growing season in some cultivars (Meredith, 1988). Thus, there are cultivars with more than one tuber initiation event, whereas others appeared to set tubers just once.Figure 1.Potential tuber number that can be successfully produced by a plant (tuber initiation phase).Taken from Kleinkopf et al., (2003) Physiology of tuber bulking P a g e | 8The potential tuber number that can be successfully produced by a plant varies with the genotype (most cultivars having a consistent number of tubers on each stem), physiological age of seed, number of stems per hill (stem population) and environmental conditions during this initiation phase of growth. Environmental conditions affecting tuber initiation include planting date, early season temperature, nutrition and water management, and weather extremes such as hot climate, hail or frost.Growers may have some control over this phase through seed lot selection and best management practices, while they have little control over annual environmental conditions.This phase which follows tuber initiation is based on the number of days to maturity or length of the growing season, thus, this stage can last from 60 to over 90 days. Tuber enlargement, which takes place during this phase, continues as photosynthates are translocated from the vines into the tubers. The number of hours of daylight available for photosynthesis and the day temperatures during this phase largely influence the length of this phase.Despite the observation that the major part of tuber growth occurs before maximum leaf area (Figure 2), higher bulking is associated with greater leaf area provide the limit at which crop growth-rate declines because of mutual shading of leaves is not surpassed Struik et al. (1990) suggest that mechanisms controlling tuber growth or re-absorption may be more important in establishing tuber size distribution at harvest than the processes controlling tuber initiation.The number of tubers produced in season, soil moisture, and cultivar specific.A maturation phase follows tuber growth, which is characterized by leaf area decline and a slow rate of tuber growth. This phase may not occur in the field when a medium or long season cultivar is grown in a short P a g e | 9 production season. Only approximately 10-15 percent of the total tuber weight can be obtained between the end of the tuber growth stage and the first two weeks of maturation.Early tuber initiation and growth are necessary for acceptable production in areas where potatoes are often harvested prior to physiological maturity.  Radley et al., 1961 Tuber bulking in the potato crop.The tuberization process of potato is understood to be controlled by environmental factors, mainly photoperiod and temperature, which regulate levels of endogenous growth substances. Short days and cool night temperatures (inducing conditions) have been reported to favor tuberization while long days and high night temperatures delay or inhibit the process (Gregory, 1956;Slater, 1968) The principal site of perception of the photoperiodic signal is in the leaves. Under favorable short day conditions, the leaves produce a mobile inductive signal that is transported to the stolons to induce tuber formation. At least two independent pathways controlling tuber formation in potato have been proposed: a photoperiod-dependent pathway and a gibberellin-dependent pathway.The photoperiodic pathway regulating short-day tuber induction shares features with the photoperiodic flowering pathway, including involvement of Phytochrome B (PHYB), CONSTANS (CO) and FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) proteins (Amador et al., 2001;Martínez-García et al., 2002;Rodríguez-Falcón et al., 2006).On the other hand, gibberellins (GAs) have been reported to have an inhibitory effect on tuber induction and their activity has been shown to decrease when leaves are exposed to short day conditions (Ewing, 1995;Kumar and Wareing, 1974).Likewise, the light stable phytochrome PHYB, a major photoreceptor, has also been shown to be involved in the regulation of tuber induction, inhibiting this process under non-favorable conditions. This photoreceptor controls the synthesis of an inhibitory signal that has a role in GA signal transduction. The PHOR1 (photoperiod responsive 1) protein has been found to have a positive function in the GA signaling P a g e | 11 cascade, suggesting that changes in GA sensitivity are involved in mediating tuber induction (Amador et al., 2001). Hence, cultivars sensitive to high GA levels under long photoperiods can be a problem for temperate regions, which have long photoperiods during their usual crop season. Fortunately, there are \"day neutral\" cultivars that presumably have lost GA-photoperiod response.Potato originated from the high altitude tropics in the Andes. Hence, tuber bulking is best promoted by short photoperiods, high light intensity and cool climates, with mean daily temperatures between 15° and 18°C as encountered in its center of origin. The meteorological factors influencing this process at a given site are basically air and soil temperatures, solar radiation, photoperiod, soil moisture, and crop water use. Sensitivity to environmental conditions varies markedly between genotypes (Brown, 2007).The most limiting environmental factors for potato production are heat and water stresses. Time from emergence to tuber initiation is shortened by short days and temperatures less than 20°C. Higher temperatures favor foliar development and delay tuber initiation. Crop senescence is also shortened by high temperatures, especially greater than 30°C (Midmore, 1990).Heat stress leads to a higher number of smaller tubers per plant and lower tuber specific gravity with reduced dry matter content (Haverkort, 1990). Ewing (1981) reported that in many areas the sequence of temperatures that most often brings economic damage to potato crops is warm temperatures early in the season, followed by cool temperatures that induce strong tuberization, followed in turn by another period of high temperatures such temperature oscillations lead to heat sprouts, chain P a g e | 12 tubers, and secondary growth of tubers. Apparently the fluctuations in tuberization stimulus cause tuber formation to alternate with more stolon-like growth.Long day adapted cultivars that produce well in full growing seasons (5-6 months) may mature too early and senesce between 60 and 70 days after planting in the equatorial highlands and consequently yield less (Haverkort,1990). On the other hand, cultivars those perform well under short days in a 3 to 4 month growing season start tuberizing late and mature too late at altitudes of 50°N. Sands et al. (1979) showed that tuber initiation is delayed by long day lengths, though day length limit is cultivar dependent. Stolon branching is increased both by high temperatures and long photoperiods, while stolon number is not affected by photoperiod but instead by temperature and moisture.Drought stress limits vine growth and reduces the number of tubers in larger size categories (Walworth and Carling, 2002). However, no differences have been observed in the dates of tuber initiation or beginning of the growth period (bulking) between irrigated and nonirrigated potatoes (Dwyer and Boisvert, 1990). In addition, time to foliage senescence is not affected in drought-stressed plants but top growth is, from early to mid-season (Walworth and Carling, 2002). o Sprouted tubers of a red and a cream or whiteskinned cultivar. These cultivars will be used according to the skin color of the test cultivars, as markers, to separate within a plot, plants that will be harvested at different harvest dates.o Materials list is recorded onto form (Material_List)A split block (strip plot) design is appropriate for this type of assessment (Figure 3). The treatments of the factor \"Clones\", i.e., the test clones, Rows should consist of at least 15 hill/plots planted such, that every five seed tubers of the test cultivar, a red or white-skinned potato -according to the skin color of the test clone -is planted as a marker, followed by five more test clone tubers. This pattern should be repeated throughout the row. A marker tuber is also planted at the head and end of each plot. A border row should be planted at each side of every block (repetition).Planting distances should follow those standards of the location, though distances of 30 cm between hills are recommended. Agronomical management and control of pests and diseases should be according to the standard practices of the location.Three harvest dates as well as ranges of days to harvest for each of them are proposed:The time of the first harvest and day-intervals to subsequent harvests will be determined according to the length of the growing season of the trial location. Short growing seasons that allow only early and intermediate harvest are not uncommon.Plots should be harvested in five-plant increments, from one end of the plot to the other up to the last harvest date.o Stop irrigation two weeks before dehaulming. The information should be recorded onto form Data Collector.Trial, materials and site informationTrial information, management and evaluation data o Plant vigor (Plant_Vigor):this data is collected 45 days after planting and should be evaluated using a scale from 1 to 9. (Salas, 2007). The plants are still being green or on the onset of senescence, there may be a slight yellowing. The angle of insertion of the leaves on the stems may have become more obtuse than in the younger plants of the same clone. The formation of berries can be advanced and abundant in fertile clones.The plants have senescent foliage, yellowing is more advanced but the stems may still be upright. If berries are present, their color will turn from green to pale green or yellow green.The plants are completely senescent, yellowing is complete and uniform, and the stems are decumbent.Size For a given variable, if the interaction between harvest date and test clone is significant (p<0.05) then there is at least one test clone that performs significantly different across harvest dates. Another way to interpret this interaction is that statistical differences exist between test clones at a given harvest date.The tuber growth stage is a key determinant of the marketable component of total yield, characterized by a constant rate of increase in tuber size and weight. Hence, performance of marketable tuber weight across harvest date is of great importance in determining bulking maturity.To assign a test clone to a given tuber bulking maturity grade, the evaluator must take into account the following situations in the Clones that show no statistical difference in marketable tuber weight in two consecutive harvest dates may show a statistically significant increase in their marketable tuber yield. Since marketable tuber yield is a function of marketable tuber weight and number, a significant increase in marketable tuber yield can be attributed only to a greater number of marketable tubers. This would be the case of clones able to form additional tubers during later stages of plant development or cultivars with more than one tuber-setting cycle. In such cases, the evaluator must check the percentage of tubers assigned to each of the two marketable tuber size categories at each harvest date in order to make a decision on the bulking maturity characteristic of the clone.Clones of medium or late bulking maturity can be recommended for an earlier harvest date provided if the clone is among those with best marketable tuber weight and yield at the referred date. Therefore, a comparison test between clones at a given harvest date is of paramount importance for a final recommendation of the clone's harvest date. This is of particular interest for areas of short growing seasons, where early lifting is required. Specific gravity should also be a criterion to take into consideration in this decision. A specific gravity of 1.080 or greater is considered acceptable.P a g e | 23Case  No statistical differences for marketable tuber weight across harvest dates were found for either of the two test clones. This was not true for the marketable tuber yield and number for which a significant increase was observed for both clones at 100 DAP. This indicates that earlier harvests would rend immature potatoes of unmarketable size. It is evident that bulking was interrupted at 80 DAP in all test clones and it is likely that some of them might require more than 100 days to reach In Tashkent, CIP-397099.4 yielded significantly better at 100 DAP, even though a few marketable tubers harvested at 80 DAP weighed not significantly different from those harvested at 100 DAP. However, a significantly greater number of marketable tubers at 100 DAP, indicates that bulking was still in progress at 80 DAP, consequently CIP-397099.4 can be regarded as a medium maturing clone under the lowland conditions of Tashkent. In contrast, no significant differences for marketable tuber yield, weight and number were found across harvest dates in La Molina, indicating that CIP-397099.4 is an early maturing clone under these conditions.It is likely that high temperatures at Tashkent may have delayed tuber initiation, and consequently affected bulking period. This highlights the importance of recording meteorological information during the growing season.The following figures show the performance of an early, a medium, and ","tokenCount":"2514"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f37d7fc4fe684552774888f90248a304","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c9036d96-10b1-4622-b78e-6e727769bb79/retrieve","id":"286173914"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9868901e-fe19-4729-ac2e-6a4646e26a0e","pagecount":"88","content":"works to improve food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for better and more sustainable use of livestock.'Petersen is a marketing, brand, business and product manager for Land O'Lakes Purina Feed, leading the company's marketing of feed for cattle, dairy cows and swine. Trained in physiology and poultry feed research in the UK and Australia, she has considerable experience in the feed sector, including market analysis and strategy development in a private sector context in Switzerland and the United States. She brings a unique blend of private sector, feeds research, business development and marketing skills to ILRI's Board. She joined the Board of Trustees in November 2012. The International Livestock Research Institute (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. ILRI's three strategic objectives are: 1. With partners, to develop, test, adapt and promote science-based practices that-being sustainable and scalable-achieve better lives through livestock. 2. With partners, to provide compelling scientific evidence in ways that persuade decision makers-from farms to boardrooms and parliaments-that smarter policies and bigger livestock investments can deliver significant socio-economic, health and environmental dividends to both poor nations and households. 3. With partners, to increase capacity among ILRI's key stakeholders to make better use of livestock science and investments for better lives through livestock.ILRI is the co-founder, with the African Union New Partnership for Africa's Development (AU-NEPAD), of the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA-ILRI) Hub on its Nairobi campus where world-class facilities for biotechnology research are in use by ILRI, other international centres and many national partners. ILRI works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. The outcomes of these research partnerships help people in developing countries keep their farm animal's alive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, find profitable markets for their animal products, and reduce the risk of livestock-related diseases.As a relatively small institute with a large global mandate, partnership remains the institute's fundamental modus operandi. The institute's current strategy requires that ILRI increases the range as well as the number of its partners. The Board of Trustees (the Board) comprises 14 outstanding professionals with particular expertise in the fields of livestock science, agricultural research, development, and corporate management. The Board serves as the governing body of the institute primarily through its governance and oversight roles of ensuring that ILRI functions to the highest standard to execute its mission and deliver on its strategy. The Board ensures that plans and programs are appropriate for carrying out ILRI's mandate, that they are in line with CGIAR priorities, and that they are aligned with the institute's mission. The Board has fiduciary responsibility for ILRI's financial resources.ILRI is financed by CGIAR, major multilateral and bilateral donors, foundations, and governments. Funding for the CRPs is disbursed using a three-window modality. The Program Committee addresses all matters regarding the conception, elaboration, implementation and evaluation of the institute's programs of research, training and information.The committee provides directives concerning program orientation or conduct for the benefit of the director general and senior management.It also advises on optimising program implementation and related matters.The Finance Committee ensures that the Board in fulfils its fiduciary responsibilities related to the budget preparation, budget execution, and financial systems and management reporting practices of the institute. The committee carries out its work against the backdrop of the institute's research strategies, its operating procedures, and policies as approved by the Board.The Audit and Risk Committee is responsible for advising ILRI's Board on all matters relating to ILRI's financial reporting and procedures, internal control and audit systems, standard operating procedures, external audit appointment and functions, compliance and risk assessment and management. The committee reviews and recommends Board approval or rejection of the external audit report on the institute's annual financial statement. The committee may request information or commission investigations into matters within its scope from internal and external auditors, and if necessary appoint independent consultants/counsel.The Human Resource Committee provides assistance to the Board in fulfilling its responsibilities related to policies concerning the human resources and occupational health and safety practices of the institute. It avoids entering into matters that are properly the preserve of management.The Nominations and Governance Committee advises the Board on its composition, functioning and governance and guides the processes for selection and recruitment of the director general.The Executive Committee acts for the full Board in between Board meetings and on matters which the Board delegates to it. It is comprised of the Board chair, the committee chairs, and the director general.The Program and Finance committees of the Board are made up of all Board members. The Audit and Risk and Human Resource committees have members proposed by the Nominations and Governance committee, and approved by the Board. The Board Executive Committee consists of the Board chair, and chairs of all other committees, and the director general. The nominations and governance committee is made up of chairs of all committees and is chaired by the Board chair.The Board of Trustees meets twice a year in April and in November. In 2016, the April meeting was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the November meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. 'Livestock sustain most forms of agricultural intensification-from the Sahelian rangelands of West Africa to the mixed smallholdings in the highlands of East Africa to highly intensified rice production in Asia. Research is helping farmers exploit the potential of their animals to turn the nutrient cycling on their farms faster and more efficiently.' The uncertainty of 2015, especially with regard to ILRI's funding continued through 2016, and management continues to execute responsive and careful planning to ensure that the institute will remain in a robust position to deliver on its mission. The role of livestock in relation to global development issues continues to become more prominent, reinforcing the Board's confidence that resources to support the institute's agenda will be forthcoming. The Board would like to thank all ILRI staff for their continued commitment and hard work.On behalf of the members of the Board, I thank our investors and partners for their confidence and support that is allowing the institute to fulfil its mission. Management is required to prepare consolidated financial statements for each financial year, which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the institute and its subsidiary as at the end of the financial year and of the consolidated results of activities and cash flows of the institute and its subsidiary for that year. Management is also required to ensure that the institute keeps proper accounting records, which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the institute and its subsidiary. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the institute and its subsidiary.Management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements in accordance with CGIAR Financial Guideline Series No. 2-Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual (February 2006 and supplemented by the 2016 Advisory Note) and for such internal controls as Trustees determine are necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.Management accepts responsibility for the annual financial statements, which have been prepared using appropriate accounting policies supported by reasonable and prudent judgements and estimates, in conformity with CGIAR Financial Guideline Series No. 2-Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual. Management is of the opinion that the financial statements give a true and fair view of the state of the financial affairs of the institute and its subsidiary and of its consolidated results of activities and cash flows. Management further accepts responsibility for the maintenance of accounting records, which may be relied upon in the preparation of financial statements, as well as adequate systems of internal financial control.The Board of Trustees exercises its responsibility for these financial statements through its Finance, and Audit and Risk committees. The committees interact regularly with management, internal auditors and external auditors to review matters relating to financial planning, financial reporting, risk management, internal control, and auditing.Nothing has come to the attention of management to indicate that the institute and its subsidiary will not remain going concerns for at least the next 12 months from the date of this statement.Signed on behalf of management by: _______________________ ________________________ The ILRI Board has overall responsibility for overseeing the institute's internal control and risk management systems and for reviewing their adequacy and effectiveness in alignment with CGIAR principles and guidelines that have been adopted by all centres. This process lends support to the role of management in implementing the various policies on risk and control, which have been approved by the Board. Due to limitations inherent in any system of internal controls, these systems are designed to manage and mitigate, rather than eliminate, the respective inherent risks that exist in achieving the institute's objectives. Therefore, such systems of internal controls and risk management can only provide reasonable, and not absolute, assurance against material misstatement or loss.The Board has delegated its authority to the Audit and Risk Committee (A&RC) to review and determine the levels of different categories of risk, whilst management and unit/program heads are delegated the responsibility to manage risks related to their respective units/programs. The process requires the unit/ program heads to identify and assess the relevant risks in terms of likelihood and magnitude of impact (each on a four-point scale), as well as to identify and evaluate the adequacy and effectiveness of applying the mechanisms in place to manage and mitigate these risks and how these change over time. Key risks which include strategic, programmatic, operational, financial, reputational, staff and stakeholder risks inherent in the nature of the Institute's activities are identified and assessed at unit and program level, then deliberated at the institute Management Committee and significant risks are communicated to the Board at their scheduled meetings.The institute endeavours to manage risk by ensuring that mitigation actions are undertaken, which include making sure appropriate infrastructure, controls, systems and people are in place throughout the Institute. Key practices employed in managing risks and opportunities include business environmental scans, clear policies and accountabilities, transaction approval frameworks, financial and management reporting, and the monitoring of metrics designed to highlight positive or negative performance of individuals and business processes across a broad range of key performance areas. To further enhance the institute's risk management systems, the A&RC reviewed and the Board approved an updated Risk Management Policy in November 2016. The updates were primarily to introduce scoring risks in terms of impact and likelihood so as to prioritize interventions and management, and recognize that in many cases partners' also have a role in the successful and efficient implementation of a sound risk management system.The design and effectiveness of the risk management system and internal controls is subject to ongoing review by the institute's Internal Audit Unit, which is independent of the business and research units, and which reports on the results of its audits directly to the director general and to the Board through the A&RC. Taken together, the Board is satisfied with the attention paid by management to risk. With regard to ILRI's 2016 Financial Statements and the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting, the A&RC reviewed management's assertions in its 2016 Management Letter (provided to the external auditors) and Management's Statement of Responsibility for Financial Reporting included as part of the annual financial statement and its assertions that internal control are adequate.The Board also remains very alert to the impact of external events over which the institute has no control over, other than to monitor and, as the occasion arises, to provide mitigation.Chair, Board of Trustees 25 April 2017We have audited the accompanying financial statements of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) set out on pages 23 to 75, which comprise the consolidated statement of financial position as at 31 December 2016, and the consolidated statement of activities, consolidated statement of changes in net assets and consolidated statement of cash flows, for the year then ended, and notes to the consolidated financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies.In our opinion, the accompanying consolidated financial statements give a true and fair view of the consolidated financial position of ILRI as at 31 December 2016, and its consolidated financial performance and consolidated cash flows for the year then ended in accordance with the CGIAR Financial Guideline Series No. 2-Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual (February 2006) and the Advisory Note for 2016.We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (ISAs). Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor's Responsibilities for the Audit of the consolidated financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the Institute in accordance with the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants' Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (IESBA Code).We have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with the IESBA Code, and in accordance with other ethical requirements applicable to performing audits of consolidated financial statements in Kenya. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.The The other information does not include the consolidated financial statements and our auditor's report thereon.Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and we do not express an audit opinion or any form of assurance conclusion thereon.In connection with our audit of the consolidated financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.We have nothing to report in this regard.Management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the consolidated financial statements in accordance with CGIAR Financial Guideline Series No. 2 Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual (February 2006), and the Advisory Note for 2016, and for such internal control as management determines is necessary to enable the preparation of consolidated financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.In preparing the consolidated financial statements, management is responsible for assessing the institute's ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless management either intend to liquidate the institute or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.Those charged with governance are responsible for overseeing the institute's financial reporting processes.Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor's report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of Independent auditor's report assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these consolidated financial statements.As part of an audit in accordance with ISAs, we exercise professional judgement and maintain professional scepticism throughout the audit. We also:• Identify and assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to fraud or error, design and perform audit procedures responsive to those risks, and obtain audit evidence that is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. The risk of not detecting a material misstatement resulting from fraud is higher than for one resulting from error, as fraud may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal control; • Obtain an understanding of internal control relevant to the audit in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the institute's internal control;• Evaluate the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates and related disclosures made by the Trustees;• Conclude on the appropriateness of the Trustees use of the going concern basis of accounting and based on the audit evidence obtained, whether a material uncertainty exists related to events or conditions that may cast significant doubt on the institute's ability to continue as a going concern. If we conclude that a material uncertainty exists, we are required to draw attention in our auditor's report to the related disclosures in the financial statements or, if such disclosures are inadequate, to modify our opinion. Our conclusions are based on the audit evidence obtained up to the date of our auditor's report. However, future events or conditions may cause the institute to cease to continue as a going concern;• Evaluate the overall presentation, structure and content of the consolidated financial statements, including the disclosures, and whether the consolidated financial statements represent the underlying transactions and events in a manner that achieves fair presentation.We communicate with the Trustees regarding, among other matters, the planned scope and timing of the audit and significant audit findings, including any significant deficiencies in internal control that we identify during our audit.The engagement partner responsible for the audit resulting in this independent auditor's report is CPA Nancy Muhoya Practicing Certificate No. 2158.  The The notes and exhibits set out on pages 25-75 form an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.   The notes and exhibits set out on pages 25-75 form an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.Notes to the consolidated financial statements The consolidated financial statements are prepared under the historical cost basis and on an accruals basis, except for biological assets belonging to the subsidiary modified to include the carrying of at fair value.The consolidated financial statements comprise the financial statements of the institute and its subsidiary, Kapiti Plains Estate Limited, in which the institute holds 100% of the voting rights as at 31 December 2016.Control is achieved when the institute is exposed, or has rights, to variable returns from its involvement with the investee and has the ability to affect those returns through its power over the investee. Specifically, the institute controls an investee if, and only if, the institute has:• Power over the investee (i.e., existing rights that give it the current ability to direct the relevant activities of the investee). • Exposure, or rights, to variable returns from its involvement with the investee. • The ability to use its power over the investee to affect its returns.Subsidiaries are entities controlled by the group. The group controls an entity when it is exposed to, or has rights to variable returns from its involvement with an entity and has the ability to affect those returns through its power over the entity. The financial statements of the subsidiary are included from the date on which control commences until the date on which control ceases.Intra-group balances and any unrealized income and expenses arising from intra-group transactions are eliminated on preparing consolidated financial statements.The consolidated financial statements are presented in United States dollars and all values are rounded to the nearest thousand (USD '000), which is the institute's functional currency.The preparation of financial statements involves the use of estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reported period. Although these estimates are based on the management's best knowledge of current events and actions, actual results ultimately may differ from the estimates.The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognized in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects both current and future periods.In particular, information about significant areas of estimation and critical judgement in applying accounting policies that have the most significant effect on the amounts recognized in the financial statements are described in Note 4.Revenue is recognized to the extent that it is probable that the economic benefits will flow to the group and the revenue can be reliably measured, regardless of when the payment is received. Revenue is measured at the fair value of the consideration received or receivable, taking into account contractually defined terms of payment and excluding taxes or duty. The group assesses its revenue arrangements against specific criteria in order to determine if it is acting as principal or agent. The group has concluded that it is acting as a principal in all of its revenue arrangements.Revenue is the gross inflow of economic benefits during the period arising in the course of the ordinary activities of a CGIAR centre, where those inflows result in increases in net assets. The major portion of a centre's revenue is derived through the receipts of donor grants-either 'Unrestricted' or 'Restricted'.Unrestricted grant revenue arises from the unconditional transfer of cash or other assets to ILRI. Restricted grant revenue arises from a transfer of resources to ILRI in return for past Notes to the consolidated financial statements (cont'd) or future compliance related to the operating activities of the institute. Unrestricted grants are recognized upon receipt of confirmed commitment. Restricted grants are recognized as revenue upon the fulfilment of donor-imposed conditions. Revenue associated with the transaction is recognized by making reference to the stage of completion of the transaction at the reporting date. When the outcome of the transaction cannot be estimated reliably, revenue is recognized only to the extent of the expenses that are recoverable. Other revenues and gains are recognized as they are earned.The institute's financial statements are presented in United States dollars (USD). Transactions and balances expressed in currencies other than the USD are treated as follows:i) Non-USD grants and donations received in the year are converted to USD at the exchange rates prevailing on the dates of receipt. Non-USD grants and donations pledged for the year but not received by the year-end are recognized in the financial statements at the exchange rates prevailing at the year-end. ii) Non-USD denominated expenditures are recorded at the exchange rates prevailing for the month in which they are incurred and are accumulated in USD. iii) Assets and liabilities denominated in currencies other than the USD are translated into USD at the exchange rates prevailing at the year end. iv) Gains and losses arising from changes in exchange rates are charged to the statement of activities in the year in which they arise. v) On consolidation, exchange translation on opening reserves in the subsidiary is recognized in other comprehensive income and in the translation reserves in the net assets.(g) Cash and cash equivalents Cash equivalents are short-term, highly liquid investments that are both readily convertible to known amounts of cash and so near maturity date that they present insignificant risk of changes in value.These are non-derivative financial assets with fixed or determinable payments that are not quoted in an active market. Property and equipment whose full cost exceeds USD 3,000 and which ILRI has purchased using unrestricted funds and can use in the production or supply of goods or services or for administrative services for more than one year are capitalized and stated at acquisition cost less accumulated depreciation and accumulated impairment losses.Notes to the consolidated financial statements (cont'd)Acquisition cost includes the direct purchase price and incidental costs such as freight, insurance, installation and handling charges. Subsequent material expenditure that extends the useful life or enhances the operating efficiency of an item of property and equipment is capitalized. The cost of normal repairs and maintenance of existing property and equipment is recognized as an operating expense in the statement of activities.Any property and equipment acquired using restricted funds are expensed upon purchase as guided by IAS 20 paragraph 20 and 21.Construction work in progress is capitalized as work-in-progress but depreciation starts only when the work is complete and the facility is put into use.All immovable assets constructed or carried on leasehold land donated by host countries have been capitalized as assets of the institute. ILRI has the right to negotiate for extension of leases under the host country agreements upon expiry of the current leases. In accordance with the host country agreements, in the event that the host country agreement is terminated or the host country does not renew a lease upon expiry, all immovable assets will be disposed of by CGIAR (in consultation with the governments of Ethiopia and Kenya).Gains and losses on disposal of property and equipment are determined by reference to their carrying amount and are accounted for in the Statement of Activities.Depreciation is calculated on a straight-line basis at annual rates estimated to write-off the cost of each item of property and equipment over the estimated term of its useful life. The annual rates used are as follows: Property and equipment acquired using projectrestricted funds are fully depreciated when they are placed in operation under the specific benefiting projects.An item of property, plant and equipment is derecognized upon disposal or when no future economic benefits are expected from its use or disposal. Any gains and losses upon disposal of property and equipment are determined by reference to their carrying amount and are accounted for in the Statement of Activities.Operating lease rentals relating to lease land are amortized over the term of lease.Intangible assets of the Institute comprise acquired computer software. The cost of acquisition and installation of computer software is capitalized and amortized over the estimated useful life of the software, usually three years.The useful lives of intangible assets are assessed as either finite or indefinite.Notes to the consolidated financial statements (cont'd)Intangible assets with finite lives are amortized over their useful economic lives, usually three years and assessed for impairment whenever there is an indication that the intangible asset may be impaired. The amortization period and the amortization method for an intangible asset with a finite useful life are reviewed at least at the end of each reporting period. Changes in the expected useful life or the expected pattern of consumption of future economic benefits embodied in the asset are accounted for by changing the amortization period or method, as appropriate, and are treated as changes in accounting estimates. The amortization expense on intangible assets with finite lives is recognized in the statement of activities in the expense category consistent with the function of the intangible assets.Gains or losses arising from derecognition of an intangible asset are measured as the difference between the net disposal proceeds and the carrying amount of the asset and are recognized in the statement of activities when the asset is derecognized.An impairment loss is recognized if the carrying amount of an asset or its cash-generating unit exceeds its recoverable amount. A cashgenerating unit is the smallest identifiable asset group that generates cash flows that largely are independent from other assets and groups. Impairment losses are recognized in profit or loss. Impairment losses recognized in respect of cash-generating units are allocated first to reduce the carrying amount of any goodwill allocated to the units and then to reduce the carrying amount of the other assets in the unit (group of units) on a pro rata basis.The recoverable amount of an asset or cashgenerating unit is the greater of its value in use and its fair value less costs to sell. In assessing value in use, the estimated future cash flows are discounted to their present value using a pretax discount rate that reflects current market assessments of the time value of money and the risks specific to the asset.Inventory is carried at the lower of cost and net realizable value. Cost is calculated on a weighted average basis and includes purchase price, freight and other incidental costs.The determination of obsolescence or expiration is based on the lower of the manufacturer's recommendations and documented experience and knowledge of management. The amount of write-down of inventories to net realizable value and all losses of inventories are recognized as an expense in the period the write-down or loss occurs.( Provisions are recognized when the institute has (a) a present legal or constructive obligation as a result of past events, (b) it is more likely than not that an outflow of resources will be required to settle the obligation and (c) a reliable estimate of the amount can be made. Provisions are measured at the present value of management's best estimate of the expenditure required to settle the present obligation at the Statement of Financial Position date.(t) Tax ILRI: The governments of Kenya and Ethiopia have undertaken to exempt ILRI from all local taxes including customs duty on goods and services received by the institute. Consequently, the institute does not account for tax in its financial statements.Kapiti Plains Estate Limited: Current taxation is provided for on the basis of the results for the year as shown in the financial statements, adjusted in accordance with tax legislation. Deferred taxation is provided using the liability method for all temporary differences arising between the tax bases of assets and liabilities and their carrying values for financial reporting purposes. Deferred tax assets are recognized for all deductible temporary differences, carry forward of unused tax losses, and unused tax credits to the extent that it is probable that future taxable profits will be available against which the deductible temporary differences, unused tax losses and the unused tax credits can be utilized.Fair value is the amount for which an asset could be exchanged, or a liability settled, between knowledgeable, willing parties in an arm's length transaction on the measurement date.When available, the group measures the fair value of an instrument using quoted prices in an active market for that instrument. A market is regarded as active if quoted prices are readily and regularly available and represent actual and regularly occurring market transactions on an arm's length basis.If a market for a financial instrument is not active, then the group establishes fair value using a valuation technique. The chosen valuation technique makes maximum use of market inputs, relies as little as possible on estimates specific to the group, incorporates all factors that market participants would consider in setting a price and is consistent with accepted economic methodologies for pricing financial instruments.Managing financial risk is one aspect of the risk management practice of ILRI, which considers all its operations. (c) Funding risk ILRI manages funding risk through financial planning systems, a conservative investment policy and its resource mobilization strategy.Inflation risk is managed through conservative budgeting and a conservative investment policy.Credit risk is the risk that a counterparty will cause a financial loss to the institute by failing to discharge a contractual obligation. This risk is managed in the following four ways: (i) Avoiding contracts with donors on a reimbursable basis; (ii) Minimizing advances to suppliers; (iii) Strict management of employee advances; and (iv) Stringent due diligence processes for bank selection and regular tenders for local banks and other suppliers.Effective cash flow and working capital management is carried out to ensure that there is a balance between operational and investment requirements.Eighty per cent (80%) of cash in bank is investment in short-term deposits and 20% is kept on call deposits for funding day-to-day cash requirements. ILRI maintains a conservative investment strategy with investments limited to fixed-term deposits and short-term call deposits with a limited number of quality banks. To mitigate against political risk, our deposits are spread across several banks and currency areas, mainly the United States of America, the Euro zone, Kenya and Ethiopia.The table below analyses the institute's financial liabilities that will be settled on a net basis into relevant maturity groupings based on the remaining period at the Statement of Financial Position date to the contractual maturity date. The amounts disclosed in the table below are the contractual undiscounted cash flows. Balances due within 12 months equal their carrying amounts as the impact of discounting is not significant.The bulk of the donor payables amounting to USD 34 million represent funds received in advance to be spent within the next year.Notes to the consolidated financial statements (cont'd)The fair value of the financial assets and liabilities approximate the carrying amounts shown in the Statement of Financial Position.In the process of applying the institute's and its subsidiary's accounting policies, management has made estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities within current and future financial years. Estimates and judgements are continually evaluated and are based on historical experience and other factors, including expectations of future events that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances. The critical areas of accounting estimates and judgements in relation to the preparation of these financial statements are as set out below:There are no critical judgments, apart from those involving estimations (see below) that management has made in the process of Notes to the consolidated financial statements (cont'd)applying the institute's accounting policies and that have significant effect on the amounts recognized in the financial statements.At each reporting date, the institute reviews the carrying amount of its assets to determine whether there is any indication that these assets have suffered an impairment loss. If any such indication exists, the recoverable amount of the asset is estimated in order to determine the extent of impairment.Critical estimates are made in determining the useful lives and residual values to property and equipment based on the intended use of the assets and the economic lives of those assets. Subsequent changes in circumstances or prospective utilization of the assets concerned could result in the actual useful lives or residual values differing from initial estimates.Although management believes the estimates and assumptions used in the preparation of these consolidated financial statements were appropriate in the circumstances, actual results could differ from those estimates and assumptions. Where necessary, the comparative figures have been adjusted to conform to changes in presentation in the current year.Management is not aware of events after the reporting date that require disclosure in or adjustments to the financial statements as at the date of this report.Partnerships are a growing part of CGIAR business, but do not incur the same level of overhead as in-house research. Some centres use the more complex multi-tier overhead system that results in a higher overall centre indirect cost rate.Other centres use a single tier overhead system applying the same rate if fiduciary responsibility is assumed. It is a simpler method and results in a lower overall centre indirect cost rate. ","tokenCount":"5801"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"637a4af2ade849310d0465bbc215ed57","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ab6b630f-d80e-4022-9f0c-d0bc24267199/retrieve","id":"-1504751553"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"33a36894-5022-47b3-8254-a94016edccbb","pagecount":"34","content":"Finance for climate action can be an important means of bolstering the resilience of communities exposed to climate hazards, addressing developmental challenges, and redistributing wealth toward the Global South. However, investments in contexts where climate and conflict risks overlap must recognize linkages between the two and be careful not to cause or worsen violence. More aspirationally, they should leverage food, land, and water systems to build peace by fostering positive social conditions. Toward that goal, this document articulates a process to identify, co-develop, and deploy integrated climate security investments.Climate security investments are financial interventions that bolster the adaptive capacity of agricultural producers exposed to climate hazards and promote sustainable peace in areas affected by conflict or fragility. The six-step methodology detailed below puts forth a systematic process of identifying subnational geographies exposed to climate security risks, determining which interventions hold the greatest potential for climate action and peacebuilding efforts, engaging local and national stakeholders to codevelop potential interventions into detailed climate security investment packages, matching investments with appropriate financial instruments, and, once finance has been deployed, employing climate-sensitive conflict analyses to inform the monitoring, evaluation, and learning process.The field of climate security finance is emergent, and many questions on best practices remain. This document will not answer all of them. However, by articulating an evidence-based, scientific process to develop and deploy investments, we hope to bring a larger portion of the overall climate finance capital pool to bear on the climate security risks it has so far not been able to effectively target.Climate security investment planning aims to develop ready-to-finance interventions with dual climate change adaptation and peacebuilding objectives. In many cases, climate finance deployed in fragile and conflict-affected settings is \"blind\" to the conflict dynamics within which it will need to operate (Cao et al., 2021). Similarly, investments with peacebuilding aims do not always account for local climate hazards that may catalyze or exacerbate violence (Scartozzi, Savelli and Caroli, 2022). Acknowledging that, in many cases, climate and climate-related environmental hazards 1 are linked to the local drivers of conflict, a \"climate security\" lens is needed to address these inter-related issues in a holistic manner.1 Climate hazards include extreme or chronic weather events related to changing climatological phenomena, such as droughts, typhoons, extreme heat, or shifting precipitation patterns. Climate-related environmental hazards include the impact these events have on local environments, and include water stress, decreased forage resource, increased pest and disease outbreaks, and loss of biodiversity, among others. For simplicity, we will refer to both climate and climate-related environmental hazards as 'climate hazards' while separating hazards and impacts.The term climate security refers to the linkages between climate and conflict. These often manifest through land, water, and food systems, as climate change and climate hazards negatively impact the resources necessary for agriculturalists to produce food for subsistence and/or profit. While the primary drivers of conflict predominantly stem from localized political, economic, social, and demographic variables, climate through its negative impact on local environments can increase the likelihood of new conflicts occurring or worsen those already ongoing. Conversely, conflict has a negative impact on climate action by negatively impacting household and community resilience. By degrading economic and physical security, the adaptive capacity of communities in conflict zones is diminished, rendering them more vulnerable to climate hazards.The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report argues with high agreement and medium evidence that, \"in intrastate settings, climate change has been associated with the onset of conflict, civil unrest or riots … and changes in the duration and severity of existing violent conflicts\" 1 . Further, despite evidence that \"compared to other socioeconomic factors the influence of climate on conflict is assessed as relatively weak,\" climate change is likely to result in \"compounding overall risk and risks cascading across sectors and regions 1 \". By increasing the fragility of social, political, and ecological systems, climate change is making the conditions necessary for peace harder to maintain 2 .These links between climate and conflict are contextual rather than universal. The bidirectional relationship between climate-related environmental hazards and violent conflict is filtered through the primary drivers of conflict: local political, economic, social, and demographic variables. This means that climate's influence on conflict is indirect; rather than climatic hazards directly and instantly leading to violence, climate security risks manifest through pathways, or event sequences where climate and non-climate risks compound one another, increasing the likelihood of violent conflict. These often involve challenges surrounding the availability of and access to productive resources, sustainable livelihood generation, diminished food security, limited state capacity, and poor resource governance. Variables that compound these climate-fragility risks include increased resource competition, climate-related migration, volatile food prices and stocks, transboundary water management disputes, and the unintended effects of climate policies 3 .With more than 500 million people living in fragile or conflict-affected areas while simultaneously facing significant exposure to climate hazards (Läderach et al., 2021), \"climate and human security risks are interrelated and often overlapping\" (Charbonneau and Savelli, 2022). In contexts facing simultaneous or rapidsuccession of climate and conflict hazards, siloed approaches that aim to alleviate only climate or only conflict hazards without recognizing how the two are linked will fail to address the root causes of vulnerability. Worse still, climate investments that aren't sensitive to conflict drivers may inadvertently worsen violence. This can occur as investments, even while having the potential to generate net social benefits, also create the backdrop for conflict by increasing resource competition or exacerbating the marginalization of disadvantaged social groups. Investments can lead to conflict through processes of exclusion, when a group of stakeholders is physically displaced or excluded from sharing in the generated benefits; entrenchment, when an investment worsens the pre-existing vulnerabilities or marginalization of a particular group; enclosure, when an investment shifts public goods to private ownership, or otherwise privileges private gain over public benefits; or encroachment, when an investment negatively impacts local ecosystem services, biodiversity, or increases greenhouse gas emissions (Sovacool et al., 2017).In  , 2022b). At the national level, complex accreditation processes have limited the ability of public entities in the Global South to apply for finance from UNFCCC funds (Fonta, Ayuk and van Huysen, 2018). When accreditation is achieved, lengthy, expensive application processes slow the pace and decrease the quantity of individual funding applications (Wang and Rai, 2015). If received, national public entities often struggle to manage, distribute, and report back on large international finance packages. Private climate finance is insufficient to address the scale of the problem, and generally flows toward middle income countries with low-risk profiles (OECD, 2022b). Locally, beneficiary targeting poses a challenge; even in countries with highly developed social protection schemes, climate-vulnerable households are rarely tracked as a discrete beneficiary group, rendering precision distribution of funds at the micro-level extremely difficult (Savelli et al., 2022).Additionally, the major providers of climate finance rarely account for the inter-related nature of climate hazards and conflict. While both negatively affect human security by degrading the physical, economic, and social security of vulnerable groups, they can also exacerbate one another. On one hand, climate risks can indirectly increase the likelihood of violent conflict by amplifying its primary drivers, such as increasing competition over natural resources, facilitating recruitment by armed groups, or catalyzing displacement (von Uexkull and Buhaug, 2021). When agricultural livelihoods are degraded by climate hazards, small producers are more likely to turn to militant groups offering payment for services. On the other, violent conflict can amplify the impact of climate hazards on vulnerable groups by reducing household adaptive capacity, degrading public service delivery, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and inducing intentional or inadvertent environmental destruction (ICRC, 2019; UNEP, 2021).Despite these links, most large providers of climate finance lack formal protocols for ensuring conflict cognizance. Neither the Green Climate Fund nor the Adaptation fund two organizations with large capital pools that often invest in fragile and conflict-affected settings have conflict sensitive strategies in place (Scartozzi, Savelli and Caroli, 2022). While the Green Environment Facility and World Bank are currently reviewing 3 their conflict-sensitivity guidelines, formal climate security protocols have yet to be widely implemented in the climate finance community. Similarly, despite recognizing that \"climate change and environmental degradation can compound other conflict drivers or even become security risks in their own right,\" and pledging \"more support to managing conflict risks emanating from climate-change related pressures on people and resources,\" the UN Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund -2024 Strategy doesn't propose a formal process to account for linkages between climate and conflict (Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund, .Perhaps most alarmingly, interventions that don't account for these links can inadvertently amplify the drivers of conflict, catalyzing new conflicts or worsening ongoing tensions (Gilmore and Buhaug, 2021). In Central Ethiopia, for example, reforestation efforts have led to residents being barred from using forest lands, leading to clashes with police and the formation of gangs that illegally cut down trees and engage in violence (Kemerink-Seyoum et al., 2018). For investments to, at least, do no harm and ideally, actively work to develop environmentally sustainable peace, they must be cognizant of their own impact on conflict dynamics.Finally, opportunities exist to leverage climate finance for peacebuilding, and peacebuilding investments for climate resilience. By acknowledging the mutual co-benefits of resilience and stability (Morales-Muñoz et al., 2022), we can increase the positive impact of future investments by extending their focus into complementary thematic areas. While part of this \"extension\" will entail understanding and monitoring for the unintended negative impacts of investments by explicitly targeting positive impacts (i.e., building peace objectives into adaptation investments, and adaptation objectives into peacebuilding investments), new benefits can also be generated. For example, an investment using a climate-smart agricultural (CSA) approach to support sustainable rangeland management can also work to bolster dispute resolution mechanisms that mitigate the risk of conflict over natural resources. This would fall within the investment's core remit to facilitate CSA practices and, additionally, facilitate local peacebuilding. The Climate Security Investment Planning process aspires to be locally led, with investment priorities, design, and implementation strategies co-developed by stakeholders and beneficiaries. Community participation is cross-cutting throughout the CSIP process and critical to the implementation of all steps of the methodology (see Objectives and methodology). Partnerships with local organizations that are comprised of and represent the concerns of those facing climate security risks further enhances local ownership of the investment design process. The CSO is an online decision-making support tool providing robust, localized, and policy-relevant evidence on how exactly climate security risks may emerge across different geographic contexts. It aims to answer several research questions on how the climate security nexus operates at the subnational level, including \"which areas are most vulnerable areas to climate-induced insecurities and risks?\" 1 To achieve this, the CSO performs a series of mixed-methods analyses (data-driven literature review, pathway analysis, social media issue mapping, governance coherence analysis, network analysis, spatial analysis, econometric analysis), before synthesizing outputs into an openaccess online dashboard. The CSIP process has four main objectives:   To begin, a list of sub-national climate security 'hotspots' identified by the Climate Security Observatory's spatial analysis serve as potential focus areas for climate security interventions. The CSO's spatial analysis identifies \"hotspots of climate hazards, conflict, and socio-economic vulnerability\" (Achicanoy et al., 2021). For the CSIP process, the CSO's spatial analysis is used to identify subnational climate security hotspots suitable for investments. The CSO's spatial analysis methodology for identifying hotspots includes four steps: \" Determination of conflict clusters; 2) Determination of climate clusters; 3) Identification and mapping of conflict-climate interactions, and; 4) Identification and mapping of the most relevant socio-economic vulnerabilities per climate security pathways driven by network analysis procedure\" (Achicanoy et al., 2021). The result is a mapping of highly discrete geographic areas facing endemic climate security hazards, which the CSIP employs for its initial spatial targeting. A hotspot is defined as an area where high levels of conflict, harsh climate conditions, climate hazards, and socioeconomic vulnerabilities co-occur. Although hotspots are highly discrete geographic areas (20 km 2 ), the sub-national administrations or agro-ecological zones (AEZ) in which hotspots are located are considered as potential focus geographies for the CSIP process.Potential development partners are then identified in focus geographies. These can include producer groups, community representatives, civil society organizations, public agencies (sub-national, national, regional), NGOs, or research institutions with experience related to CSA and/or peacebuilding projects. A series of key informant interviews (KIIs) are conducted with potential development partners to (in)validate the relevance of these locations for climate security interventions and (potentially) identify additional focus areas.The climate security context in focus geographiesThe role that agricultural production plays in catalyzing or exacerbating conflictsThe financial landscape in target areas (existing finance institutions, thematic areas toward which finance is flowing, funding modalities, key beneficiary groups, etc.)Consultations should result in: a) the validation or exclusion of climate security hotspots identified by the CSO, and/or the identification of additional climate security hotspots not identified by the CSO but relevant for inclusion in the CSIP process b) a clear and shared understanding of the climate security nexus in selected hotspots, i.e., how climate is exacerbating common drivers of conflict in focus geographies c) a map of climate and security financial instruments, projects, and actors To develop a robust situational analysis of the climate security context in potential focus areas, these findings should be bolstered with additional desk research using secondary sources.Climate Smart Agriculture Investment Plans (CSAIPs), National Agriculture Investment Plans (NAIPs), or other national agriculture planning documents should be the first port of call to source potential investment opportunities (see Research context and engagement with complementary workstreams). CSAIPs should be used when they have been recently completed. In contexts where CSAIPs have not been developed or are outdated, NAIPs or similar agriculture or climate planning frameworks can be used, provided their methodology is participatory and robust.Recognizing that agriculture is likely to be at the core of socioeconomic development in areas vulnerable to climate security risks, national development plans, sectoral planning strategies, and national climate mitigation and adaptation strategies should also be explored.  The long list of climate security interventions is first assessed using the Climate Security Sensitiveness Tool (CSST) (Carolina Sarzana, George Meddings, Adriana Melgar, Peter Läderach, no date). The tool is employed to assess contextual conflict drivers, and to formulate recommendations on how proposed CSA interventions can address them more effectively. It is used to appraise the suitability of agricultural interventions in relation to demonstrated and potential drivers of intercommunal conflict. The CSST employs a theory-based framework built on principles of environmental peacebuilding (Carius, 2007;Dresse et al., 2019;Johnson, Rodríguez and Quijano Hoyos, 2021;Krampe, Hegazi and VanDeveer, 2021), resilience thinking (Castillo, Jeans and Thomas, 2016;Folke, 2016). social ecology (McGinnis and Ostrom, 2014), intergroup contact theory (Everett and Onu, 2013;Christ and Kauff, 2019), and resource securitization (Zikos, Sorman and Lau, 2015). It is composed of two main components: the context definition and the climate action scoring systems.In the initial context definition step, locally relevant conflict drivers are identified using an indicator-based approach (Carolina Sarzana, George Meddings, Adriana Melgar, Peter Läderach, no date). Indicators are assessed at various geographic levels according to a set of pre-defined potential conflict and insecurity drivers, sourced from the Joint Research Centre's INFORM risk index (European Commission Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre, 2022). Contextual conflict and insecurity indicators include weak infrastructure (health systems, connectivity, physical infrastructure), weak institutions (governance, disaster risk reduction), socio-economic drivers (development and deprivation, inequality, aid dependency), vulnerable groups (uprooted people, food insecurity, shock sensitivity, health conditions), natural hazards (floods and droughts probability), and human hazards (conflicts probability). Indicators are assessed on a scale from 0 to 10, with risk threshold values differing between drivers, but roughly adhering to the following structure: values below . are considered 'low risk', values between . and are considered 'medium risk,' and values above are considered 'high risk' (Marin Ferrer et al., 2019).The climate action scoring system then scores proposed CSA intervention packages according to their relevance to various climate-peace mechanisms. The mechanisms represent climate action contributions to peace and stability through key factors for security: economic development, institution building, the fostering of social trust and cooperation, improvements to resource sustainability, the promotion of multiple worldviews and knowledge system plurality, and building capacity and resilience. Each mechanism is further divided into sub-mechanisms, which elaborate on how each mechanism could be incorporated into an intervention. Each conflict driver category links with a climate-peace mechanism and several sub-mechanisms.By scoring an intervention on how well it incorporates the climate-peace mechanisms most relevant to local conflict drivers, recommendations are formed on how to design and implement the intervention in a conflict-sensitive manner.The CSST's outputs are supplemented with a qualitative review consisting of key informant interviews, local consultations, and/or focus group discussions performed by local development partners knowledgeable about the social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental circumstances in focus geographies.Step 1) with experience implementing climate adaptation and/or peacebuilding programs in focus geographies. While the form and content of the consultations will vary from one context to the next, the goal is for partner organizations to provide additional context on the local climate security context, identify entry points for interventions targeting the development of climate resilient peace, and support a mapping of the financial landscape.Questions will explore key themes related to local conflict, social, agricultural, institutional, financial, and political conditions, as well as the long-listed CSA interventions themselves. A sample questionnaire is included in Annex 1. Where possible, partners with local expertise and legitimacy should be empowered to shape and execute this exercise as they see fit. Formal partnerships can be pursued in which public agencies, civil society organizations, producer groups, or NGOs actively collaborate with rather than simply providing input for the research team by identifying stakeholders for consultation, determining the form of the qualitative assessment, and leading the execution of its components. Participatory planning tools will be employed to co-develop short-listed interventions into detailed intervention proposals with key stakeholders. These participatory tools build on the Climate Security Observatory's Climate Security Pathway Analysis and are employed during an in-person workshop. While several tools are recommended below, these serve as recommendations that can be modified or supplemented with other exercises whereby stakeholders align on strategies detailing how CSA interventions can be bolstered to address climate security concerns.Participants will first be presented with the conflict drivers, pathways, and causal loop diagrams previously generated by the research team as part of the Climate Security Observatory analysis (from Step 1), the CSST analysis (from Step 3a), and KIIs (from Step 3b). Participants are then asked to add any additional drivers of conflict not yet identified, and to imagine the potential impacts of prioritized interventions on local climate security conditions using theories of change (ToCs). A ToC is then integrated into the causal loop diagram, which maps the local climate security system, to identify proposed points of intervention and sketch resulting impacts while accounting for positive and negative feedback. This approach facilitates the conceptualization of a linear, easily interpreted ToC that is situated within a complex system perspective (Davies, 2018).The Futures Wheel is then used to develop a shared vision of highly developed climate security interventions employing conflict-sensitive and environmental peacebuilding approaches. A brainstorming exercise to facilitate joint reflection about the future, the Futures Wheel helps which participants collectively imagine the impacts of a specific intervention through time and across scales (Pereira et al., 2018). By attempting to answer the question \"how would an intervention impact the local climate security context?\" the exercise aims to identify and validate local climate security pathways, and match each with a corresponding means of risk mitigation.During the Futures Wheel exercise, participants map the primary, secondary, and tertiary impacts of short-listed interventions by placing sticky notes in a series of concentric circles, the smallest of which specifies the intervention under discussion. The circles are sub-divided into five impact areas representing social, technological, economic, environmental, and political categories (Pereira et al., 2018). Although the Futures Wheel can be used to imagine all types of scenarios, in this case the goal is to guide the participants through a process of imagining the various positive impacts one intervention can have on local adaptation and peacebuilding, which are each represented by different color sticky notes. Positive impacts identified are then used to add detail to and inform the intervention's theory of change. Negative impacts are not mapped onto the Futures Wheel but collected separately and used to identify risks or potential forms of maladaptation that will require monitoring during implementation.Once the Futures Wheel exercise has identified desired impacts, the Three Horizons Framework is used to develop a strategy for realizing these outcomes by ideating, implementing, and scaling climate security interventions. By answering the question \"What specific actions are needed to successfully implement and scale the prioritized climate security interventions in target geographies?,\" the Three Horizons Framework aims to inform an implementation roadmap.In the Three Horizons Framework, three horizontal lines representing different future scenarios, or \"horizons,\" are plotted on a graph (Sharpe et al., 2016). The y axis indicates the prevalence (or dominance) of each horizon compared to the others. The x axis indicates time (from left to right: present, transition period, and future). The first horizon (H1) represents the status quo: our current individual and collective actions, and the most likely future trajectory for the systems we inhabit if \"business as usual\" conditions are maintained. Along H1, sticky notes describing current conditions of unsustainability related to social tensions, political shortcomings, economic inequities, institutional weaknesses, environmental degradation, climate hazards, and conflict risks are posted, along with governance arrangements and programmatic practices that may contribute towards maintaining this status quo. The aim is to paint a picture of undesired social-ecological conditions and inefficient governance arrangementsThe third horizon H depicts an ideal, transformative future where \"new ways of living and working … fit better with … emerging needs and opportunities\" (Sharpe, 2017). In this case, H3 represents the conditions created by the successful implementation of a prioritized climate security intervention. In constructing H3, stakeholders employ a process of socio-political visioning wherein ideal future systems in this case, conditions of climate resilient peace are generated, articulated, debated, and agreed through consensus. While initial inputs for H3 are taken from the Futures Wheel exercise, participants expand on these ideas by posting sticky notes describing transformed future conditions (social, political, economic, environmental, technological) that the climate security interventions aim to create along H3.Assuming there is a gap between the status quo (H1) and a peaceful, climate-secure future (H3), the second horizon (H2) charts the transitional path between the two by identifying the innovative, intermediate actions required to successfully implement the climate security intervention, and, thus, initiate a system-change from H1 to H3. Functionally, H2 serves as a roadmap toward the governance arrangements require to implement, sustain, and scale integrated climate security interventions. The sticky notes posted along its trajectory describe the support mechanisms, innovative practices or technologies, and incentives that enable investments aiming to foster climate resilient peace.A ho ill a ionIdentifying and engaging suitable finance partners is key to turning a co-developed climate security intervention proposal into a funded investment. This step involves research to first understand which finance actors are active in the climate security space, and then pairing each co-developed intervention with a financial instrument that is well-suited to the intervention's needs. However, partnerships with 'innovative' finance partners, including private sector or commercial entities, should also be considered. These include impact investors, venture capitalists, and value chain financiers. Philanthropies can also be considered, although the process of allocating grants will vary across organizations. Within the innovative finance sphere, green bonds and peace bonds are of particular interest. Bonds focusing on green, social, or sustainability-linked investments (GSS+) have grown rapidly since the first was issued by the World Bank in . In , at least , \"sustainable debt\" instruments were issued, worth US $1.1 trillion and representing 35% of the lifetime market volume of US $2.8 trillion (Jones, 2022). As such, GSS+ bonds present a clear opportunity for climate security investments.Peace bonds are an equally relevant but newer concept. Developed by Interpeace, peace bonds are \"a type of bond instrument whose proceeds would be exclusively applied to partly or fully finance or refinance new or existing projects that have a peace impact\" (Interpeace and SEB, 2022). Peace bonds can be issued by governments, commercial entities, or a blend of the two. While a recent feasibility study points to the impact potential of the peace bond market (Interpeace and SEB, 2022) and Interpeace has partnered with asset management firms such as Tactical Global Management (Tactical Global Management, 2022) and the Mirabaud Group (Mirabaud Asset Management, 2022) to mobilize finance, no peace bonds have yet been deployed.Ultimately, finance partners will vary across contexts and a wide net should be cast when considering which organizations to engage. While there is no set form or structure that these engagements should take, several key datapoints should be collected and analyzed, including the size and type of investment, mechanism for return on investment, climate action and peacebuilding/security objectives, and conflictsensitivity guidelines. A sample template for this data collection can be found in Annex 2.Financing for climate security interventions can be attained through a variety of direct financing instruments, and through both public and private national, and international institutions. These will vary in availability depending on context-specific considerations, including risk levels (climate, security, and other) in target geographies, the risk appetite of relevant financial institutions, and national regulatory challenges. There are four main categories of direct financing instruments which can be used to fund climate security initiatives: instruments for raising funds, instruments for deploying investments, credit enhancement and risk management instruments, and revenue support policies (Kapoor and Malviya, 2021).  The CSIP process present various opportunities for engagement with finance providers. All should be capitalized on to ensure targeted, sustained, and impactful interactions that increase the chances of attracting funding toward the end of the process. The research team should confer with potential partners as early as possible and continuously throughout the CSIP process to increase the likelihood of securing investment once a suitable climate security intervention has been codeveloped.Engagement opportunities at previous steps of the CSIP process include:Steps 1 + 2: In coordination with local partners and financing experts, a preliminary list of potential finance partners is drawn up. A message is sent to potential partners indicating that the CSIP process has commenced, sharing the methodology and inviting them to participate in later stages of the process.Step 3b: Additional financial partners are added to the list during qualitative assessments. KIIs are arranged with select finance partners to support the qualitative intervention prioritization process.Step 4: Potential partners invited to attend and observe the co-development workshopStep 5: Full CSIP report shared with potential finance partners, along with an invitation for the research team to personally present findingsStep 6: If finance is mobilized, the research team engages with partner's MEL team to design and implement climate-sensitive conflict analyses Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) frameworks provide a method to assess, analyze, and incorporate knowledge gained during a project, program, or investment's implementation. However, performing MEL for adaptation interventions is challenging because they, unlike mitigation interventions, lack a single, clear metric by which to measure success (Leiter and Pringle, 2018). This is also true for climate-related peace and security interventions, which are not easily linked to results-based indicators (von Lossow et al., 2021). Accounting for the links between adaptation and security and between the intervention itself and conflict poses additional hurdles to effective evaluation.Ensuring an investment is climate security-sensitive begins with understanding the context in which its programming will be set. To achieve this, a robust climate-sensitive conflict analysis should be undertaken in the design stage and updated regularly to monitor changing circumstances. This will help shape the intervention design and ensure that, at least, the intervention does not catalyze or worsen conflict conditions and, ideally, maximize the co-benefits between climate action and peace. promotes peace and stability. The need for ongoing analysis also underlines the importance for adaptive, iterative investment strategies that acknowledge the potential for conditions on the ground to rapidly change.Several guidance notes and toolkits have recently been developed to conduct climate-sensitive conflict analyses that can be used to inform investment implementation. In Addressing climate-related security risks -Conflict sensitivity for climate adaptation and sustainable livelihoods (United Nations Environment Programme and European Union, 2022), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and European Union propose a three-step approach for examining the links between climate, conflict, and security. This entails mapping the drivers, actors, and key dynamics of conflict whilst incorporating climate data throughout the process, and most prominently through an assessment of local resilience to climaterelated security risks (United Nations Environment Programme and European Union, 2022). Umwelt Bundesamt's Guidelines for conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change (Tänzler, Scherer and Detges, 2022) employs four modules for mainstreaming climate security-sensitivity throughout the project lifecycle. These include up-front vulnerability and conflict analyses, a pro-peace analysis in the planning and design stage, impact assessments during the implementation stage, and conflict-sensitivity monitoring throughout monitoring and evaluation (Tänzler, Scherer and Detges, 2022). General guidance, best practices, and solutions to common challenges when implementing climate security programming can also be found in the UN Climate Security Mechanism Toolbox (UN Climate Security Mechanism, 2020), USAID's Climate Change and Conflict: An Annex to the USAID Climate-Resilient Development Framework (USAID, 2015), and Saferworld's Conflict-sensitive approaches to local climate change adaptation in Nepal (Campbell, 2011).Additional means of ensuring conflict-sensitivity involve codifying the established or potential links between adaptation and conflict into the MEL framework through community participation. Local agency can be achieved if stakeholders are involved in identify potential links between the investment and conflict, as well as mediation strategies to mitigate these risks (Coger, Corry and Gregorowski, 2021;Blake et al., 2022). Further, a diverse array of voices should be included in the MEL development process. These should include not just experts and leaders but maintain a focus on social equity by centering the voices of women, the youth, the poor, and other marginalized groups.The use of suitable indicators is also vital for an MEL framework's efficacy. These indicators must reflect the connections and feedback circuits that link human and natural systems, and thus incorporate social, economic, and environmental factors. Additionally, employing a climate security lens means that both direct and indirect links between adaptation and conflict must be considered. While many indices focus on either climate or conflict risks in a siloed manner, few are designed to account for integrated climate security considerations where variables are not discrete, but interactive. CGIAR is currently developing a Climate and Security Index (CSI) that employs statistical modeling to account for relationships (rather than individual measurements) within the nexus. By providing insights at the national and subnational levels related to land, water, and food systems, a systemic approach can be used to facilitate long-term planning for resilience building.Accounting for these considerations, several conflict-sensitive MEL frameworks, originally designed for peacebuilding or climate adaptation interventions, can be modified for use with climate security investments. Noting that \"a major challenge in supporting stabilisation efforts is understanding the effect of this assistance in diminishing the drivers of conflict and promoting foundations for peace,\" the UK Government's Stabilisation Unit SU has developed a framework specifically for use in conflict settings (Stabilisation Unit, 2020). The framework is principally concerned with interventions aiming to develop stability by \"support ing local and regional partners in conflict-affected countries to reduce violence, ensure basic security, and facilitate peaceful political deal-making\" (Stabilisation Unit, 2020). Conflict sensitivity is incorporated using conflict analysis. An initial conflict analysis is performed during ToC development to gain an understanding of local conflict drivers and how the intervention may inflame them. The analysis is then reviewed and revised throughout the intervention's implementation and monitoring stages (Stabilisation Unit, 2020). However, the framework neither explicitly focuses on climate adaptation interventions, nor considers the links between climate or environmental insecurity and conflict. Thus, the framework would need to be modified for use with climate security interventions by incorporating indicators and monitoring processes related to climate and environmental variables. More importantly, a mechanism for linking these variables with conflict impacts would need to be devised.Another tool relevant for climate security interventions is the International Institute for Environment and Development's Tracking Adaptation and Measuring Development TAMD MEL framework (Brooks and Fisher, 2014). The TAMD framework (see Figure 6, below) uses a dual track approach to measure outputs, outcomes, and impacts at multiple scales. It does so by tracking institutional climate risk management (Track 1) alongside adaptation and development performance (Track 2). The monitoring tracks can be employed simultaneously and at multiple spatial scales. Performance can be monitored in one track or the other, or between the two by linking a climate risk management intervention with a theory of change describing its desired impact on adaptation and development. While TAMD is not specifically designed to be conflict-sensitive, conflict or, preferably, integrated climate security indicators can be incorporated into the institutional climate risk management track to monitor for violence or insecurity. A suitable way forward for MEL within climate security investments may be incorporating the SU framework's conflict-sensitive methods into the TAMD's climate risk management track. The TAMD approach contributes to the development of bespoke MEL frameworks, tailored to national or local circumstances. Moreover, the steps of the TAMD framework are iterative, steps may be repeated, and the results of one step can feed into a previous step to allow for ongoing refinement. Supplemented with a conflict analysis and ongoing monitoring of security concerns, this hybrid approach addresses many key concerns.However, MEL frameworks should be developed and/or selected on an individual basis by local stakeholders, the finance partner, and the research team. Due to the highly localized nature of the climate security nexus, there is no one-size-fits all approach, and the recommendations here are meant to highlight key concerns and pose potential solutions, rather than directly guide MEL implementation across all climate security investments.Climate security investments seek to bolster the adaptive capacity of those exposed to climate hazards by using food, land, and water systems to build peace. Investments of this sort are needed because an alarming amount of climate finance is not sensitive to conflict conditions in the contexts where it is mobilized, and, thus, runs the risk of inadvertently increasing violence. Similarly, and because climate resilience and peace are interwoven, investments that solely aim to build resilience miss an opportunity to support the development of climate -resilient peace. As more finance flows toward investments for climate action, and as adaptation and cross-cutting objectives increasingly comprise a greater share of overall climate finance, an evidence-based, scientific process to develop and deploy finance for climate security investments is needed.To achieve this goal, we propose a six-step process to identify target geographies for climate security investments, select high-potential interventions with dual climate action and peacebuilding objectives, engage stakeholders in a participatory manner to co-develop detailed intervention packages, match climate security interventions with appropriate financial instruments, and, once finance has been deployed, deeply integrate climate-sensitive conflict analyses into monitoring, evaluation, and learning processes.Looking forward, questions remain on how climate security investments can best achieve their objectives, provide financial returns for investors, and bridge the currently disparate fields of climate finance and peacebuilding. Similarly, stakeholders, humanitarian-development practitioners, financiers, and the research community should more clearly define the limits of climate security finance, or what goals investment should and should not be expected to achieve. While further research is needed to answer these questions, we hope that the evidence-based, systematic methodology articulated here helps chart a course for more climate finance flow toward the goal of using food, land, and water systems to develop conditions of climate resilient peace. The below questions are intended to guide rather than systematize the KIIs'. A semi-structured approach is recommended, with topics explored in greater or lesser depth, as relevant. ","tokenCount":"5941"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a660e7f2b889c0e9e7da92bf0be2010b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c2149be8-387d-4d71-a5f6-a864b52003f9/retrieve","id":"1644070753"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"96aef224-15f9-41fb-83fd-e428a4759357","pagecount":"13","content":"Dans le continent Africain, un inventaire exhaustif faunistique et floristique est rare ou même quasi inexistant et n'a lieu que lorsqu'une situation devient subitement préoccupante. C'est exactement ce qui est arrivé avec les mouches des fruits. A l'exception de tentatives timorées concernant des aspects particuliers par rapport à une situation aussi particulière comme la mouche méditerranéenne des fruits et la mouche des cucurbitacea, il est presque impossible de trouver un recensement complet des téphrites indigènes, de leurs plantes hôtes et des niveaux de dégâts associés. Dans la plupart des cas en Afrique, chaque nouvelle introduction (cochenille farineuse du manioc, cochenille farineuse du manguier, la mouche blanche spiralée, le biotype B de bémisia, l'acarien vert du manioc, Salvinia etc.) ne peut se ressentir que lorsque la côte d'alerte est dépassée. Pour qui connaît le processus d'une introduction accidentelle d'une espèce exotique, la période de présence est de loin bien antérieure à celle de la signalisation.Partout où un inventaire a été fait, il est sorti la domination de l'effectif de C. cosyra par rapport aux autres espèces du genre. La dispersion de ces espèces se fait principalement par le vol des adultes et transport de fruits et de plantes infestés aux secteurs précédemment non infestés.Dans le cycle de vie, la femelle pond sous la cuticule après 5 à 7jours (maturité sexuelle) et les oeufs éclosent 2 à 3 jours après la ponte. Les larves suivant 3 stades qui durent 5 à10 jours puis se nymphosent dans le sol. Cette nymphose dure 9 à 12 jours et la pupe en émerge pour donner un adulte.Renforcer et améliorer la vigilance des populations sur les problèmes phytosanitaire des autres structures d'encadrementMaintenir les populations de mouches des fruits à un seuil de dommage économiquement supportable ;Doter les producteurs du paquet technologique pour mieux contrôler la dynamique des populations de mouches.Mettre à la disposition des producteurs des méthodes de lutte efficaces sans impact nocif pour la santé et pour l'environnementEn raison des lacunes existantes sur le cycle de vie des insectes pour meilleures intégrations de certains aspects de la lutte intégrée, une approche générale et rentable sera envisagée. L'étalement de la période de lutte avec différentes méthodes auront pour effet de contenir puis de supprimer et peut être même d'éradiquer l'infestation des mouches.Il est impératif de circonscrire la zone d'intervention, d'apprécier la dispersion des vergers (manguiers, agrumes, papayers etc.) pour une évaluation plus précise des moyens à mettre en oeuvre pour la stratégie à adopter. Les plantes hôtes alternatifs seront notamment recensées.Cette opération consiste à placer un dispositif de suivi continu de la dynamique des populations de mouches aux moyens de para phéromones spécifiques en vue de :-déterminer la fluctuation des populations de mouches dans le temps et l'espace.-apprécier l'efficacité de la stratégie de contrôle mise en place et la sensibilité des espèces.- -restreindre importation de fruits ou mouvement des fruits à partir d'autres zones ou pays à risques.-visiter des centres de conditionnement avec des poses de pièges de captures -faire des descentes inopinées dans les champs pour surveiller Le secteur, en particulier les vergers destinés à l'exportation placés en quarantaine conformément à la réglementation peut être soustrait de cette obligation après que l'objectif du Programme de lutte ait été déclaré atteint. Une unité d'évaluation du projet identifiera des secteurs où la dernière capture d'un individu de la mouche remonte à trois cycles de vie. C'est après que Le Ministère de l'Agriculture sera chargé de rédiger une notification de révocation de quarantaine pour les secteurs où les conditions de quarantaine sont levées. Cette Unité sera composée des différents acteurs de la filière des fruits en plus d'experts indépendant du domaine. Des mesures réglementaires seront reprises si, 5 adultes ou un male et une femelle non gravide sont trouvés dans un endroit à quelques 3 km d'un site ayant fait l'objet d'une lutte. Ces mesures vont notamment être prises si une femelle gravide, un asticot, une pupe ou simple un adulte de mouche est détecté à l'intérieur d'un endroit ayant bénéficié d'un programme de contrôle.En fonction du calendrier de production des mangues, le dispositif est installé bien avant la période de production et sera continu jusqu'à l'arrêt des captures. Il se fait en associant différentes méthodes.   autres types de pièges \"STAYNER\", \"JACKSON\" peuvent être utilisés de même que les blocs de bois ou bottes de paille trempés. Les blocs sont simples d'usage facile à tous les niveaux de piégeage. Les pièges sont placés à plus ou moins 2 mètres au dessus du sol hors de portée des enfants et des animaux.-Application d'appâts alimentaires par différents systèmes de pulvérisations. toutes les 2 semaines. Cette méthode peut est très rationnelle le long des routes et dans les maisons. On peut choisir de traiter un arbre en entier ou procéder par des traitements en taches.Pour ce type d'intervention, le choix du pesticide est extrêmement important. les nouvelles générations comme « Spinosad » peuvent être fortement recommandées en raison de leur innocuité. L'appât présente l'avantage d'attirer aussi bien les males que les femelles. Il en faut 3 applications par ha.-Tenir les vergers propres avec si possibles l'élimination des hôtes alternatifs ou bien de leur production.-Envelopper tous les fruits susceptibles à l'attaque d'un papier journal, jusqu'à la récolte -ramassage systématique des fruits tombés dans un sac en plastique, bien fermer la sortie puis exposer au soleil pendant 3 heures -brûlage des fruits ramassés -creuser et enterrer les fruits ramassés Le ramassage systématique et immédiat des fruits tombés a pour effet d'éviter une éventuelle pupaison des larves qui se réalise dans le sol.-des traitements chimiques peuvent être opérés à la surface du sol en couverture ou légèrement enfoui uniquement sous les arbres dans les vergers. Ces traitements rentrent dans le cadre d'une limitation maximale ou même de la suppression du processus de pupaison qui ne s'effectue que dans le sol.108ml (54 g) d'Avoirdupois (advp)) (a.i. 48% diazinon) dans assez d'eau pour imbiber 5 centimètres de sol pour 250 mètres carrés pour tuer les larves, les pupes et Les adultes émergeant. Les traitements sont appliqués tous les 15 jours.Diazinon 14 G incorporé 3 à 5 centimètres dans le sol en raison de 40 grammes par 3.5 mètres de diamètre de cercle autour des arbres. Le cercle est arrosé avec de l'eau pour augmenter la percolation du pesticide dans le sol.L'hydrolysat de protéine mélangé à du malathion, du fenthion, ou du spinosad dans des secteurs à faible risque pour 2 générations avant le mouvement du produit vers les centres d'expéditions, peut également être employé en tant que élément de certification des expéditions pour un besoin de quarantaine.-les plantes indigènes attirant les mouches des fruits doivent faire l'objet d'une attention particulière au cours de nos investigations. Elles pourront être pulvérisées par in insecticide conventionnel pour profiter de l'attrait qu'elles exercent.-Traitement au froid : les récoltes peuvent conservées dans des températures en dessous de 7,5°C surtout pour Ceratitis cosyra qui résiste aux Traitements à la chaleur. Ce type de traitement au froid peut être utilisé seul ou en association à une fumigation.-Traitement à la chaleur : Ce traitement emploie de la vapeur d'eau pour élever la température du produit à un point insupportable pour les asticots pour une durée indiquée.-Fumigation : L'application d'un fumigène approuvé comme traitement (bromure méthylique, phostoxine) peut être une solution.-Irradiation : Les produits sont irradiés contre les mouches des fruits à la dose de 150 Gys qui est une recommandation de l'Agence Internationale de l'Energie Atomique (AIEA).-La Direction de la Protection des Végétaux maître d'oeuvre pour le suivi de l'exécution des opérations -Les Directions régionales de Développement Rurales et l'ANCAR, la Direction de l'horticulture, les structures d'encadrement des ruraux pour leur appui pour la mise en oeuvre et le bon déroulement du programme -Direction de l'environnement pour les suivis d'impact des traitements sur le milieu et la qualité des produits.-Centre de suivi écologique pour la cartographie des zones ciblées et le report des pièges et des observations.Le succès de tout programme dépendra de la coopération, de l'assistance et de la compréhension volontaires des groupes impliqués à différent niveau de la filière. Suivant le degré d'implication, certains aurons une participation pleine alors que d'autres seront tout simplement informés du déroulement des détapes du programme.-les producteurs -les associations de producteurs -les acteurs de la filière (vendeurs, revendeurs, exportateurs etc.)-le publique de manière générale.Les relations publiques sont un élément principal et peut impliquer des signes le long des chaussées, aux aéroports et à d'autres endroits publics. Il devrait également employer des médias locaux pour informer le grand public des manières qu'ils peuvent aider.-cette information portera sur le niveau de risque que cours le pays par la présence de ces mouches des fruits • suppression des mouches des fruits• Augmentation de la production de mangues en qualité et en quantité pour exportation• perpétuation du label qualité Sénégal des fruits vis-à-vis des mouches des fruits• créer plus d'opportunité de marchés pour les exportations de fruits• confiance retrouvée chez les producteurs pour continuer à investir dans l'exportation des mangues ou tout simplement des fruits• amélioration des revenus des producteurs et par ricoché leur cadre de vie• Réduire les quantités de pesticides utilisés et leurs impacts dans l'environnement 10. RECOMMANDATIONS• Élaborer un programme stratégique de lutte contre les mouches des fruits• Renforcement des moyens de la police phytosanitaire pour un meilleur suivi• Introduire une R&D pour une utilisation de males stériles dans un vaste projet régional de lutte contre les mouches des fruits.","tokenCount":"1562"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f816857dd33e01b40a78b9ac95099825","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d1cd1b0b-10fd-45f1-b620-2e1c7b618432/retrieve","id":"-2108281333"},"keywords":["Brassica oleracea","cole crops","leafy kales","domestication","linguistic"],"sieverID":"5ffb488a-f293-4c89-b1a4-7a94ad1785a6","pagecount":"15","content":"Origin and Domestication of Cole Crops (Brassica oleracea L.): Linguistic and Literary Considerations. Various attempts have been made to locate the area of domestication of Brassica oleracea crops (i.e., cole crops). Contrasting hypotheses suggest either a North Atlantic or a Mediterranean origin. In the absence of archaeological proof, linguistic and literary considerations can offer some insight into this issue. Expressions indicating a deep-rooted knowledge and use of these crops are present in early works of ancient Greek and Latin literature, while no trace of cole crops has been found in documents from ancient Egyptian or other Fertile Crescent civilizations. Most cole crop terminology used in modern European languages can etymologically be traced to ancient Latin or Greek roots, particularly those terms indicating the most obvious morphological feature of the primitive domesticated forms, i.e., the solid upright stem (kaulos, caulis). Celtic tradition is not documented earlier than the Christian era, other than in stone inscriptions, and there is no clear evidence of a \"cole tradition\" among the Celts. This paper gathers information from the linguistic, literary, and historical points of view that are compatible with the domestication of B. oleracea in the ancient Greek-speaking area of Central and East Mediterranean.Origine e domesticazione dei cavoli (Brassica oleracea L.): considerazioni linguistiche e letterarie. Sono stati fatti diversi tentativi di localizzare l'area di domesticazione delle piante coltivate appartenenti alla specie Brassica oleracea (cavoli in senso lato). Sono state proposte ipotesi alternative che propongono un'origine Nord Atlantica oppure Mediterranea. In mancanza di prove archeologiche, considerazioni linguistiche e letterarie possono offrire qualche indicazione a proposito. Le prime opere scritte delle letterature greca antica e latina contengono espressioni che fanno riferimento ad una consolidata conoscenza e ad un utilizzo ben radicato di queste colture. Viceversa, i documenti scritti lasciati dalle civiltà antiche dell' Egitto e del Medio Oriente non hanno lasciato tracce riferibili alla presenza di cavoli. La terminologia utilizzata nelle lingue moderne europee per indicare i cavoli può essere fatta risalire etimologicamente a radici latine o greche, in particolare a quei termini che indicano la caratteristica morfologica più evidente che avevano le forme domestiche primitive, cioè il robusto fusto eretto (kaulos, caulis). La tradizione celtica non ha lasciato documenti scritti prima dell'era volgare, se non iscrizioni su pietra, e non e' stata tramandata alcuna chiara evidenza di una tradizione celtica dell'utilizzo dei cavoli. Questo articolo raccoglie informazioni appartenenti alle sfere linguistica, letteraria e storica, tutte compatibili con una domesticazione di B. oleracea avvenuta nell'area di diffusione della antica lingua greca, cioè nel Mediterraneo Centrale ed Orientale.Cole crops as diverse as leafy kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are all of the same species, Brassica oleracea L., which is native to Europe. The extreme plasticity of the species has allowed differentiation, under human selection, of this large number of forms due to the specialization of different plant organs that have given rise to various crops and uses. These include, for example, the leaves in the case of cabbage and leafy kale, the stem in kohlrabi and marrowstem kale, the inflorescences in broccoli and cauliflower, and the axillary (lateral) buds in the Brussels sprout. The variation in forms and colors is marked within each of these crop types.According to an extension leaflet of Iowa State University, all cole crops are cultivated varieties of the species Brassica oleracea (Haynes et al. 2009). We adopted this convenient terminology and therefore the cultivated crops of B. oleracea are referred to here as \"cole crops\" or \"coles.\" They share the same genome (2n=18 chromosomes) with a number of wild species of Brassica that are usually found growing on rocky limestone cliffs along the Atlantic coasts of Britain, France, and Spain, as well as in the Mediterranean basin (Snogerup et al. 1990). This large and complex gene pool constitutes the \"section Brassica\" of the \"genus Brassica,\" the taxonomy of which remains controversial. The results of crossing experiments involving ten wild taxa and six major groups of cultivated B. oleracea, showed that the fertility of hybrids among all the cultivated forms and wild populations is high and that all the studied forms belong to the same biological species (von Bothmer et al. 1995).A question that has stimulated the interest of scholars is related to the location of the initial introduction into cultivation of the wild plants and the subsequent domestication process (De Candolle 1885;Gomez-Campo and Prakash 1999;Snogerup 1980;Song et al. 1990). The question is not merely academic, since understanding the history and evolution of crops can contribute to tracing existing wild and cultivated diversity, resulting in more efficient conservation and utilization. The general hypothesis is that ancient people were attracted by the fleshy leaves and tender shoots of wild Brassica species. These were introduced into home gardens or grown near the dwellings where less pungent and more luxuriant plants were selected, eventually giving rise to the domesticated leafy kale. This crop type is currently widespread in European gardens, often grown by elderly people, and several specific regional differences in the crop have developed (galega kale in Portugal, curly kale in Northern Europe, black kale in Tuscany, rashtan in Montenegro, and many other types). Since wild relatives of cole grow on the Mediterranean coasts and on the Northwest Atlantic's rocky coasts, there have been different opinions about the first use of cole crops and their introduction into cultivation. Taxonomically, the 2n=18 spontaneous forms that grow on the West European Atlantic cliffs are included in the same species (B. oleracea) as all the cultivated 2n=18 Brassica. These Atlantic forms have generally been considered to be the progenitors of the cultivated forms (Bailey 1922), and linguistic considerations proposed by (De Candolle 1885) promoted the idea of possible domestication by the Celts at the beginning of the first millennium B.C.E. Other early authors (Schiemann 1932;Schulz 1936), on the other hand, believed different Mediterranean wild species (also 2n=18) to be the main source of the cultivars. Literary evidence of the use of these crops in ancient Greek and Roman times (Toxopeus 1974) adds weight to the hypothesis of domestication events in the Mediterranean area. Another hypothesis, based on morphological traits, proposed a multiple origin of the cultivated forms, assuming that cabbage derived from the wild Atlantic B. oleracea, while branching kale, stem kale, broccoli, and cauliflower could have derived from Mediterranean species such as B. rupestris Rafin., B. incana Ten., and B. cretica Lam. (Snogerup 1980). Molecular data and fertility analysis of hybrids have recently shown that the North Atlantic wild types have a closer genetic relationship than the Mediterranean wild forms to all the currently cultivated forms of B. oleracea (von Bothmer et al. 1995;Song et al. 1990). Recent molecular and genetic studies provide evidence suggesting that the cauliflower curd arose in southern Italy from a heading Calabrese broccoli via an intermediate Sicilian crop type (Smith and King 2000). However, the geographical origin of primitive domesticated leafy kale, from which all the other cultivated forms were probably derived according to our literary and linguistic findings, remains unclear.Brassica seeds are occasionally found in prehistoric archaeological excavations. Only very well preserved seeds can be identified with certainty at the species level, but this is a very rare occurrence. No unequivocal evidence can be found of B. oleracea archaeological remains before ancient Roman times, while B. rapa and B. nigra are better documented from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites.For many vegetables, the absence of archaeological remains is, in some cases, compensated for by Mesopotamian Bronze Age literary sources and by drawings and descriptions from Egyptian tombs. However, this is not the case for the cole crops. They are not included in the list of plants grown in the garden of Merodach-baladan in Babylonia (722-711 B.C.E.), which includes lettuce, garlic, beet, and turnip (Körber-Grohne 1987), nor are they mentioned in the Bible or the Jewish Mishna (Zohary and Hopf 2000).One possible approach to understanding the origin of crops is through linguistic and literary investigation. According to the linguistic approach, the area of the initial domestication of a certain crop is more likely to be associated with those societies that have names for the crop in their native language (De Candolle 1885). On the other hand, if the names are borrowed from a different language, the crop has probably been introduced from a different area.The linguistic approach was applied by De Candolle (1885) and others (Hervé 2003;Hyams 1971) in attempts to find sources of evidence for the origin and spread of cole crops. The present study represents an additional contribution to this approach. The focus is on the ancient words that refer to Brassica oleracea, in an attempt to derive indications on the domestication of the cole crops. Only the earliest records of the use of each relevant word have been investigated and reported here. A wealth of citations that refer to cole crops in ancient Greek and Latin texts, including some from Medieval and Renaissance times, as well as a rich iconography, have not been reported here, but will be used in a different paper to refine further the understanding of the evolution of cole crops under domestication. This study is a part of a larger project focusing on the domestication of Brassica oleracea using various methods.The Greek and Latin \"Thesauri\" and \"Lexica,\" as well as other dictionaries and linguistic texts, were used as reference tools (Facciolati et al. 1864;Stephano 1841;Thesaurus 1906Thesaurus -1912)). Greek and Latin Thesauri include all the forms of the words used and their location in the ancient texts, as well as notes on the history of the words (etymology). Lexica are vocabularies, including all the words and expressions of a given language and an explanation of their meanings.In our approach, we checked all the words that could refer to \"Brassica oleracea\" in the above reference books, searching for etymological information and references to the original texts where the words were used.Following are the Greek words that we looked up: βράσκη (braske), καυλός (kaulos), κράμβη (krambe), κῦμα (kyma), ὄλῡρα (olyra), and ῥάϕανος (rhaphanos). The Latin words were brassica, caulis, crambe, cyma, and (h)olus.Subsequently, the search of the original texts was facilitated using a number of on-line public domain resources, including \"Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum\" (http://www.forumromanum.org/ literature/index.html, [20 December 2009]), \"Perseus\" (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/ perscoll_Greco-Roman.html, [20 December 2009]), and \"The Latin library\" (http://www. thelatinlibrary.com/index.html, [20 December 2009]).The hypothesis related to the meaning of the hieroglyph shaut, sometimes interpreted as \"cabbage,\" was considered on the basis of existing commentaries and personal communication with Egyptologists (Tiradritti, pers. comm.).The Celts transmitted their traditions and literature orally, and their detailed language was not recorded before the common era (B.C.E.) The first attestations of Celtic language are limited to stone, ceramic, and coin inscriptions. For Continental Celts, the oldest records are Lepontic inscriptions, found in Cisalpine Gaul (VI century B.C.E.) and written in an old italic alphabet, while Gaulish language inscriptions using the Greek alphabet date back as early as the III century B.C.E. (Anonymous 2009a). Insular Celtic is attested by the Ogham inscriptions, standing stones from the IV-VII centuries C.E. (Anonymous 2009b). In the absence of relevant ancient written records, we report on existing interpretations of the Celtic linguistic heritage regarding B. oleracea.English translations of Greek and Latin texts generally refer to the cole crops as \"cabbage.\" This translation is misleading since cabbages are headed B. oleracea, while usually in the ancient texts there is no indication of heads being part of the anatomy of the cole crops, at least until Pliny uses the word \"capita\" (heads). We have therefore consistently replaced the words used in translations with the transcription of the crop name.The format used for citing classical texts is the following: [Author] Κράμβη AND ῥάϕανοςThe main words of the ancient Greek language (i.e., before ca. 330 B.C.E.) meaning B. oleracea were κράμβη (krambe) (Doric dialect) and the corresponding Attic dialect word ῥάϕανος (rhaphanos). It should be noted, as detailed below, that when used by non-Attic authors \"rhaphanos\" means radish (Raphanus sativus). According to Chantraine (1968), the word κράμβη evokes German words expressing the idea of \"curling up,\" \"crumpling up\" (German \"sich kräuseln\"), due to the habit of the leaves, and is based on the Indo-European terms *qremb-and *qromb-. Carnoy (1959) links the word ῥάϕανος to ῥάϕυς (rhaphys) and ῥάπυς (rhapys), i.e., \"turnip,\" and to an Indo-European root with the meaning of \"turn\" or \"roll into a ball,\" while Chantraine (1968) is doubtful about its Indo-European derivation. Among the Proto-Indo-European roots listed by Pokorny (1959), the root \"rāp-\" means \"turnip,\" with the following derivatives in Indo-European languages: Latin: rapum; Old Church Slavonic: repa; Russian: репа (repa); Lithuanian: ropė; Old High German: raba; German: Rübe; Ancient Greek: ῥάϕυς (rhaphys); and Polish: rzepa (Anonymous 2009c).Apart from independently surviving fragments of ancient Greek works, one rich source of ancient quotations-including κράμβη and ῥάϕανος-is the work of Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae (The Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned) (Ateneo 2001). Athenaeus was born and lived in Naucratis, Egypt, in the III century C.E. Thanks to his work, large fragments of text from the ancient poets, which would otherwise have been lost, have been preserved. His work is written in the form of a dialogue in which a variety of characters debate a wide spectrum of topics. Luxury, diet, health, sexual relationships, music, humor, and Greek lexicography are all discussed, but the focus is on food, wine, and entertainment.The earliest records of the word κράμβη date back to the Iambic poets of the VI century B.C.E.(Hipponax of Ephesus and Ananius), where it was not used to describe the plant, but to curse or as a form of oath:Καὶ σὲ πολλὸν ἀνϑρώπων ἐγὼ ϕιλέω μάλιστα, ναὶ μὰ τὴν κράμβην.[And you more than anybody else in this world I surely love, oh, yes, by the krambe!] -Ananius, fragment 4 West (Ateneo 2001)A similar use of the word, as a comic oath form, is found in fragments from comic poets of the V century B.C.E. (Epicharmus of Kos, Eupolis, and Teleclides). Athenaeus mentioned that Nicander of Colophon (II century B.C.E.) defined κράμβη (krambe) as a \"prophet,\" since it was a sacred plant, and this could explain why it was used for curses and oaths. He also specifies that this type of oath was thought to be of Ionic origin and that it should not be seen as too surprising to swear by a κράμβη (krambe), since Socrates used to swear by a shedog and Zenon used to swear by a caper. The word ῥάϕανος can be traced back at least to the V century B.C.E., when it was used by the poets of the Attic comedy, Crates and Aristophanes: [The so-called psyche or butterfly is generated from caterpillars, which grow on green leaves, chiefly on the rhaphanos, which some people call krambe] -Aristotle, Historia animalium 5. 19. 15 (Aristotle 1952) In Athenaeus, we find a fragment by Apollodorus of Carystos, citizen of Athens and writer of comedies of the III century B.C.E., where it is explained that the word κράμβη was used in Athens, while ῥάϕανος was used elsewhere to indicate the same plant: The different meanings of rhaphanos are also explained by Hesychius, a grammarian of Alexandria (probably V century C.E.), who compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words. The lexicon survives in a XV century C.E. manuscript, which is preserved in the library of San Marco in Venice, (Marc. Gr. 622). According to Hesychius, ῥάϕανος (rhaphanos) was an ambiguous word, meaning \"cole\" (the Doric krambe) in Attic dialect, while in the rest of Greece it meant \"radish.\" The radish was called ῥαϕανίς (rhaphanis) in Athens, but in the Doric language ῥαϕανίς was the diminutive of ῥάϕανος, meaning small radish. [rhaphanos is called krambe, while many people call rhaphanos what actually is rhaphanis.] -Pollux, Onomasticon 1. 247 (Stephano 1841) Table 1 summarizes the different meanings in Attic and Doric dialect.Βράσκη AND BRASSICA Another Greek word, βράσκη (braske), only mentioned by Hesychius, is the possible origin of the Latin word brassica. According to Thesaurus linguae latinae, the etymology of the word brassica is unknown, but reference is made to the interpretation of Hesychius. In Hesychius one can read: Βράσκη κράμβη Ἰταλιώται [braske is krambe for the Italians]. According to Hesychius, Βράσκη was therefore a local name used in the ancient Greek colonies of Southern Italy (Magna Graecia), having replaced the use of the original word κράμβη.The Lexicon Totius Latinitatis also points to the text of Hesychius, indicating that the Latins took the word from the Greeks living in South Italy. Βράσκη however remains a rare word, since we have no record of its use, other than in the lexicon of Hesychius. The Lexicon Totius Latinitatis and Thesaurus Linguae Latinae also quote, less convincingly, the etymological interpretations of Varro and Paul the Deacon. In his De lingua Latina, Varro (Marcus Terentius Varro, 116-127 B.C.E., an ancient Roman scholar and writer), indicates that \"brassica\" derives from \"praesica\" (from \"praesicare\" or \"praesecare,\" to cut), since from its stem, small pieces are cut off (brassica ut praesica, quod ex eius scapo minutatim praesicatur). A similar interpretation is given by Paul the Deacon (VIII century C.E.), in his epitome of the II century C.E. work of Festus, indicating that \"brassica\" derives from the action of cutting (\"praesecando\") (brassica a praesecando est dicta). The similarity of the two interpretations is explained by the fact that Festus largely derived his encyclopedia from the De verborum significatu (\"On the Meaning of Words\") of Verrius Flaccus, a learned grammarian and antiquarian of the Another possible etymology of brassica, which is however indicated as being false by the Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, is a derivation from the Greek βράσσω (brasso) (= sono in Latin, from sonare = to play, to sing, to make noise). This would be owing to the crackling sound made by the plant when it is broken.The word brassica is always translated from Latin to indicate a plant that we can botanically refer to as B. oleracea. At its earliest, the use of this word in Latin literature can be traced back to Plautus (254-184 B.C.E.), who was a comic play writer at the time of the Roman Republic, born at Sarsina, Roman Umbria, today in Romagna, near Forlì, Italy.Plautus' comedies are among the earliest surviving intact works of Latin literature.Coc.: non ego item cenam condio ut alii coqui, qui mihi condita prata in patinis proferunt, boves qui convivas faciunt herbasque oggerunt, eas herbas herbis aliis porro condiunt: indunt coriandrum, feniculum, alium, atrum holus, apponunt rumicem, brassicam, betam, blitum, eo laserpici libram pondo diluont, teritur sinapis scelera, quae illis qui terunt prius quam triverunt oculi ut extillent facit.[A Cook: I don't cook a dinner too, like other cooks, who bring me up seasoned meadows of grass upon their dishes; who turn the guests into oxen, and supply the grass. This herbage, too, do they further season with other herbs: put in coriander, fennel, garlic, orache; they add, too, sorrel, brassicam, beet, and spinach. In this they dissolve a pound weight of asafoetida. The roguish mustard is pounded, which makes the eyes of those that pound it drop tears before they have pounded it.] -Plautus, Pseudolus, Act 3, Scene 2 (Perseus Digital Library 2009)\"Brassica\" is also present in the most ancient entire piece in Latin prose that has reached us, i.e., \"De agri cultura\", the work of Cato (234-149 B.C.E.). De agri cultura gives an idea of the social and economic situation of Italian farms during the first part of the II century B.C.E. It collects the indigenous traditions and folklore of the archaic farming society, as well as scientific and pseudoscientific writing of Greek origin. It is the small encyclopedia of a landowner. The longest chapter of De agri cultura is dedicated to the healing properties of cole (brassica), ranging from digestive properties to the ability of curing wounds, swellings, and ulcers; healing strangury; curing all internal organs' ailments; and used against contusions, headache, deafness, scab, and even cancer. Linguistic elements such as scientific and technical terms and concepts such as the internal \"forces\" of the human organism (i.e., the Hippocratic δυνάμεις) indicate that the text is rich in information of Greek origin. It has been hypothesized that Cato wrote a small treatise specifically on the coles (De brassica), which was subsequently included in De agri cultura. He may have drawn information on the medicinal uses of coles from ancient Greek physicians. In particular, Chapter 157 deals with the \"Pythagorean brassica\" (De brassica pythagorea). This does not seem to be a taxonomic definition of a botanical species of Brassica, but \"pythagorea\" is rather an adjective referring to the fact that the properties of this plant had been described by Pythagoras or his school in South Italy. We regard brassica pythagorea as a generic, not better specified, cole crop. Pythagoras, born in Samos, probably in 571-570 B.C.E., came to Italy in 532-531 and died in 497-496. He established himself in Croton, Calabria, where he founded a school that was also a religious and philosophical cultural center. No written documents remain from him. In any case, the cole crops were considered among the most effective therapeutic plants according to ancient folk traditions, some of which must have been channeled into Cato's piece (Canali and Lelli 2000).The Greek word καυλός (kaulos), meaning \"stem,\" was also used to indicate several objects reminiscent of the form of an upright stem. Homer in the Iliad (VIII century B.C.E.) used καυλός to mean a spear-shaft (13.162 and 168) or a sword-hilt (16.338). Later authors used καυλός to indicate various tubular structures in animals (the neck of the bladder, the ovipositor of locusts, and so forth). As early as the V century B.C.E., the word was used to mean membrum virile by Hippocrates (Of internal affections 14), and then by Galen (II century C.E.) (De usu partium 14.12) and others. According to the Greek-English lexicon (Liddell and Scott 1982), as early as the IV century B.C.E., καυλός (kaulos) acquired the meaning of the entire plant (i.e., the cole) since it was used in this sense by the comic poets Alexis (fragment 127.5), Anaxandrides (fragment 41.58), and Eubulus (fragment 7.3) (Meineke 1839(Meineke -1857)). This rhetorical figure of speech is termed synecdoche, whereby a part of something is used for the whole.The Latin word \"caulis\" (and its variation \"colis\"), derived from the Greek καυλός (kaulos), has the same principal meaning of \"stem,\" but other meanings also in this case, such as \"penis\" for Lucilius, a The multiple meanings of the words caulis and καυλός (stem, cole, penis) are understandable if we relate them to the peculiarly thick upright stems of the leafy kales (see Fig. 1), i.e., the most likely type of coles that were grown at the time, rather than to the round heads of a cabbage. It is therefore no wonder that the whole plant started to be called \"kaulos\" or \"caulis.\"The word \"caulis\" for \"cole\" became commonly used in the Latin world. It was used, for example, by Pliny, referring to the work of Cato from two centuries before: In the I century C.E., Pliny speaks of caules as Cato's coles, but Cato, in the III century B.C.E., was using the word \"colis\" only to indicate \"stem\" and the cole was \"brassica.\"The use of expressions like \"brassicae coliculos\" [little brassica's stems or brassica's sprouts] (Cato, De Agri cultura 158.1) or \"brassicae colis\" [brassica's stem] (Columella, Libri rei rusticae 6. 6. 1), ended up in simply being \"colis\" or \"caulis\" for simplification and synecdoche. Both Pliny and Columella (I century C.E.) were alternatively using both terms (brassica and caulis) with the same meaning: The Greek word ὄλῡρα (olyra) was used in the Iliad (5.196 and 8.564), the oldest piece of literature in the Greek language, dating back to the VIII or VII century B.C.E. In this book, ὄλῡρα is mentioned, together with white barley (κρῖ λευκὸν), as food for horses and it has been translated as hulled wheat, either einkorn (Forster 1936) or emmer (Chantraine 1968). As mentioned by Isidore of Seville (ca. 560-636 C.E.) in his work Etymologiarum sive Originum, the corresponding Latin word \"olus\" (or \"holus\") was used by the Latins to indicate any comestible herbaceous plant. While Chantraine is dubious about the etymology of this word, according to Hervé (2003), it was derived from an Indo-European root \"ghel,\" meaning green, yellow. The meaning of \"holus\" was extended to generally designate all the green vegetables and specifically the cole crops. This is another sign of the importance of cole crops, considered \"the vegetables\" par excellence, at least linguistically, since the I century B.C.E.The following example where holus has the meaning of a cole crop is taken from Varro (I century B.C.E.):Si enim ad limitem querquetum habet, non possis recte secundum eam silvam serere oleam, quod usque eo est contrarium natura, ut arbores non solum minus ferant, sed etiam fugiant, ut introrsum in fundum se reclinent, ut vitis adsita ad holus facere solet.[For instance, if he has an oak grove near the boundary, you cannot well plant olives along such a forest; for it is so hostile in its nature that your trees will not only be less productive, but will actually bend so far away as to lean inward toward the ground, as the vine does when planted near the holus.] -Varro Rerum Rusticarum 1. 16. 6 (The Latin Library 2009)The next example where olus has the meaning of a cole crop is taken from Pliny (I century C.E.):Raphani…et vis mira colligendi spiritum laxandique ructum. ob id cibus inliberalis, utique si proxime olus mandatur.[Radishes are flatulent to a remarkable degree, and are productive of eructations; hence it is that they are looked upon as an aliment only fit for low-bred people, and this more particularly if olus is eaten directly after them.] -Pliny, Naturalis Historia 19. 26. 78-79 (Perseus Digital Library 2009)The current binomial scientific name used for cole, Brassica oleracea, still conserves the adjective \"oleracea,\" from \"olus, -eris.\"Only in a few cases is the word \"crambe\" evidently derived from the Greek κράμβη, used by the Latins. In Pliny, it is quoted as the name of one of three types of brassica distinguished by the most ancient Greek writers (\"selinoides\" or curly cabbage; \"helia\" with broad leaves, and the more bitter \"crambe,\" with thinner leaves):Tertia <brassica> est proprie appellata crambe, tenuioribus foliis et simplicibus densissimisque, amarior, sed efficacissima.[And a third <variety of brassica>, the name of which is properly crambe, with thinner leaves, of simple form, and closely packed, rather bitter, but extremely efficacious.]-Pliny, Naturalis Historia 20. 33. 79 (Perseus Digital Library 2009)Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late I and early II century C.E., author of the Satires, also uses this same word:Occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros.[Re-cooked crambe kills the poor teachers.] -Juvenal, Saturae 7. 154 (The Latin Library 2009)In this case, the poet is making an allegory based on the Greek proverb \"δίς κράμβη ϑάνατος\" (\"krambe twice is death\"), since the cole, when re-cooked or warmed up, was considered heavy to digest.Parts of the vegetable brassicas that are often used still today, especially in home gardens, are the young sprouts produced when the plant begins to form an inflorescence. It is for these tender shoots (called \"cime di rapa\" in Italian) that Italian turnip broccoli (B. rapa) is grown in gardens in South and Central Italy. The same use is made in Italy of the B. oleracea leafy kale, where the inflorescence-bearing shoots are called \"cime\" or \"broccoletti.\"The same use of these plants was also evidently practiced among the Latins, who used the word \"cyma\" or \"cymatis,\" to indicate the tender shoots of some vegetables and especially of the coles. The word is derived from the Greek κῦμα (kyma), which refers to anything swollen, ranging from the \"fruit of a plant\" to the \"foetus,\" or the \"swollen sea,\" hence \"waves,\" \"billows.\" It was also used to indicate young sprouts of plants by  in his Historia Plantarum (1.6.9), and especially those of a \"cabbage\" (where we prefer to read a \"cole crop\"), in the case of Galen (II century C.E.) (Liddell and Scott 1982).We can find examples of the use of the word cyma by the Latins in Pliny and in Columella, another Roman writer of the I century C.E., author of 12 volumes on \"Agriculture\" (De re rustica):Ex omnibus brassicae generibus suavissima est cyma, at inutilis habetur, difficilis in coquendo et renibus contraria.[In all varieties of brassica, the part most agreeable to the taste is the cyma, although no use is made of it in medicine, as it is difficult to digest, and by no means beneficial to the kidneys.]-Pliny, Historia Naturalis 20. 35. 90 (Perseus Digital Library 2009)Cymam, caule<m>, capparim, … compluribus diebus sub tecto siccari, dum flaccescat, et tum eodem modo condiri convenit quo ferulam.[Cymam, caule<m>, capers…must be dried indoors for many days until they wither and they can then be dressed in the same way as ferula.] -Columella, De re rustica 12.7.5 (The Latin Library 2009)It is later, in the Middle Ages, that the medieval Latin caputium was used to designate the headed cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata). The word derives from Latin caput (head) and it is easy to understand why the headed cabbages were named in this way (see Fig. 2). The French cabus, the German Kappes, the English cabbage, the Estonian kapsas, the Croatian kupus, the Hungarian káposzta, and the Slovak kapusta all derive from this.In his translation of Papyrus Harris, Breasted (1906) interpreted the word shaut, to his admission not above question, as \"cabbage\" (see Fig. 3). Papyrus Harris was written on the occasion of the death of Ramses III (1166 B.C.E.) and includes a list of all the benefactions that he made to gods and men during his entire reign. Among the various oblations (bread, beer, wine, honey, fruit, figs, olives, and so forth) that he offered for the feasts dedicated to the god Amon, there are also 620 hekets (corresponding to about three cubic meters) of shaut (cabbage?). However, Aufrère (1987) dismantled with good arguments the scarcely founded belief that coles were known to the ancient Egyptians. On the one hand, the word shaut should be interpreted as a generic \"vegetable\" (Keimer 1924 in Aufrère 1987). On the other hand, a confirmation that the Egyptians did not have an original word for \"coles\" comes from the use of the words \"grmb\" (Demotic), krambe (Coptic, Sahidic dialect), and jarambo (Coptic, Bohairic dialect), which all undoubtedly derived from the Greek κράμβη.According to De Candolle (1885), common names for the coles are numerous in the European languages, while they are rare and modern in the Asiatic languages, this being considered an indication that the species is of European origin, as opposed to Asiatic origin. Within Europe, De Candolle distinguishes four or five distinct and ancient roots, as follows:& Kap or Kab: In several Celtic and Slavic names.From this root also the French name Cabus derives. The origin is the same as for Caput, due to the head shape of the cabbage.   Consumption by human beings of fruits and vegetables has been a necessity at all times to satisfy nutritional needs, particularly for essential vitamins and minerals. Seeds of plants that could be used as leafy vegetables (Chenopodium, Polygonum, Rumex, Atriplex, Malva and also crucifers like Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medik. among others) were documented in Neolithic sites of the Fertile Crescent, dated between the ninth and sixth millennia B.C.E. (French 1972;Helbaek 1964Helbaek , 1970;;Zeist 1970Zeist , 1972)). Most likely these were weeds accompanying the cereals and legumes, but they also might have been collected from the wild to be used as salad greens, potherbs, or flavoring plants. Only after mastering irrigation did it become possible to grow vegetables in kitchen gardens and to start orchard husbandry. Fruit cultivation is documented in the early fourth millennium B.C.E. with the presence of olive, fig, grape, pomegranate, and date palm in the Palestinian area (Zohary and Hopf 2000). Vegetable gardens are supposed to have evolved together with fruit orchards and the first records of cultivated vegetables refer to fourth millennium B.C.E. onion, garlic, and kurrat leek remains found near the Dead Sea and in Jericho (Hopf 1983;Zaitschek 1980). Pictorial evidence shows the existence of vegetable gardens in Egypt in the third if not the fourth millennium B.C.E. (Leach 1982), where leafy vegetables such as lettuce and leek are recognizable. Accounts of transactions kept by tomb builders in the period 1300-1100 B.C.E. show evidence for the consumption of vegetables (Janssen 1975), but specific individual crops were not itemized, since generic words were used by the Egyptians to indicate vegetables. Archaeological remains of vegetables from ancient Egyptian sites, dated from the Predynastic (ca. 3000 B.C.E.) to the ancient Roman period, allowed identification of onions, garlic, leek, radishes, celery, cucumber, melon, and watermelon (Murray 2000). According to the Bible (Numbers 11:5), the Israelites, in longing for the foods of Egypt during their exodus, which can be placed between the XV and XIII century B.C.E., mentioned the qishu'im (melons), avattihim (watermelons), hazir (kurrats), bezalim (onions), and shummim (garlics), that is, cucurbits and alliums, but no cole crops.Important evidence for kitchen gardening in the Mesopotamian cultures of the first millennium B. C.E. is the tablet in cuneiform text describing the Babylonian garden of king Merodach-baladan (late VIII century B.C.E.) (Leach 1982). Other vegetable names are part of the list of ingredients for a consecratory feast given by the Assyrian king Ashur-Nasir-Apli II (IX century B.C.E.) (Leach 1982). These sources allow identifying with certainty a limited number of vegetables, including lettuce, beet, radish, turnip, leek, garlic, onions, cucumber, gourds, and several flavoring herbs (Leach 1982). Even though many plants remain unidentified, both in the garden lists and feast provisions (Leach 1982), cole crops are not specifically mentioned among the ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian vegetable lists.In the Upanishads, commentaries to the Hindu Veda books in Sanskrit, both black mustard (Brassica nigra) and yellow sarson (Brassica rapa) are mentioned (respectively as \"Sarshap\" and \"Siddhartha\"). These scriptures report oral traditions dating back to the second millennium B.C. E., although they were written much later, roughly around the middle of the first millennium B.C.E. However, there is no mention of coles in these books (Prakash and Hinata 1980). There is also no mention of coles in the Bible, where the closest item to our crop of interest is black mustard or Brassica nigra (σἱναπιsinapi), which appears in the New Testament .The most ancient works of Greek literature (the Homeric poems of the VIII century B.C.E.) contain about 50 botanical names, as part of environmental descriptions or literary similes. These poems cannot therefore be expected to provide an exhaustive account of all the plants and crops in use in Greece at the time. Among the cultivated vegetables, onions (κ>όμυον) are mentioned, but not the coles (Forster 1936).The oldest written account that we can safely take to refer to the cole crops is the use of the Greek words κράμβη (Iambic poets of the VI century B.C.E.) and ῥάϕανος (comedy poets of the V century B.C.E.), respectively in the Doric and Attic dialects (even though ῥάϕανος has also meant radish outside of the Attic dialect speaking area). These words might have derived from ancestral Indo-European roots, evoking the idea of curling (of leaves) or turning, rolling into a ball (of leaves or roots). Both words continued to be used for many centuries and contemporary philologists have clarified that they were applied to the same plant.Starting with the VI century B.C.E. and onward, ancient Greek literature is rich in references to the coles. These words were used by the early poets in comic forms of oath and to invoke the name of magic and prophetic vegetables. Later fragments tell us that leaves were used as simple food after boiling. The plant was considered an antidote against drunkenness as well as antagonistic to the growth of grapes. It was described as being rich in medicinal properties and able to cure all manner of diseases. Various types of coles, which we can interpret in all cases as being leafy kales, are described by Theophrastos (IV century B.C.E.) in his \"Enquiry into Plants\" (7.4.4) and later authors. Theophrastos mentions three types of rhaphanos (ῥάϕανος): curly-leaved (οὐλόϕυλλοςoulophyllos), smoothleaved (λειόϕυλλος -leiophyllos), and wild (ἀγρίαagria). Eudemus (II century B.C.E.) (Fragment 9 Garcia Lazaro in Ateneo 2001) speaks about three types of krambe (κράμβη): maritime (aλμυρίςalmyris), smooth-leaved (λειόϕυλλος -leiophyllos), and celery-like (σελινούσα -selinousa). For Nicander (II century B.C.E.), krambe (κράμβη) can be smooth (λείη -leie), curly (οὔλη -oule), and purple colored (ἐπιφοινίσσουσα -epiphoinissousa) (Fragment 85 Gow-Scholfield in Ateneo 2001). Different qualities of krambe (κράμβη), based on their geographic provenance, are mentioned by Diphilus of Sifnos (III century B.C.E.): good and sweet from Cumae, bitter from Alexandria (Fragment 15 Garcia Lazaro in Ateneo (2001).The linguistic hypothesis claims that another Greek dialectal word, βράσκη (braske), which was used by the Greek colonists in South Italy, became the brassica of the ancient Romans. This idea points towards this area, which included coastal Greek settlements in Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, and Campania, as the possible location where cultural, agricultural, and medical traditions related to cole crops were transferred from the Greek to the ancient Roman world. That the medical tradition and high praise for cole crops were passed to the ancient Romans from the Greek colonies of South Italy, is indicated by the reference made by Cato to the so-called Brassica pythagorea (Pythagorean Brassica), which is a generic Brassica oleracea, and therefore to the Pythagorean culture that was established in Calabria in the VI century B.C.E. Indeed, \"brassica\" is the most ancient word used by the ancient Romans to indicate the coles and it is found in the earliest surviving work of Latin literature, in the comedies of Plautus (III century. B.C.E.), as well as in the most ancient surviving piece of Latin prose, i.e., \"De agri cultura\" of Cato (II century B.C.E.). An entire chapter is dedicated by Cato to the healing properties of the coles, probably with information largely drawn from the Greek physicians.Latin literature is extremely rich in references to the coles, which evidently occupied an important role in the vegetable gardens of the time. Greek knowledge and beliefs about coles are reported almost unaltered by Cato, Cicero, Pliny, and others. New information about several varieties of coles and their area of cultivation (prevalently in Central and South Italy) is provided by the writers on agriculture of the I century C.E., Columella and Pliny. Some of these varieties are probably heading types (i.e., cabbages or cauliflowers), according to the descriptions of Pliny.In parallel with the use of the word \"brassica,\" another word of Greek origin, i.e., καυλός, caulis in Latin, gradually became predominant, indicating all types of coles. This word, standing for \"stem,\" which is the most characteristic part of the leafy kale, eventually started to be used to indicate the entire plant, and it remained in use, with little variation, in many European languages, even after the plant started to differentiate into many forms, where the stem was no longer always the most evident anatomical part. Another group of words that is currently used in European languages generally to indicate heading coles (cabbage, cabus, kapusta, Kappes), is derived from the Latin caput, \"head.\" Interestingly, there is no Greek correspondence in this case, as if the appearance of heading coles had started in a Latin speaking area.De Candolle used the argument of the variety of names in the Celtic languages to consider it likely that the Celts did not import the plant and the corresponding terminology from elsewhere, but rather created a variety of linguistic roots themselves. However, all the \"Celtic\" roots quoted by De Candolle seem actually to derive from the Greek (krambai and kaulos) or Latin (brassica, caput, caulis) origins.According to Wilson (1991), the wild cabbage is thought, on the grounds of linguistic evidence, to have been a food-plant among the Iron Age Celts along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe. This linguistic evidence, however, is not specified. As mentioned by Hervé (2003), the old Irish braissech and the Welsh bresych are sometimes considered the sources of the Latin brassica, but the reverse is also equally possible and actually indicated as the correct etymological derivation by Ernout and Meillet (1932). Incidentally, Hervé also mentions the word burutzim of the Punic language, the Phoenician dialect of Carthage, as being considered close to brassica by the philologists.The Celtic literary tradition only begins with Old Irish from about the VIII century B.C.E. In any case, the presence of the B. oleracea in Celtic literature is not nearly as evident as in the Greek and Latin documents. It is therefore difficult to justify, on the basis of literary evidence, a deeply rooted tradition of the use of coles in the West Atlantic coasts or anything that might resemble a process of domestication.The Celts entered into contact with the Greeks as early as the VI century B.C.E. or even before (Massalia/Marseille was established as a Greek colony around 600 B.C.E.) and started to fight the Romans in Italy from the beginning of the IV century B.C.E. At the start of the V century B.C. E., the Carthaginians dominated the Western Mediterranean and entered into contact with the Greek colonies in Sicily and elsewhere and with Etruscans and Celts. Their ships reached the Atlantic and the coasts of Britain, where they procured silver and tin. The numerous contacts between all these populations may have allowed the spread of seed, knowledge, and words, but it is no simple matter to define the directionality of the exchanges.The linguistic indications and the literature outline provided in this article point to the northeastern part of the Mediterranean, particularly the ancient Greek-speaking world, as the area where traditional knowledge and use of cole crops (probably just leafy kales in this case) were already deep-rooted as early as the VI century B.C.E. The presence of Greek traders in South Italy and the subsequent establishment of colonies starting from the VIII century B.C.E. seems to have influenced the Roman world linguistically, while at that time they might well have transferred uses, traditions, and perhaps seeds of cole crops. A great diversification of forms, colors, and shapes among leafy kales, cauliflowers, and broccoli seems to have taken place in Italy where the coles affirmed themselves among the most prominent vegetables. This is testified by the wide coverage they received in original works on agriculture, as well as through poetry and literary quotations documenting their vivid presence in the ancient Roman culture. The adoption of the word used for a generic vegetable (\"holus\") to indicate the coles specifically as of the I century B.C.E., is another sign of the importance acquired by this crop. It is not difficult to imagine that the expansion of the Roman Empire might have also easily propelled the wider circulation (and further evolution) of this crop to other areas of Europe. The linguistic trace is compatible with this interpretation, whereby the descendants of the original vegetable stems (καυλός, caulis) are today named in a similar way in different parts of Europe (cal, cavolo, chou, couve, kaal, kale, Kohl, kol).In summary, this paper synthesizes information from the linguistic, literary, and historical points of view that is compatible with domestication of B. oleracea in the ancient Greek-speaking area of the north-central and northeastern areas surrounding the Mediterranean. This area, during the VIII-VI century B.C.E., extended from Southern Italy to Greece and the west coasts of Turkey. There is a marked overlap of this area and the distribution area of the wild relatives of Brassica oleracea in the Mediterranean (Snogerup et al.1990). The absence of any trace of coles in ancient Near East documentary sources is therefore not completely surprising, but rather a confirmation that the origin of the cole crops is likely to be authentically North Mediterranean. The alternative hypothesis of a Northwest Atlantic origin, which mainly relies on the molecular findings of Song et al. (1990), is not supported by our essay. The molecular data indicated that the B. oleracea populations growing in the wild along the North Atlantic coasts of Europe seem to be the closest to cultivated forms and, thus, they likely are the most closely related to the ancestors of cultivated B. oleracea. However, a correct interpretation of these data may not require that the domestication took place on the Atlantic coasts if we assume the possibility that the Atlantic wild B. oleracea are actually escapes from imported cultivated plants. This hypothesis has been already substantiated by Mitchell (1976), who observed that the wild derivatives of cultivated plants become morphologically indistinguishable from \"native\" plants within a few generations. On the basis of historical records of the wild populations of B. oleracea and their close proximity to villages and towns, he suggested that \"cabbage\" was brought to the British Isles by Romans or Saxons and that native populations of B. oleracea might be regarded as introductions. A suggestion was also made by Grenier and Godron (1848) that B. oleracea on the cliffs of the French Channel coast was adventive. The lack of correlation between genetic structure and geographic distribution of wild B. oleracea populations in England and Wales (Watson-Jones et al. 2005) and the high degree of genetic homogeneity among the wild North Atlantic B. oleracea, contrasting with the substantial diversity detected within the Mediterranean wild brassicas (Allender et al. 2007;Snogerup et al. 1990), support Mitchell's hypothesis.Forthcoming studies focusing, inter alia, on the difference between populations that are truly wild versus those escaped from cultivation, will further test the hypothesis that the cultivated coles are of Mediterranean origin.","tokenCount":"7558"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1f442b08561ca7834a85f59d82bb1286","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/23f5a07b-dee3-440c-9176-17b4e2eeb0a9/retrieve","id":"-596324035"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bedc26e5-07d5-481d-bc00-40d8f4a8487b","pagecount":"2","content":"At the end of its second year, this going-to-scale project in 10 districts of Rwanda has directly reached over 125,000 households with OFSP. DVMs have sold vines worth US $300,747. Roots producers have sold sweetpotato roots worth US $99,984 and households have consumed 7,495 tons of OFSP roots. What is the Problem? Signi cant investment in Rwanda's agricultural sector has played an important role in the rapid and sustained economic growth which the nation has witnessed in recent years. This growth has bene ted millions of smallholder farmers and contributed to the steadily declining poverty rate throughout the country. Despite these advances, however, the incidence of poverty remains stubbornly high. This is especially true of rural areas, where 24.1% of the population -classi ed as \"ultra-poor\" -still struggle to meet basic needs. Moreover, malnutrition remains widespread and it is estimated that 39% of children under the age of ve are de cient in vitamin A and about 38% are stunted or chronically malnourished. Therefore, a comprehensive response is thus required to address rural poverty and malnutrition challenges. Approaches that combine interventions from a range of agricultural, economic, health, infrastructure, and social service sectors are key if Rwanda is to make further progress. Nutrition-oriented agricultural development can make signi cant contributions given the pivotal role of agriculture as the main source of food and income for the rural households estimated to be 70% of the total population.Feed the Future Rwanda Orange-eshed Sweetpotato (OFSP) for Income and Nutrition Activity is a three-year project (2015 -2018) financed by USAID and implemented by the International Potato Center (CIP). The project aims to reach at least 200,000 smallholder farming households, equivalent to about 5-6% of the resident population in the target districts. Local implementing partners, working closely with local authorities, community health workers and agricultural extension sta select bene ciary households with children under ve years old to be included in OFSP production. The partners partici-pate in OFSP vines multiplication, distribution, and demonstrations, as well as in nutrition education and counseling campaigns. At least 250 sta from Government of Rwanda institutions and NGOs will receive training in agronomic and nutrition extension related to OFSP. The project will also train at least 370 community groups, who will receive training in child health and nutrition interventions (Fig. 1) to support nutrition counseling and demonstrations in food preparation and storage. Consumer demand will be increased through public awareness campaigns and additional demand created through technical support to food processors to include OFSP as an ingredient in their existing and new products.The target bene ciaries of the project are rural households with children under ve years of age, as these young children are the most vulnerable to micronutrient de ciencies. The ten targeted districts are: Gatsibo, Bugesera, Burera, Musanze, Rubavu, Ngororero, Rutsiro, Karongi, Nyamagabe, and Nyaruguru.By September 2017, the end of the second year of the project, we have provided OFSP vines and nutrition and  Fortune Musanabera started growing OFSP in 2010 (Fig. 2). She started this activity under ''Inkingi y'urugo'' farmer group, which means 'the pillar of the household' . The group encourages OFSP production for home consumption and sale. They also started OFSP seed production. However, due to lack of land and other group dynamics and management issues it has not been very successful. Because of the group problems, Fortune decided to start OFSP production on her own. As processors and individuals started value addition of OFSP, the demand for OFSP vines and roots grew rapidly. She decided to invest into roots and vine (planting material) production. Before she started producing OFSP, Fortune was a small-scale trader in the local market earning enough money for her household's food needs only. Her OFSP roots and vines business has enabled her to buy two parcels of land at a total cost of 1,100,000 Rwf ($1,300). She has also bought two exotic dairy cows that provide milk for her household needs and for sale. The livestock provides manure for her farm. Her sweetpotato business has enabled her become one of the few people in her area to install piped water in her homestead. Just by installing water, Fortune has improved her family's quality of life.With her current vine production of one hectare, Fortune earns at least 2.5 million Rwandan francs (US $ 3,000) per season. In the next round of harvests, she intends to buy a plot of land in the local town and construct a commercial building. ","tokenCount":"738"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6de81f941dd58bed36157133e70d243e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/1df73358-edef-4d70-b963-9113be436e26/content","id":"337459532"},"keywords":["complex survey","group testing","informative sampling","transgenic corn"],"sieverID":"6525b4f5-34ad-4b42-aee2-412c2eb00186","pagecount":"16","content":"Group-testing regression methods are effective for estimating and classifying binary responses and can substantially reduce the number of required diagnostic tests. However, there is no appropriate methodology when the sampling process is complex and informative. In these cases, researchers often ignore stratification and weights that can severely bias the estimates of the population parameters. In this paper, we develop group-testing regression models for analysing two-stage surveys with unequal selection probabilities and informative sampling. Weights are incorporated into the likelihood function using the pseudo-likelihood approach. A simulation study demonstrates that the proposed model reduces the bias in estimation considerably compared to other methods that ignore the weights. Finally, we apply the model for estimating the presence of transgenic corn in Mexico and we give the SAS code used for the analysis.Group testing is a technique used to screen samples for an attribute when samples are grouped into pools (or batches), and each pool is tested for the presence of the attribute; if a pool tests negative, then all samples in the pool are cleared of having the attribute. When the proportion of samples with the attribute is less than 10%, group testing is very attractive because it produces significant savings in the number of diagnostic tests required and time expended, and helps to preserve the anonymity of the tested subjects. First used by Dorfman (1943) for detecting soldiers with syphilis during the Second World War, group testing has been used to estimate the prevalence of a wide variety of diseases in humans, animals and plants (Cardoso et al., 1998;Kacena et al., 1998;Verstraeten et al., 1998;Muñoz-Zanzi et al., 2000;Tebbs and Bilder, 2004;Chen et al., 2009). It has also been used for analysing biomarker data (Delaigle and Hall, 2012), detecting drugs (Xie, 2001), solving problems in information theory (Wolf, 1985) and even in science fiction (Bilder, 2009).Group-testing regression methods are available for fixed and mixed (fixed + random) effects (Farrington, 1992;Vansteelandt et al., 2000;Chen et al., 2009). Chen et al. (2009) presented group-testing regression models for imperfect diagnostic tests (with sensitivity and specificity of less than 1) with fixed and random effects, which produce the most accurate estimates when the sampling process is in clusters. More recently, McMahan et al. (2013) also provided group-testing regression models for mixed effects in the presence of dilution effects. Delaigle and Meister (2011) and Delaigle and Hall (2012) presented non-parametric group-testing regression models.All the group-testing regression methods developed so far are based on the assumption that selection probabilities are the same for all clusters and individuals, and sampling weights are not required. Thus these methods are only valid when clusters are of the same size, and simple random samples of clusters and individuals are taken. Also, they do not take into account stratification at the cluster or individual levels. In the non-group-testing context for two-level linear (or linear mixed) and generalized linear mixed models, Graubard and Korn (1996), Pfeffermann et al. (1998), Korn and Graubard (2003), Grilli andPratesi (2004), andRabe-Hesketh andSkrondal (2006) discussed the proper use of sampling weights. However, no work has been done on incorporating sampling weights in group-testing regression models. Appropriate grouptesting methodologies for a complex survey can result in substantial savings without significant loss of precision and can be used for estimating the prevalence of a rare attribute, such as transgenic corn or human diseases. For this reason, the aim of the present paper is to bring together the ideas of Chen et al. (2009) and Grilli and Pratesi (2004), which means generalizing the group-testing methodology to take into account the weights when a two-stage survey is performed, and we perform an application for detecting and estimating the presence of transgenic corn in Mexico. Researchers use complex sampling schemes (e.g. two or three stages with clusters and stratification and unequal selection probabilities) for collecting corn plants in a field and, to save resources, they use group testing on samples containing s plants to determine whether a transgene is present (Piñeyro-Nelson et al., 2009). However, due to the lack of an appropriate methodology for analysing data, they ignore the complex sampling design, which violates the basic assumptions underlying multilevel models.A sampling process is informative when the sampling probabilities are related to the values of the outcome variable after conditioning on the model covariates (Pfeffermann et al., 2006). For example, assume that a two-stage sampling design is used for estimating the prevalence of transgenic corn in Mexico with fields as the primary sampling units and plants as the secondary sampling units. If fields are sampled with a probability that is proportional to field size (PPS), the sample of fields will tend to contain mostly large fields, and if field size is related to prevalence but not included among the model covariates, the sample of fields will not accurately represent the fields in the population and the sampling is informative (Pfeffermann et al., 2006). In the context of estimating transgenic corn in Mexico, this makes sense because most commercial corn fields are larger and more likely to contain transgenic corn than non-commercial corn fields. More examples of an informative sampling scheme being ignored in the inference process can be found in Kasprzyk et al. (1989), Skinner et al. (1989) and Pfeffermann (1993). In general terms, informative sampling results when the probability density of the sample data is different from the density of the population before sampling. Ignoring the sampling process in such cases may yield severely biased estimates of population model parameters, possibly leading to false inferences.In theory, the effect of sample selection can be controlled by including all of the design covariates. However, this is often not practical because the design variables may not be available or known, or because there may be too many of them, making fitting and validation of such models a formidable task (Pfeffermann and Sverchkov, 2007). One approach for dealing with informative sampling that commonly produces good results is to include design (sampling) weights to account for unequal selection probabilities. Because the weights are incorporated in the likelihood function, this approach is called pseudo-maximum likelihood (PML). Another approach for dealing with this problem is the sample model; it consists of extracting the model for the sample data given the selected sample (Pfeffermann et al., 2006). However, with this approach it is sometimes not possible to extract the probability density function (pdf) for the sample data. For this reason, the PML approach is still the most popular approach and produces good results.Before the PML approach, Grizzle et al. (1969) proposed using weighted least squares (WLS) for estimating logistic regression model parameters and standard errors for complex sample survey data (Landis et al., 1976). However, Binder (1981Binder ( , 1983) ) presented the PML framework for fitting logistic regression and other generalized linear models to complex sample survey data as a technique for estimating model parameters. The PML approach to parameter estimation was combined with a linearized estimator of the variance-covariance matrix for the parameter estimates that accounted for complex sample design features. Further development and evaluation of the PML approach were presented in Roberts et al. (1987), Morel (1989) and Skinner et al. (1989). The PML approach is now the standard method for logistic regression modelling in all of the major software systems that support the analysis of complex sample survey data (Heeringa et al., 2010).The prominent feature of this approach is that it utilizes the sampling weights to estimate the likelihood equations that would have been obtained in the case of a census. However, for mixed models, the PML approach needs the sampling weights for the sampled elements (level 1) and clusters (level 2). Because level 1 and level 2 weights appear in separate places within the PML estimator function, it is not sufficient to know the product of the level 1 and level 2 weights, as happens in conventional analyses. Also, level 1 weights have to be scaled to produce precise estimates of the variance components. For this reason, some rescaling methods have been proposed. Pfeffermann et al. (1998) and Korn and Graubard (2003), in the context of linear mixed models, point out that scaling the weights at level 1 produces estimates of the variance components (particularly the random-intercept variance) with little bias even in small samples.The goal of this paper is to generalize the grouptesting methodology to surveys conducted in two stages with stratification and different cluster sizes when sampling is informative. We solve this problem by using the PML approach and incorporating sampling weights at both levels to estimate the population likelihood equations that would have been obtained in the case of a census.Why is it important to make inferences about the proportion of transgenic corn?Mexico is the centre of origin and diversification of corn and many other plant species. The presence of transgenes in some corn landraces in Mexico has been confirmed by some studies (Quist andChapela, 2001, 2002;Ortiz-García et al., 2005;Dyer et al., 2009;Piñeyro-Nelson et al., 2009). For this reason, there is great concern regarding possible gene flow as a result of outcrossing between transgenic crops and their landraces and wild relatives. However, the effects of transgenic maize outcrossing with traditional maize landraces and wild relatives such as Tripsacum and teocinte are virtually unknown (Hernández-Suárez et al., 2008). Although some studies have detected the presence of transgenes in maize landraces in Mexico, an estimate of the proportion of transgenic corn that is present in native corn landraces is needed to have a clear idea of the magnitude of the gene flow through outcrossing between transgenic crops and native maize. However, obtaining such an estimate is challenging for three reasons: (1) a diagnostic test is required to classify each plant as positive or negative; (2) it is impractical to use simple random sampling since we do not have a sampling frame for plants; and (3) diagnostic tests are expensive. Group testing is an excellent alternative for avoiding these problems, since instead of performing individual tests, a diagnostic test is performed on each pool (group of plants), which reduces the required number of diagnostic tests by 80%. However, as noted above, existing group-testing methods are not designed for complex surveys. For this reason, in the present paper we extend the group-testing methodology to an informative two-stage survey that takes into account the weights at the cluster and individual levels to obtain appropriate estimates of the parameter of interest.Suppose that we have a population of M h clusters in strata h (level 2 units, primary sampling units or fields) with h = 1, 2. By strata we mean the separation of the total target population into different groups based on certain categorical variables (i.e. moisture levels, spatial heterogeneity, fertility levels, regions, type of irrigation used, type of producer, etc.). These groups should be as homogeneous as possible, while the population between strata should be as heterogeneous as possible. We also define h* as substrata (homogeneous groups) inside each cluster. N ih elementary units in the ith cluster at the hth strata (level 1 units, subjects or plants) are sampled following a two-stage sampling scheme. In the first stage, m h < M h fields are selected with π ih inclusion probabilities (i = 1, 2, . . ., M h ) that are correlated with the cluster random effect (b i ). In the second stage, n ihh* plants are selected within the ith field, hth strata and substratum h* with probabilities π j|ihh* (j = 1,2, . . ., N ih ) that may be correlated with the outcomes after conditioning on the regressors x ihh*j . Since the cluster random effect and the response variable are viewed as random under the model, so are the selection probabilities under informative sampling. The unconditional sample inclusion probabilities are then π ihh*j = π j|ihh* π ih .Given that group testing will be used, plants must be assigned to pools in some way, and each pool is tested for a transgene. Suppose that n ihh* plants from the ith field, hth strata and substratum h* are randomly assigned to one of the g ihh* pools, such that there are s ihh*j plants in pool j from field i, hth strata and substratum h*. Further, let y ihh*jk = 1 if the kth plant in the jth pool from field i, hth strata and substratum h* is transgenic, and y ihh*jk = 0 otherwise, for i = 1, 2, . . ., m h , j = 1, 2, . . ., g ihh* and k = 1, 2, . . ., s ihh*j . Since we are using group testing and will only observe the response of each pool, we define the random variable Z ihh*j = 1, if the jth pool in the ith field, hth strata and substratum h* tests positive for transgenes, and Z ihh*j = 0 otherwise. Therefore, the two-level generalized linear mixed model for the response Z ihh*j can be specified with the linear predictor of a generalized linear mixed model (Breslow and Clayton, 1993;Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal, 2006):(1)Here β 0 is the intercept, x ihh*jk is a px1 covariate vector associated with fixed effects at the individual level, β 1 is the slope, and b i is the random effect of the ith field or cluster, which is Gaussian iid with mean zero and variance s 2 b . The conditional distribution of y ihh*jk is Bernoulli (p ihh*jk ) which, assuming the logit link function log(p ihh * jk /1 − p ihh * jk ), gives:(2) S e is the probability of a positive test given that a plant is transgenic (i.e. the ability of a test to correctly identify transgenic plants). S p is the probability of a negative test given that the plant is not transgenic (i.e. the ability of the test to correctly identify non-transgenic plants). S e and S p are assumed to be constant and close to 1.The PML approach is required when the sampling mechanism is informative. However, incorporating weights in the likelihood is complicated by the fact that the population log-likelihood is not a simple sum of elementary unit contributions, but rather a function of sums across level 2 and level 1 units. In addition, the implementation of the PML approach requires knowing the inclusion probabilities at both levels.Using only second-level weights or only first-level weights may yield poor results (Grilli and Pratesi, 2004). Now let θ = (β 0 , β 1 , σ b ) denote the vector of all estimable parameters. The multilevel likelihood is calculated for each level of nesting and takes into account the weights. First, the conditional likelihood for pool j in field i is given by:where P(Z ihh*j = 1|b i ) is defined in equation (3). We also assume two substrata. Next, to obtain the independent contribution of a field to the likelihood, field-level random effects are integrated out, as follows:where g ihh* is the number of pools in cluster i, strata h and substrata h*, where w * j ihh * | is the scaled weight for pool j in stratum h, field i and substratum h*, w * ih is the field weight in stratum h, ϕ(b i ) is the N 0, s 2 b , with the final likelihood being the product of field likelihoods:Finally, combining the expression for all the fields (clusters), the overall marginal likelihood isHere the weights enter the log-pseudo-likelihood as if they were frequency weights, representing the number of times that each unit was replicated to estimate the likelihood that would have been obtained in a census. However, when survey data have been collected under a complex sample design, straightforward application of maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) procedures is no longer possible, for several reasons. First, the probabilities of selection of each cluster or individual are generally no longer equal. Sampling weights are thus required to estimate the finite population values of logistic regression model parameters. Second, the stratification and clustering of complex sample observations violates the assumption of independence of observations that is crucial to the standard MLE approach for estimating the sampling variances of the model parameters and choosing a reference distribution for the likelihood ratio test statistic (Heeringa et al., 2010). Also, when the sampling weights are related to the values of the model's outcome variable after conditioning on the model covariates, sampling is informative and the observed outcomes are no longer representative of the population outcomes. Thus the appropriate model for the sample data is different from the model for the finite population (Pfeffermann and Sverchkov, 2009). Also, it is clear from the form of the likelihood (equation 4) that we cannot simply use one set of weights based on the overall inclusion probabilities; instead, we must use separate weights at each level, which implies that the self-weighting property of multistage designs is lost. The log-pseudo-likelihood is given as:where ℓ 2 (y (2) ;u)=logMaximization of the weighted log-likelihood (equation 5) involves computing several integrals that do not have a closed-form solution, so a numerical approximation technique is required. A standard solution to this problem is provided by using Gaussian quadrature (Pinheiro and Bates 2000;Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal, 2006). However, since this method is based on a summation over an appropriate set of points, it is only efficient when the dimensionality of the integrals is low. The NLMIXED procedure of SAS (SAS, 2014) is a general procedure for fitting non-linear random effects models using adaptive Gaussian quadrature. For this reason, it will be implemented for maximizing the expression (equation 5). Another very important point is that inserting the weights in the log-likelihood implies using a consistent design estimator of the population score function.The NLMIXED procedure of SAS ( 2014) has various optimization techniques to carry out maximization. The default, used in the simulations below, is a dual quasi-Newton algorithm, using the Cholesky factor of an approximate Hessian (SAS, 2014). Although the NLMIXED procedure does not include an option for PML estimation, Grilli and Pratesi (2004) show how to insert level 1 and 2 weights in the likelihood, as explained in the Illustrative example (Table 7). The sandwich estimator of the standard errors is provided in Appendix A.As mentioned earlier, when the sampling design is informative, maximizing the likelihood function given in equation ( 4), without weights, to obtain the MLEs of the parameters of interest may be seriously biased. For this reason, it is of paramount importance to incorporate design weights in the likelihood function. Considering two strata [i.e. M = (M 1 + M 2 )] at the cluster level and that m h clusters from each stratum are sampled with probabilities that are proportional to their sizes N ih (number of units in the ith cluster at the hth strata), then the probability of selection of a cluster isAlso, assume that in each cluster, the individuals are classified into two strata [i.e. n ihh* = (n i1h* + n i2h* )], h* = 1, 2; and that a number of units n ihh* is subsequently sampled from each cluster at each stratum, which implies that the probabilities of selection are:Such designs are self-weighting in the sense that all units have the same unconditional probability of selection. As an example of stratification of genetically modified corn plants, sampling fields at stage 1 could be stratified by irrigation (yes/no) or producer type (small or commercial), and while sampling plants at stage 2, strata could be based on plant or soil characteristics (e.g. moisture levels, spatial heterogeneity, fertility levels, etc.), which would correlate with the plantlevel residuals. In this case, the unconditional probabilities are:'Raw' design weights are obtained as the inverse of the probabilities of selection (w ih = 1/π ih , w j|ihh* = 1/π j|ihh* and w ihh*j = 1/π ihh*j ). However, these 'raw' weights need to be scaled to be used under a mixed model approach to avoid significant bias in the parameter estimates (Pfeffermann et al., 1998). For this reason, some scaling methods have been proposed. In general, most scaling methods produce better estimates than unweighted analyses. However, for the purpose of this research, we only consider three methods of scaling, which are reported as providing the least biased estimates in general. Due to the two-stage sampling process, we will have scaled weights for the two levels.Level 1 scaling methods Pfeffermann et al. (1998) and Korn and Graubard (2003) showed that scaling the weights is very important to obtain estimates with little bias even in small samples. However, they also state that it is not relevant for cluster weights, since multiplying the log-likelihood by a constant does not change the PML estimates (it simply inflates the information matrix by that constant). However, scaling level 1 weights on the small sample behaviour of the PML estimator is vital (Grilli and Pratesi, 2004). The most popular types of scaling are method A (or type 2), method B (or type 1) (Pfeffermann et al., 1998;Grilli and Pratesi, 2004;Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal, 2006) and method D (Rabe- Hesketh and Skrondal, 2006). These three types of scaling methods are used in the simulation study (see below). At level 1 (elementary units) under method A (type 2), the scaled weight is obtained as:whereand n i is the number of sample units in cluster i. With this scaling method, the new within-cluster weights add up to the cluster sample size j w * j ihh * | = n i . The scaled weight for method B (type 1) for level 1 is given by:where n * i is the effective cluster sample size for cluster i, n * i = j w 2 (1998) suggest that method B works better than method A for informative weights. Such a scaling factor was also used by Clogg and Eliason (1987) in a different context. Instead of scaling the level 1 weights, Graubard and Korn (1996) suggest a 'method D' which does not use any weights at level 1. This method D scales cluster weights as:and level 1 weights are w * j ihh * | = 1. This method seems appealing for pooled samples because we are mixing the information of s individuals. This implies that the weight of the pool is not required. Korn and Graubard (2003) pointed out that moment estimators of the variance components using these weights are approximately unbiased under non-informative sampling at level 1. The three methods proposed have an intuitive meaning, but do not always produce good results (Pfeffermann et al., 1998). Also, it is important to recall that we have conditional weights (w j|ihh* ) at the individual level; however, since we are pooling the material of s plants per pool, the weights for each pool can be incorporated in three ways: using the average weight of the individuals forming a particular pool, using the individual weights or using the sum of the s individual weights to form the pool weight.A Monte Carlo experiment was carried out to assess the performance of PML estimation and the sandwich estimator under group testing. This experiment reflected the two-stage scheme explained above. First, finite population values with dichotomous responses were generated from the two-level superpopulation model with linear predictor. ., N i ; and logit link log p i 1−p i ; we used β 0 = −4.4631, s 2 b = 0.9888 as our true model parameter values. Therefore, we simulated the individual responses, Y ij , according to a Bernoulli distribution with mean p i = 1/(1 + exp(− β 0 − b i ). There were M = 300 clusters (level 2 units) that composed the finite population. These clusters were stratified into two strata by generating a normal random variable, a i N(0, 1), independent of Y ij , from which, if |a i | >1, cluster i was assigned to stratum 1, and to stratum 2 otherwise. This stratification of clusters resulted in 83 clusters belonging to stratum 1 and 217 to stratum 2. The size of each cluster (N ih ) was determined by N ih = 350 exp bi , with bi generated from N 0, s 2 b , truncated below by − 0.1σ b and above by 0.3σ b . Therefore, the values of N i in our finite population have a mean of 389.89 and a range between 317 and 472 individuals. We adopted an informative sampling process at both levels. For this reason, m h clusters were selected with a probability proportional to a 'measure of size' X ih , i.e. p ih = m h X ih / M h i=1 X ih , where the measured X ih was determined in the same way as N ih but with bi replaced by b i , the random effect at level 2. Also, the individuals in each cluster were partitioned into two individual level strata such that if exp (1.6 + 0.1 * Y ij + e ij ) > 5.73, the individual was assigned to stratum 1; otherwise it was assigned to stratum 2, where e ij ≈ Gamma 1, 0.16 ( ). Simple random samples were selected of 0.5n ih1 and 0.5n ih2 from the respective strata. The variable X ih was used instead of the variable N ih (in equation 6) and stratification at the individual level was performed to simulate a sampling process that is informative at both levels. It is important to point out that if we want an experiment that is informative only at level 2 (cluster level), stratification at level 1 (individual level) is not required. However, if we desire a process that is not informative, we need to use N ih = 350 exp di instead of X ih (equation 6), where di is generated from N(0,1), truncated below by −0.1 and above by 0.3, and stratification at the individual level is not required.To gain a clear understanding of the role of weighting methods in the accuracy of the results, six estimation methods were used for each simulated data set: (1) unweighted maximum likelihood; (2) PML using raw weights at the cluster level; (3) PML using raw weights at both levels; (4) PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling method A at the individual level; (5) PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling method B; and (6) PML using method D that only uses weights at the cluster level.A two-stage sampling design for the finite population was implemented. In Table 1 (without covariates) and Table 2 (with a covariate), 100 individuals were selected from each cluster using stratified random sampling (50 from stratum 1 and 50 from stratum 2), and we used 24 clusters (8 from stratum 1 and 16 from stratum 2). In Table 3, we compared three sample sizes at individual levels (40, 80 and 120) per cluster with 24 clusters (8 from stratum 1 and 16 from stratum 2). The pools were formed with the individuals inside each cluster. For each combination of level 1 (plants) and level 2 (fields or cluster) samples, we simulated 600 data sets and estimated parameters using the weighting methods proposed. We observed that the sampling fraction at cluster level was 0.25 for stratum 1 and 0.75 for stratum 2. Computations were mostly performed in NLMIXED of SAS 9.4.A regression model for pooled data in a two-stage survey Table 1. Comparison of informative sampling at both levels, at the cluster level and at the individual level, and non-informative sampling. Simulation means and standard deviations (Std) of point estimators of the intercept (β 0 = −4.4631 true value) and the second-level standard deviation (σ b = 0.9944 true value). Cluster sample m = 36 (12 from stratum 1 and 24 from stratum 2) under PPS. Elementary unit size n j = 100 (50 from stratum 1 and 50 from stratum 2) under SRS. Pool size (s). 600 simulations were performed for each scenario. Method 1: unweighted maximum likelihood; method 2: PML using raw weights at the cluster level; method 3: PML using raw weights at both levels; method 4: PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling Method A at the individual level; method 5: PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling method B; and method 6: PML using method D with weights at the cluster level Cluster sample m = 24 (8 from stratum 1 and 16 from stratum 2) under PPS. Elementary unit size n j = 100 (50 from stratum 1 and 50 from stratum 2) under SRS. Pool size (s). 600 simulations were performed for each scenario. Method 1: unweighted maximum likelihood; method 2: PML using raw weights at the cluster level, method 3: PML using raw weights at both levels; method 4: PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling method A at the individual level; method 5: PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling method B; and method 6 PML using method D with weights at the cluster level In group testing notation this means that the pool size was 40 plants and that 3 pools were analysed for each accession. This pool size was chosen based on tests performed in the laboratory. The resulting pool of tissue samples was ground with liquid nitrogen and pulverized prior to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction, which was performed according to the protocol of Saghai-Maroof et al. (1984), with the addition of 1% polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) to the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) buffer. DNA quality was checked and concentrations were adjusted to 10 ng μl −1 . Detection of the 35S promoter was carried out with the TaqMan ® GMO Maize 35S Detection Kit from Life Technologies (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, Massachussetts, USA) following the manufacturer's recommendations. We considered a pool to be positive (presence of the 35S promoter in the tested pool) when both the endogenous gene and the 35S gene were amplified in the sample, the amplification curve had a Ct value between 20 and 30, and the amplification curve presented the three typical phases: exponential, linear and plateau. Also, each pool was tested with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in real time for the amplification of the α-zein gene, but here we only report the analysis for the presence of the 35S promoter. It is important to point out that we are interested in estimating the proportion of the adventitious presence of GMOs (transgenic corn) in the native maize landrace accessions currently stored in Mexico's National Genetic Resources Center in Guanajuato, Mexico.Results of the simulation with and without covariates are given in Tables 1-3. Without covariates, the true values of the parameters are β 0 = −4.4631 and s 2 b = 0.9888. We reported the mean and standard deviations for the estimated parameters resulting from the 600 simulations.For a sample of 36 clusters, Table 1 (informative at both levels) shows that ignoring the weights at both levels (method 1) produced a considerable overestimation of the β 0 parameter, and an underestimation of the second-level standard deviation (σ b ). Method 3, using raw weights at both levels, underestimated the fixed parameter, β 0 , and significantly overestimated the second-level standard deviation (σ b ). However, using only raw weights at the cluster level and no weighting at the individual level (method 2) overestimated β 0 and underestimated σ b , but to a lesser degree than ignoring the two weights (method 1). Scaling the weights produces better results than method 1 (ignoring the weights) and method 3 (raw weights at both levels). Method 2 and the three scaled methods 4, 5 and 6 generally produce the least biased results of all methods. Estimates of β 0 were reasonable and very close to the true values, but σ b was still underestimated. Using a sample of 48 clusters, there is no clear improvement in the parameter estimates compared to using a sample of 36 clusters (data are not shown).Table 3. Comparison using three different elementary unit sizes (n j ) selected under SRS. Simulation means and standard deviations (Std) of point estimators of the intercept (β 0 = −4.4631 true value) and the second-level standard deviation (σ b = 0.9944 true value). Cluster sample m = 24 (8 from stratum 1 and 16 from stratum 2) under PPS. Pool size (s). 600 simulations were performed for each scenario. Method 4: PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling method A at the individual level; method 5: PML using raw weights at the cluster level and scaling method B; and method 6: PML using method D with weights at the cluster level  1 also shows that the ratio of the standard deviation of the parameter estimates in the simulation of the average standard errors converges to 1, which is expected when the sample size is large; this implies that the sandwich estimator is correct. Based on these results, scaled weights decreased the bias in the estimation of both parameters compared to no scaling; however, even when the weights were scaled, the results were biased, but to a much lesser degree. Also, using group testing produced results as precise as those of individual testing, but with the advantage that it considerably reduce the number of required diagnostic tests.When the design is informative only at the cluster level (Table 1), method 1 produced highly biased results (serious overestimation of β 0 and underestimation of σ b ). Using the raw weights at both levels is not recommended because the estimates are still highly biased (Table 1). When only the raw cluster weights (method 2) are included, there is still considerable bias, and using scaled weights at the individual level and raw weights at the cluster level (methods 4 and 5) produced almost identical results and with small bias. This implies that using scaled weights is preferable.When the design is informative only at the individual level (Table 1), using the raw weights (method 3) is not a good choice because the results still are highly biased. However, methods 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 produced results with small bias (Table 1). This can be attributed to the way the informative sampling process was induced at each level. On the subject of regression of binary responses in a two-stage sampling, Grilli and Pratesi (2004) reported that when the sampling process is informative at the individual level, it is important to incorporate scaled weights. However, in their simulation they used β 0 = 0 and a second-level standard deviation of 0.632 with the probit link.When the sampling process is not informative, Table 1 shows that method 3 (raw weights at both levels) again underestimates β 0 and overestimates σ b . However, methods 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 produced estimates of both parameters that are very close to the true values of β 0 and σ b , which corroborates that when the sampling process is not informative, weights are not required. In general, method 4 produced the best results.For a fixed sample of clusters (Table 3, m = 24), we studied the behaviour of the parameter estimates (β 0 and σ b ) for three different sample sizes at the individual level (n i ). Both parameters are considerably biased even with individual testing when the number of individuals per cluster is equal to n i = 40. A considerable improvement occurs when the number of individuals per cluster is equal to n i = 80. In this scenario, the estimate of β 0 is close to the true value, but the estimate of the second-level standard deviation is still biased with group testing, and the problem is even worse when pool size s = 10. Finally, using 120 individuals per cluster produces less biased results than using 40 or 80, but the second-level standard deviation is still underestimated when using group testing.Table 4. Population data including two regions, eight fields (clusters) and two strata per field (fertility levels, FL). The binary response of each plant is y, n ihh* denotes total plants per combination of region, field and FL, N ih denotes total plants per field in each stratum and N h denotes total plants per regionField FL Binary response (y) Results from simulations used to study the performance of the model with a covariate at the individual level are given in Table 2. The model is the same as the model given in equation ( 1) described above, except that to include a covariate at the individual level, we generated data from a normal distribution with mean zero and variance 0.64, and used values of β 0 = −4.7598, β 1 = 0.8290 and σ b = 0.9820 (the code for the analysis is given in Appendix B). Table 2 indicates that the use of scaled weights (methods 4, 5 and 6) is effective for removing bias due to informative sampling. However, it is important to point out that the results are somewhat more biased than in the no covariate case. In general, the overall performance of the scaled weights is satisfactory.To illustrate the implementation of the analysis using NLMIXED of SAS 9.4, we present simulated data for a finite population of eight clusters within two regions (strata) and two substrata [which could be the fertility levels (FL) in each field]. On a smaller scale, these population data represent a typical population in which we can use PPS and stratified sampling for selecting the study units (Table 4). This population has a total of 163 plants distributed in 16 subgroups derived by combining region, field and FL levels. The total number of plants per region, field and subgroups are also given in Table 4.Suppose that a stratified sampling of two fields within each region and stratified sampling within each field at a fixed sample size of six plants per stratum are selected (π ih = 2N ih /N h , π j|ihh* = 6/N ihh* ), where N h = M h i=1 N ih . Table 5 shows the sample that resulted from using this sampling procedure. Note that the total sample size is equal to 48 plants, which is obtained by multiplying 2 regions × 2 fields × 2 FL × 6 plants. First we will explain how the field raw weights are calculated. In Table 4 we see that the total number of plants in region 1 is N 1 = 84, while the total numbers of plants in clusters 2 and 3 are N 21 = 18 and N 31 = 21, respectively.Therefore, the selection probabilities are p 21 = 2 18 ( ) 84 = 0.4286, p 31 = 2 21 ( ) 84 = 0.5 and the corresponding sampling weights are w 21 = 1 0.4286 = 2.33 and w 31 = 1 0.5 = 2.0. The remaining weights for the other fields are calculated in a similar manner.The conditional raw weights for each plant in the first row in Table 5, corresponding to region 1, field 2 and FL = 1, are calculated as follows. Here N 211 is the total number of plants per combination of field 2, region 1, and FL 1, which is equal to 10 (see Table 4). Therefore, p j 211 ), and the sum of the individual total weights should be exactly (or very close to) the total number of individuals in the population. In this example, each calculated weight given in Table 5 is for six individuals in the sample, since the six plants that appear in each row of Table 5 have the same weight. This means that the sum of the unconditional raw weights (w ijhh* ) should be 163 (the total number of individuals in the population given in Table 4), and the unconditional raw weights for each row in Table 5 should be multiplied by 6 (last column of Table 5), since our total sample size is 48 individuals. Therefore, by obtaining the sum for the last column in Table 5, we verified that the sum is exactly 163. For more details on how to calculate raw weights, the reader should consult Lohr (2010) since the calculation of these weights is done using conventional methods.Since raw conditional weights are not the best option, as was observed previously, we will now show how to scale the weights. For scaling method A (aw j|ihh* ), first we obtain the average of the raw conditional weights (w j|ihh* ) in each cluster; then we divide each conditional weight by this average. For example, for field 2, the average conditional raw weight is equal to 6 * 1.67+6 * 1.33 12 = 1.5 (this was calculated as a weighted average since 6 elements of each stratum in each cluster have the same weights). Therefore, the scaled weight using this method for the first conditional weight (row 1 in Table 5) is equal to aw j 211 | = 1.67 1.5 = 1.11. The corresponding conditional scaled A weight for the second row is equal to aw j 212 | = 1.33 1.5 = 0.89. The conditional scaled A weights for the other observations in the sample are obtained in exactly the same way. One way to check that these scaled conditional A weights are correct is that the sum of scaled conditional A weights in each cluster must be the same as the obtained sample size in each cluster (in this case, 12; for field 2 this is equal to [6(1.11) + 6(0.89)] = 12), and the sum of all the scaled weights must be the same as the total sample size (in this case, 48).To obtain the conditional scaled B weights, we must first calculate the sum of all the conditional raw weights ( j w j/ihh * ), then obtain n * i = j w 2 Now we have the complete sample (48 plants) and its corresponding weights. Since we will use group testing to classify the plants (positive or negative), we will form pools of size 3 at random in each cluster. For simplicity, let's assume that from each row (containing 6 plants) in Table 5 we form two pools; the first three plants go to pool 1, the second three to pool 2, and so on. Since we are forming the pools with the elements of the subgroup that resulted from the combination of region, field and FL, we will get exactly the same estimates if we use the average (of the three weights that form each pool) or individual weights. However, since we can form pools of size s at random with the elements of each cluster, this means that the weights in each pool are not always the same. Therefore, in Table 6 we present the data including the results in terms of pools and the average weights for each method. Here, of course, we are assuming that the diagnostic test used to classify each pool is perfect (S e = S p = 1). In Table 6, we show how to arrange the data resulting from any two-stage stratified cluster survey for analysis using group testing.For analysis, the data should be prepared as in Table 6. That is, we need a column for region, a column for field (cluster), a column for FL, a column for the pool number (from 1 to 16 in this case), a column for the binary response of each pool (yp), a column for the level 1 raw conditional weight by pool (wijp), a column for the level 2 raw weight (wip) and three more columns for the scaled weights in terms of pools (awp, bwp and dwp). All different weights given in Table 6 are in terms of pools because the average of the three weights is used. Note that the finite population contains 8 clusters (fields 1 to 8), but in this sample only 4 of the 8 were selected: 2, 3, 5 and 6. We are same as explained in detail in the illustrative example above. However, it is important to point out that the number of clusters (accessions) under study was 193, that the pool size was 40 plants, the total number of pools analysed was 664 and that for each pool we obtained a zero (35S promoter absent) and one (35S promoter present). We also assumed that sensitivity and specificity are equal to 1. Unfortunately, all 664 pools were negative and for purposes of illustrating the methodology, we added three positive pools to this real data set; these were pools 1, 10 and 19. The resulting parameter estimates using scaled A weights are b 0 = −20.173, denoted as b_0 estimate, and σ b = 7.4248 denoted as sd estimate. Therefore, the expected proportion of transgenic corn in an average accession, p i (b i = 0) is: p = This means that the estimated probability of finding transgenic plants in the whole area under study is very low. Given that we add three positive pools to this real data set, in any moment this result can be used as a valid expected proportion of transgenic corn in this area of Mexico.In this paper, we present a generalization of the mixed regression group testing methodology for a complex survey in two stages with stratification and clusters of different sizes, when the sampling process is informative. The estimation process was performed using the average weights per pool for simplicity, which implied that the pools should be randomly formed inside each cluster. Our results are in line with those reported by Pfeffermann et al. (1998Pfeffermann et al. ( , 2006) ) (for a normal response), by Grilli and Pratesi (2004) and Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal (2006) (for binary outcomes in the non-grouptesting context). We found that when the sampling process is informative, weights at both levels should be included. However, we need to use scaled weights because using raw weights produces more bias than ignoring the weights altogether. Also, it is important to point out that if the sampling process is not informative, the weights at both levels should be ignored and the analysis can be performed using any of the previously developed packages for mixed group-testing regression models. However, the NLMIXED and GLIMMIX code given in this paper allows running the analysis with the six weighting methods proposed. From a practical point of view, if you get very similar results by ignoring the weights and using the three scaled weights (methods 4, 5 and 6), you should choose method 1 (ignoring the weights) because this means that your sampling process is not informative. Also, it is important to stress that when covariates are not included in the linear predictor, the results when using group testing (with pool sizes 5 and 10) are almost the same as when using individual testing. This means that in this application, group-testing regression is as precise as individual regression. This result implies that group testing can be a useful approach for conducting complex surveys with small pool sizes (≤10) and forming the pools in each cluster. Also, including covariates at the individual level produced results that are very similar to those obtained without pooling (Table 2). However, more simulations need to be performed to see how well this methodology works with a larger pool size and more covariates. Although the data set used for the application was not really meaningful, it is important to point out that this methodology can be very useful for estimating the proportion of transgenic corn using a group-testing approach.Although we can include individual weights or the sum of weights at the pool level, this requires further research. Using individual weights is expected to produce the same results as the average weights used in this investigation, when pools are formed with members of each stratum in each cluster. Since the log-likelihood function requires the information per cluster, we always recommend forming pools with members from the same cluster. For this reason, to perform a correct analysis with group testing in a two-stage sampling informative process requires using the pools, their corresponding outcomes (positive or negative) and raw weights at both levels (one cluster weight and the conditional weights of the individuals forming a pool). These raw weights at the individual level then need to be scaled to produce weighting methods 4, 5 and 6; finally, the NLMIXED and GLIMMIX code given in Table 7 and Appendix B can be used to perform the analysis. The resulting output using this code produces an estimate of β 0 that can be used to estimate the marginal proportion of the characteristic of interest (as shown in the application). The code also produces Blups (predicted proportions), allowing researchers to obtain estimates not only for the whole population but for each cluster as well. Finally, the methodology developed here can be used to estimate any binary response using a complex informative sampling process. The overall utility of using our estimation approach is that it can save considerable resources when group testing is used in conjunction with complex sampling designs.None.","tokenCount":"8150"}

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"afa21552d7139ba7c38dc3cfd97efabc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c0ac6e7a-fa58-4415-99d8-94a2d0405c53/retrieve","id":"-649028283"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7b1ffefb-7d39-41c2-8e93-e452975b23e8","pagecount":"16","content":"Food safety assessment considerations ▪ Food safety has become an increasing concern ✓ Concerns include contamination with chemical and microbiological hazards ✓ Modern versus 'Informal' retail ▪ Little information on the actual risks or how to manage them. Recent decade EID and pandemics recalled questions like: ✓ Risk around traditional retail ✓ Shall we get rid of traditional retail ✓ How to reduce the riskClassical approach: Risk assessment (qualitative/quantitative)Core of the tool using a risk-based approach to provide robust assessments of food safety outcomes food commodity (e.g. pork)Assessment of the value chain.• Business performance (e.g. market share, expected trends, potential for change) and supply chain governance (e.g. trust and interventions).• supplementary to pillar 1 and 2 such as gender and equity, cultural norms etc. which may synergize or trade-off with food safety. -Country FS performance index (but country context)","tokenCount":"139"}

data/part_2/0513789752.json

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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7ffddbc2bfa96d5a0bffaad9dbc15580","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a988139b-fe2d-4885-ac80-1c82adfbc0f7/retrieve","id":"433117373"},"keywords":["Sahel","accuracy","climate information","economic gain","times saving","small-scale farmers"],"sieverID":"dce4995b-af25-4c29-b9e9-1953076cfcd2","pagecount":"15","content":"Climate information services are foundational means of building the farmer's resilience. However, studies are scarce about the accuracy of climate information services in dryland regions such as the West Africa Sahel, like in Mali and Niger. Thus, this study examined the accuracy of climate forecasts and their socio-economic benefits in these two countries. For rainfall forecasts and alerts, we collected the 2022 data from the 'SMS Sandji' platform in Mali (Nara) and the national meteorological agency alert database in Niger (Zinder). The socio-economic benefits of climate information were determined using a sample of 900 individuals in Niger and 227 in Mali. The results indicate that both seasonal and daily climate forecasts have high to moderate accuracy from 0.7 to 0.58 for CSI and 0.11 to 0.43 for BS index in Niger, and 0.94 to 0.91 for CSI, and 0.06 to 0.25 for BS in Mali. The results of field survey show that, in general, 87 to 100% of the respondents in Niger and 100% in Mali received the seasonal forecasts. ANOVA also reveals with high significance (p value = 0.0001) that the utilization of climate information plays a crucial role in improving farmers' average financial incomes with FCFA 24,943 per hectare at season onset to FCFA 15,355 per hectare during the cropping season, and FCFA 6204 per hectare at the end of the season, and time-saving of 36 h per hectare to 8 h per hectare, depending on the period when the information was used. Globally, this work underscores the importance of climate information services and highlights their positive socio-economic impacts to the livelihood of farmers.In recent years, farmers in Mali and Niger have commenced using climate information systems to understand weather conditions, make informed decisions, and adjust their farming practices accordingly (Traoré et al., 2018;Bejamin et al., 2020). The ability to predict climate fluctuations in days to months ahead could make a real difference in Africans' adaptation OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Swamikannu Nedumaran, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India strategies to climate change and be a first step toward increasing productivity and minimizing the risk of food crises (Hassane et al., 2017). Climate variability and change pose significant challenges for agricultural activities, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (Traore et al., 2013). Mali and Niger, two landlocked countries in West Africa, heavily rely on rain-fed agriculture as a major source of income and food security for their populations. Yet, unpredictable rainfall patterns and extreme weather events such as droughts and floods frequently disrupt agricultural production, exacerbating food insecurity and poverty in these regions (Lipper et al., 2014;Traore et al., 2021;Traore et al., 2024).To adapt to increasing climate impacts in West Africa, farmers have used indigenous and modern adaptation strategies. Examples of these techniques include soil and water conservation practices (CIAT et al., 2020), improved varieties (Sawadogo et al., 2017), and most recently, the dissemination of climate information service's early warning system (Sanoussi et al., 2015;Roudier et al., 2016;Traoré et al., 2018). The upscaling of weather forecasting systems for risk management in agricultural practices sounds relevant as it provides timely weather information, helping producers to make appropriate decisions (Roudier et al., 2012;Sanoussi et al., 2015;Seydou et al., 2023). Many studies have demonstrated farmers' interest in Africa in seasonal and day-to-day alerts of agro-climatic information for better environmental management to improve crop productivity. However, sharing information with farmers poses many challenges, especially in rural areas of Mali and Niger. Climate information such as rainfall forecasts are generally highly technical and scientific and farmers are not keen to use them. Furthermore, climate information sharing systems in Niger and Mali are often top-down (Roudier et al., 2016). Seasonal climate forecasts have no intrinsic value because they arise from improvement decisions and do not constitute direct climate solutions. There is a need along the agriculture value chain to expand significant amounts of useful and reliable information to which farmers do not have access.As climate information is critical in farming and the making of household-level decisions, a seasonal forecast platform called PRESAO (Seasonal Forecast in West Africa) was established in 1998 by regional research institutions (ACMAD, AGRHYMET, NBA and ICRISAT). This process, known as PRESASS since 2012, brings together experts and all stakeholders involved in climate issues in West Africa to deliver seasonal forecasts. The main forecasted parameters are: annual rainfall during the season, season onset/end, and duration; and dry spell duration. It has the potential to translate forecasts of climate anomalies into predicted impacts on production and economic incomes (Moussa et al., 2020;Seydou et al., 2023).The reliability of rainfall alerts and seasonal forecast remain a matter of concern. In most cases, ex-ante methods are the only way to estimate the benefits of using agro-climatic information in agriculture (Roudier et al., 2016;Seydou et al., 2023) and they are the only methods of assessing the potential benefits of support interventions. Despite the importance of climate information systems in Mali and Niger, there is a notable research gap regarding their effectiveness in improving resilience and adaptation to climate change in these countries. While some studies have assessed the technical aspects of these systems, there is limited evidence on their impact at the community and household levels. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of climate information systems in Mali and Niger, with a focus on their contribution to adaptive capacity and productivity improvement. It also reviews the reliability of rainfall alerts in Mali and Niger, with a focus on understanding the accuracy of predictions, the effectiveness of dissemination mechanisms, and the subsequent impact on farmers' decisionmaking processes. By evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of existing rainfall alert systems, this research seeks to address knowledge gaps and contribute to the improvement of these systems for achieving enhanced agricultural resilience, better risk management and productivity.In Mali and Niger, farmers receive climate information through electronic platforms such as mobile phone applications or websites that provide real-time weather updates and forecasts (Seydou et al., 2023). They can also receive climate information through radio broadcasts, community meetings and workshops, extension services provided by agricultural agencies or NGOs, and through the use of local weather stations and equipment installed on farms (Ouédraogo et al., 2018). Additionally, collaborating with local meteorological agencies and research institutions can provide smallholders with access to more accurate and detailed climate information. As example in Niger, the National Agency of Meteorology works closely with local farmers and provides them with climate data and forecasts tailored to their specific regions via WhatsApp groups and local radio stations. In Nara also, farmers can access climate information via Orange mobile phone network operator service named Sandji. Farmers can request information in SMS or voice call form depending on their preference.Farmers who have access to timely and reliable climate information are more likely to adopt climate-resilient agricultural practices (Zougmoré et al., 2016). This can include adopting droughtresistant crop varieties, adjusting planting and harvesting schedules based on weather forecasts, implementing efficient irrigation practices, and developing contingency plans for extreme weather events (Diouf et al., 2020). To promote climate-resilient agriculture and minimize the risks imposed by climate change, it is crucial to provide smallholders farmers with access to reliable and accurate climate information. This will enable them to make informed decisions about their farming practices, mitigate the adverse effects of climate change, and adapt to changing climatic conditions.The clarification of the following concepts will help us to better understand the context in which we conducted this research work and the implications of our findings. The concepts that need clarification in the context of this research work are:This refers to data and knowledge about past, present, and future climatic conditions and trends. Such information includes weather forecasts, climate projections, historical climate data, and information on climate variability and extreme events (Hansen et al., 2019). Weather forecasts and climate projections are crucial components of climate information in agriculture. They provide valuable insights into future climatic conditions, allowing farmers and policymakers to make informed decisions regarding agricultural practices and management strategies (FAO, 2019). Hence, climate information plays a critical role in climate risk reduction and adaptation in agricultural systems. ✓ Climate Information system: Refers to a system that integrates climate and weather data, along with agronomic information, to provide farmers with timely and relevant information for decision-making in relation to climate risk reduction and adaptation in agricultural systems (WMO, 2014).✓ Climate Risk Reduction: This refers to the implementation of measures and strategies aimed at minimizing the adverse impacts of climate change on agricultural systems (FAO, 2019). These measures can include the use of climate information to inform decision-making processes, such as adjusting planting dates, selecting drought-resistant crop varieties, and implementing irrigation.✓ Smallholder farmers: According to FAO, smallholder farmers are small-scale farmers, pastoralists, forest keepers, fishers who manage areas varying from less than one hectare to 10 hectares. Smallholders are characterized by family-focused motives such as favoring the stability of the farm household system, using mainly family labor for production and using part of the produce for family consumption.✓ Effectiveness of climate information: Is defined as the extent to which climate information contributes to reducing climate risks and enhancing the adaptive capacity of agricultural systems (WMO, 2014). It depends on several factors, including the accuracy and reliability of the information, timely delivery to end-users, accessibility of the information, and the capacity of farmers to understand and utilize the information effectively. Farmers rely on climate information for making informed decisions regarding agricultural practices and management strategies.✓ Accuracy of climate information: Refers to the degree to which the information reflects the actual climatic conditions and predictions source and the level of agreement between observed and predicted weather patterns (Amadi and Chigbu, 2014). Furthermore, the reliability of climate information refers to its consistency and trustworthiness over time.Quantitative data were collected from 1,127 farmers (900 in Niger and 227 in Mali). Data were collected in four (4) communes (Gueneibe, Koronga, Nara and Ouagadou) in Nara region (Mali), and eight (8) communes (Diffa, Chetimari, Dungass, Magaria, Wacha, S Broum, Gazaoua and Koona) in Diffa, Zinder and Maradi regions (Niger). We used the following tools for information collection and analyses:• An individual questionnaire, including questions on identification and description, types of agro-climate services received, actions taken to mitigate the anticipated responses to climatic hazard and socio-economic benefits obtained. • Open Data Kit collect (ODK) software, used to develop the questionnaire, synthesize responses, process and analyze field survey data, and extract questionnaire results.The study is conducted in Niger and Mali where climate typology varies from Sudanese to Sahelian. The agrarian system of these countries is still slightly rudimentary and very sensitive to climate variability and risks. This exacerbates the prevailing fragile food systems and increases risk of food insecurity.In Mali, this study is conducted in Nara, in the arid western Sahel region where climate is typical of the Sahelian zone. Annual rainfall in that region varies between 300 to 600 mm and temperature peaks reach 46°C during the hot season (Figure 1). The rainy season extends from May to October and the seasonal average temperature is 31°C. The most common farming systems in the region are extensive mixed agro-sylvo-pastoral systems.In Niger, this study is conducted in the Diffa, Maradi and Zinder regions, one of the major agricultural zones of the Central-Eastern Niger. These regions are located in a typical Sahelian agricultural zone, with an average 400-600 mm annual rainfall (Ado et al., 2018). Rainfed agriculture occupies more than 95% of the population (Moussa et al., 2020). Crops are generally grown on dune lands and lowlands using manual or animal-drawn hoes. The main crops are millet, sorghum and peanuts, which are mainly used for selfconsumption by a rapidly growing population.The choice of these locations as study regions can be justified by the fact that the climatic and demographic dynamics underway place them at the heart of major agricultural changes, between adaptation, improving food security and sustainable agriculture. Also, several actors have implemented a wide network of climate information dissemination. This allowed us to endorse them and measure the impact of these interventions.To assess the accuracy of rainfall alerts, we subscribed farmers to the Sandji service provided by Orange Mali 1 . Sandji is a mobile phone platform for the dissemination of climate data that enables farmers to request, for example, for rainfall forecasts in good time in order to anticipate actions to be taken in the face of uncertainty. In Niger, we considered the daily alerts shared by the national meteorological agency via the WhatsApp (social media) platform, and rural community radio broadcasts. These alerts were compared with real rainfall measured with rain gauges installed in the villages.To assess the accuracy of seasonal forecasts, we compared the 12-year Seasonal Forecasts of the Agro-hydro-climatic characteristics of the main rainy season for the Sudanian and Sahelian zones (PRESASS) with the daily meteorological data obtained from the National Meteorological Service of Niger from 2011 to 2022.The Brier Score was calculated for each forecast and alert by comparing the forecasted probability or alert status against the 1 Orange Mali is a mobile phone services provider that covers locations of the country including the study area. Bizo et al. 10.3389/fclim.2024.1345888 Frontiers in Climate 04 frontiersin.org observed outcome. The formula for calculating the Brier Score (Rouseau, 2001) is as follows:Where P represents the forecasted probability or alert status (0 or 1) and O represents the observed outcome (0 or 1). A lower Brier Score indicates higher forecast accuracy.To compute the Critical Success Index (CSI) (Qi et al., 2016) for climate alert forecast accuracy, we compared the forecasted events with the observed events. The CSI is a measure that quantifies the accuracy of detecting correctly forecasted events. The formula for calculating the CSI (Rouseau, 2001;Qi et al., 2016) is as follows:The number of correctly forecasted events.-False Positive (FP): The number of forecasted events that did not occur. -False Negative (FN): The number of observed events that were not forecasted.The CSI ranges from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating perfect accuracy.Categorical accuracy is a metric used to evaluate rainfall alerts. It measures the proportion of correctly classified instances out of the total instances. To calculate categorical accuracy, we used the following formula (Gordon, 1982):• Sampling method We collected data from a sample of farmers benefiting from a climate information system. Farmers subscribe to electronic platforms (Sandji and Niger-Meteo WhatsApp groups) or local radio broadcast stations to receive climate information (rainfall forecasts, seasonal forecasts, floods, etc.). We calculated the sample size using the following formula (Cochran, 1963): A confidence level of 97, 3% margin of error, and 70% of population proportion were estimated.( )Elevation map of the study area. We collected Data through individual interviews. The collected data is analyzed using appropriate statistical techniques, including descriptive statistics and inferential analysis such as analysis of variance (ANOVA). ANOVA is used to assess the significance of differences in the perceived socio-economic gains and time savings among different regions of Niger.We used the following formula for ANOVA (Yang et al., 2014):3.1 Accuracy of rainfall forecast system in Mali and Niger 3.1.1 Evaluation of the accuracy of Sandji rainfall forecast service in Nara (Mali)Table 1 illustrates the percentage of successful and unsuccessful \"no rain\" alert in multiple villages of Nara region. The results show that the \"no rain\" forecasts were mostly accurate, with success rates ranging from 84 to 100%. The month of September was the most successful month for \"no rain\" alert, with a 100% success record rate in some localities across the region (Bezak; Breguenaré; Goumo; Guenebé; Kabida Bambara; Kabida Soniké; Keibane Maure; Keibane Soniké).In unsuccessful alerts, recorded percentages are found much lower than in successful alerts, with values ranging from 0 to 15%. The highest failure rate was observed in Dyagaba and Nara villages in August and October (Table 1).• Proportion of successful and unsuccessful \"rain alert\" Table 2 below shows the proportion of successful and unsuccessful \"rain forecasts\" in the Nara region of Mali. The result shows that for \"rain alert\" forecasts, the success rate is much higher than the failure rate, excluding the months of September and November when the two rates were 50-50 in Soutourabougou and Moussawelli.The unsuccessful alert rates are mostly lower than successes with percentages varying from relatively low to moderate (Table 2) • Sandji forecast service accuracy using BS an CSI Figure 2 shows the accuracy of the Sandji alert system in Nara (Mali) using Critical Success Index (CSI) and Brier Score (BS) during the year 2022. The high proportion of forecasted and achieved rainfall activities lead to a Critical Success Index too close to 1 (0.91 in August and 0.94 in September, October and November). The same trend is observed with the Brier Score, i.e., very close to 0 (0.05 in August and September and 0.25 and 0.06 in October and November, respectively).• Proportion of successful and unsuccessful \"No rain alert\"Table 3 shows the percentage of successful and unsuccessful \"No rain alert\" from the national meteorological agency in Magaria department of Niger during the months of May-September. In May, the predictions were 100% accurate. They were more than 77% correct in June, with failure rates ranging from 0 to 22.2%. The same trend continued through September, although the highest failure rates of up to 45% in localities including Agoual gamji, Jan mage, Katirge, were recorded in September.• Proportion of successful and unsuccessful \"rain alert\" Table 4 presents the success and failure rates of \"rain alert\" by village during the months of June-September 2022. No \"rain alert\" was issued in May. In June, the rate of unsuccessful alert was much higher (75-100%) than the number of successful cases (0-25%). In July, the failure rate still prevailed, ranging from 55.6 to 100%, compared to success rate of only 11.1 to 44%. Comparatively, in August, the success rates, 50 to 87.5%, were higher than the failure rates, i.e., 12.5 to 50%. Finally, in September, the success versus failure rates were almost the same.• Meto alert system accuracy using BS an CSI in Magaria (Niger) Figure 3 illustrates the evaluation of rainfall forecasts using the Critical Success Index and Brier Score. In May, the Critical Success Index of 1 and a Brier Score of 0 imply that the rainfall forecasts predicted the occurrence of rainfall accurately. This indicates the effectiveness of the forecasting system in predicting rain events. The least accurate forecasts were observed in August with a CSI of 0.69 and a BS of 0.43.Maradi, Zinder and Diffa, NigerFigure 4 below shows the proportion of correct and wrong forecasts for rainy season onset, dry spells at the beginning of the season, quantity of annual rainfall, occurrence of dry spells at the end of the season, and date of the end of the season.The forecasts of the rainy season onset were mostly accurate, with success rates ranging from 58 to 83%. However, Diffa recorded the highest failure rate (42%), almost half of the total forecast. For the date of the end of the season, the results also show a very high success rate, i.e., over 80% in all regions. Regarding forecasts of dry spells at season onset, the same trend continues, with fairly high success rates in Diffa (90%), Maradi (70%) and Zinder (80%). Comparatively, forecasts of dry spells at the end of the season indicate a slightly high failure rate (40%) in Diffa and Maradi. Finally, for total cumulative rainfall, the forecasts were correct except in Diffa where the failure rate was 42%.• Evaluation of the accuracy of seasonal forecast parameters Figure 5 shows that all forecasts are accurate with a > 60% categorical accuracy, and a BS varying from 0.2 to 0.4 in Maradi, Zinder and Diffa. For dry spells, the most accurate forecasts were observed at the biggening of the season and the end of the rainy season, with a BS of 0.1 and a 90% categorical accuracy in Diffa region. The least accurate forecast was observed for total rainfall in Zinder and rainy season onset in Diffa with a BS of 0.4 and a categorical accuracy of 58%.The use of climate information and socioeconomic benefit for a better climate risk reduction The result indicates that in Mali, producers received much more rainfall forecasts (Figure 5A). Seasonal forecasts constitute the second most common climate information received by farmers in the surveyed area. The least frequently received climate information was the dry spells forecast. Comparatively, in Niger, seasonal forecasts represent a significant portion of the information received (Figure 5C), followed by flood prediction (45% in Maradi, 61% in Diffa and 55% in Zinder) and rain forecasts (49% in Diffa, 60% in Maradi and 50% in Zinder). The least-received forecasts are: dry spell, temperature, and wind.In terms of channels of reception, in Mali, the surveyed farmers affirmed local radio broadcasts and SMS alerts to be the most used channels for climate information delivery (Figure 5B). However, a small portion of the group (12% at Gueneibe, 1% at Nara and 3% Ouagadou) affirmed that the farmers' organization has been another channel for climate information dissemination.The same communication channels are used in Niger. Farmers' organizations emerge as the primary source, providing reliable climate information to a significant group of beneficiaries (Figure 5D). Additionally, farmers rely on information shared by local radio station (88% in Diffa), emphasizing the significance of large audience of this mean of communication in rural areas. Neighbors and parents (from 18 to 32%) play a crucial role too, acting as a reliable channel for dissemination of climate information. Likewise, the role of extension services (11 to 14%) and mobile phone calls (12 to 17%) in delivering climate information shall not be neglected (Figure 5D).Figure 7 illustrates the actions taken by farmers after receiving climate information and some socio-economic implications.At the beginning of the rainy season, these actions encompass selecting the right variety, determining the optimal sowing period, manure application, and plowing periods (Figure 6A). Some producers made informed decisions with regard to choice of production site, land preparation, and the site size.From the actions taken, the analysis of variance discloses a significant difference (p value = 0.0001) between regions in terms of economic gain and time saving. Farmers in Diffa experienced a substantial gain of approximately FCFA 25,000, followed by Zinder farmers (≈ FCFA 17,000). Moreover, farmers in Maradi also registered a significant gain, though slightly lower, i.e., ≈ FCFA 15,000 (Figure 5D). In addition to economic gains, the results reveal substantial time savings. Farmers in different regions could save invaluable hours: 36 h in Zinder, 35 h in Maradi, and 25 h in Diffa (Figure 6D).    Evaluation of the accuracy of the Sandji alert system in Nara (Mali) using Critical Success Index (CSI) and Brier Score (BS) during the year 2022 for a better climate risk reduction (TP, True Positive; FP, False Positive; FN, False Negative). The actual actions taken by farmers based on climate information received during the rainy season include: modification of sowing period, period of fertilizer application: manure, NPK, urea (Figure 6B). Other actions such as change of period of pesticide application, manual weeding, earthing up/weeding are taken by a few number of surveyed farmers.During the rainy season also, the analysis of variance of the survey results shows very significant differences (p value = 0.0001) between regions, both in terms of economic benefits and reduction of wasted man/h time. Diffa recorded the highest gain of ≈ CFAF 15,000, followed by Zinder (CFAF 12,000), and Maradi (CFAF 11,000). In terms of reduction of man/h time loss, the highest number of lost hours recovered by farmers was recorded in Maradi (22 h), followed by Zinder (13 h). In Diffa, the man/h time saving was lower (11 h), but equally significant per hectare (Figure 6E).At the end of the rainy season, modifications primarily focus on period of harvesting (>90%) and grain processing (Figure 6C). Applying the ANOVA reveals a high significant difference between region (p value = 0.001) in terms of economic gain and time saving. Farmers in Maradi experienced a substantial gain of ≈ CFA 62,000, reflecting the positive influence of informed decision-making on their economic incomes. Following Maradi is Zinder, where the economic gain was also remarkable, i.e., approximately CFA 54,000. Additionally, farmers in Diffa also experienced a substantial gain, albeit slightly lower, at ≈ CFA 42,000 (Figure 6F). Furthermore, farmers in different regions saved invaluable hours: roughly 9 h at Diffa and Maradi, and 7 h at Zinder.The discussion covered the outcomes achieved from the evaluation of climate forecast tools.The general theme presents the commendable accuracy of these tools that provide farmers with diverse climate information, thus enabling them to make informed decisions, resulting in significant financial and time gains and preparedness to climate risk. The positive correlation between the effectiveness of climate services and farmers' agricultural decision-making highlights the invaluable role these tools play in improving productivity and resource management. Globally, the results of this study demonstrate that climate information services play a crucial role in supporting agricultural decision-making in Mali and Niger. Farmers perceive these services as highly reliable and important for making informed decisions. The good accuracy of seasonal forecasts and rainfall alerts further reinforces the effectiveness of these services. The use of climate information services not only helps farmers increase their income but also saves their time and efforts, ultimately contributing to improved agricultural productivity, risk management and sustainability.In Mali, our result highlights the high accuracy of Sandji alert system, with a true detection rate much higher than the failure rate. This underscores the effectiveness of the Sandji alert system in detecting and predicting rainfall. This result proves the alert system's ability to provide farmers in the Nara region with the necessary   information to make the right decisions and cope with climate uncertainty and risk. An accurate rainfall forecast plays a crucial role in climate adaption and mitigation strategies, especially for small-scale farmers who heavily rely on rainfed agriculture (Roudier et al., 2016;Ouédraogo et al., 2018). Another major advantage of the Sandji system is the permanent availability of climatic information. This result confirms Ouédraogo et al. (2018) study on the willingness of farmers to pay for climate information, due to its importance for them. To enhance the uptake of climate-smart agricultural practices and improve farmers' preparedness for climate-related risks, accurate weather forecasts are of utmost importance. By integrating accessible and digital channels of climate information delivery, we can bridge the gap between meteorological departments and small-scale farmers. It's important to note that the result shows a more accurate prediction for \"no rain\" alerts than for \"rain\" alerts. Hence a need to further improve the model. In Niger, the findings of this study highlight the accuracy and effectiveness of climate information services in supporting agricultural decision-making in Niger. The results indicate that climate information services are highly reliable and important for making informed decisions. This result corroborates with Amadi and Chigbu (2014) on the need for accurate and timely weather and climate services. Additionally, the assessment of the accuracy of seasonal forecasts and rainfall alerts using both the Brier Score and the Critical Success Index indicates good accuracy of these services. Globally, the result is undoubtedly encouraging as it demonstrates the positive impact of advanced forecasting techniques and the dedication put into developing accurate alert systems. Such information can greatly assist decision-making processes in sectors such as agriculture, ultimately benefiting the communities in the villages of Magaria (Niger) as demonstrated by Nkiaka et al. (2019) in their research conducted in Nigeria. In deduction, this result highlights the success of rainfall alert systems in various villages in the study area. The significant percentage of successful alerts and very good indexes ensure the reliability of the system's predictions and serves as an invaluable tool for the local communities and organizations operating in these regions. As illustrated by Awolala et al. (2022) in their results, accurate climate information makes a major contribution to risk preparedness. However, the results also expose a notable trend in which forecasts show greater accuracy in predicting \"no rain\" as compared to \"rain\" alerts. This discrepancy represents a potential challenge in the accuracy of weather forecast during the wettest period of the farming season. It is important that farmers and stakeholders are made aware of this challenge, as well as the need for enhancement. Future improvements in modeling and data assimilation techniques could improve the reliability of rain alerts, thus narrowing the current gap in forecast accuracy between \"rain\" and \"no rain\" alerts.It is important to notice the transferability of the framework presented in this paper to other African countries. The potential for transferability of the framework highlights its relevance and applicability in addressing climate risks in the region. Additionally, the framework demonstrated significant accuracy and theories that have been widely demonstrated and applied in coping and adaptation strategies. Nevertheless, the perishable character of climate information requires that the framework can be implemented in diverse zones if only climate forecasts are available in the zone and network coverage is enough to provide accurate data to end beneficiaries. Therefore, considering the unique needs and challenges  The evaluation of the accuracy of seasonal forecasts and rainfall alerts using metrics such as the Brier Score and Critical Success Index further strengthens the notion of effectiveness of climate information services. The good performance of these forecasts and alerts implies that they provide reliable and timely information to farmers, which aids in planning agricultural activities (Hansen et al., 2011). This plays a crucial role on another important aspect of the study which is farmers' perception of the reliability and usefulness of climate information services. The high level of trust in these services suggests that farmers welcome them as dependable sources of information    which suggest more immediate modifications, often on day-to-day bases. The flexibility of seasonal forecasts enables farmers to make strategic decisions, considering long-term trends and potential variations in weather patterns. Comparatively, alerts play a crucial role in responding to short-term changes, offering farmers the ability to swiftly adapt to sudden weather shifts. Combining these approaches can create a comprehensive strategy, blending long-term planning with real-time adjustments for optimal farming outcomes.Climate services are created in multiple installments depending on the producer's preferences and the optimal time period for the message to be useful, because climate information is a highly perishable input. One of the essential components of climate information is the distribution channels, as they form the primary means of conveying messages from the researcher or expert to the ultimate beneficiary, the farmer (Vincent et al., 2020).The type of climate information that producers receive the most in Niger is seasonal forecasts, followed by flood and drought forecasts. These informations are relayed through channels such as farmers' organizations and radio stations. The two channels play key roles in disseminating the CIS. This result differs from the finding by Seydou et al. (2023), who argue that producers mandated by farmer organizations to attend seasonal forecast forum do not share back their knowledge with the members who did not attend the meeting. In Mali, producers of the surveyed sample received more rainfall forecasts, then seasonal forecasts. In Mali and Niger, rural radio stations play an important role in disseminating climate information. However, in Mali more than in Niger, farmers also favor SMS alerts which are heavily used (Traoré et al., 2018). These results confirm many studies in the subregion showing that over 90% of producers who have acted upon climate information received via mobile telephone messaging to improve farming practices, have actually achieved an increase of their production (Traoré et al., 2018;Sidibé et al., 2021;Traore et al., 2021).In summary, farmers receive more seasonal forecasts in Niger and more rain forecasts in Mali. In one context, the prevalence of rain forecasts in Mali suggests a focus on immediate weather events, potentially driven by the agrarian significance of rainfall. This could be attributed to efficient channels such as farmers' organizations, SMS services, local radios and extension services, serving as pivotal conduits for disseminating crucial meteorological information. Meanwhile, in Niger, the emphasis on seasonal forecasts implies a broader consideration of long-term planning, with distinct channels playing a prominent role in ensuring that farmers receive this specific type of information. Understanding these changes in information flows is essential for optimizing communication strategies and improving farmer preparedness and decision-making attitude in diverse agricultural activities.The findings of this study have revealed that farmers have successfully converted climate information into actionable measures for their farming practices. Specifically, the analysis focused on the utilization of seasonal forecasts and their impact on different farming periods, as well as the incorporation of rain forecasts, dry spells, temperature fluctuations, and other day-to-day modifications. The conversion of climate information into concrete actions by farmers is of critical importance, considering the inherent uncertainties and fluctuations associated with weather patterns. Our study highlights the Modification of farming activities and the socio-economic benefits of using climate information for a better climate risk reduction (A = modification of farming activities at the biggening of the farming season; B = modification of farming activities during the farming season; C = Modification of farming activities at the end of the farming season; D = socio-economic benefits of using climate information at the biggening of the farming season; E = socio-economic benefits of using climate information during the farming season; F = socio-economic benefits of using climate information at the end of the farming season). Bizo et al. 10.3389/fclim.2024.1345888 Frontiers in Climate 13 frontiersin.org adaptive capacity of farmers to interpret and apply climate forecasts effectively, leading to more productive and resilient agricultural systems.One key aspect of this study is the use of seasonal forecasts, which allows farmers to modify their farming practices across the entire cropping season. By incorporating climate predictions, farmers can anticipate potential challenges and adjust their strategies accordingly. This proactive approach aids in modifying land preparation and planting periods, the site size, the choice of the variety for planting, and the overall management of various agricultural activities.Furthermore, the results show that rainfall forecasts play an important role in guiding farmers' decision-making process. Information about expected rainfall allows farmers to plan planting times, period for applying manure, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides, and weeding. This level of preparation significantly reduces the risks associated with erratic rainfall and improves crop yields.Another significant finding of this study is the positive impact of climate information services on the economic well-being of farmers. The analysis of variance in the survey results indicates significant regional differences in both economic benefits and reduction of time loss. In the beginning of the farming season, Farmers in Diffa experienced a substantial gain of approximately FCFA 25,000, followed by Zinder at ≈ FCFA 17,000. Furthermore, farmers in Maradi also logged a significant gain, although slightly lower at ≈ FCFA 15,000. During the rainy season, Diffa recorded the largest increase of ≈vFCFA 15,000, followed by Zinder with FCFA 12,000, and Maradi FCFA 11,000. In terms of time loss reduction, the highest number of hours saved by farmers was recorded in Maradi (22 h), followed by Zinder (13 h). In Diffa, the average saved hours was the lowest (11 h) but also significant per hectare. At the end of the season, Diffa stands out with the highest economic gain of approximately FFA 15,000, followed by Zinder at FCFA 12,000 and Maradi at FCFA 11,000. Notably, Maradi experienced the most substantial reduction in time loss with an average saving of 22 h per farmer, while Zinder saved 13 h on average. Although Diffa recorded the smallest time savings (11 h per hectare), the impact remains significant. This result confirms the findings by Roudier et al. (2016) andSeydou et al. (2023), in terms of socio economic benefit of climate services. Definitely, by using these services, farmers are able to make decisions that not only lead to increased crop yields but also contribute in saving their man/h time and efforts. The timely and accurate information provided by these services allow farmers to adjust their agricultural practices and take advantage of favorable weather conditions, thereby increasing their productivity and profitability. Moreover, the ability to save work time and efforts through well-informed decisionmaking allows farmers to allocate their resources more effectively, leading to improved efficiency.This study provides evidence of the effectiveness of climate information services to support agricultural decision-making in Mali and Niger. The results show that farmers appreciate and have trust in these services that they consider as a reliable source of information. This awareness allows farmers to make informed decisions, leading to better agricultural practices and, furthermore, to implementing better climate adaptive farming systems for climate risk reduction and better adaptation to changing weather patterns.Assessing the accuracy of seasonal forecasts and precipitation warnings using Brier Scores and Critical Success Indicators further illustrates the effectiveness of climate information services. These services provide reliable and timely information, thereby helping farmers plan agricultural activities more effectively. Accurate seasonal forecasts also enable farmers to make informed decisions across all seasonal farming operations, while timely rainfall warnings help adjust daily decisions for better risk management.Furthermore, there is a positive impact of climate information services on farmers' economic incomes. By using these services, farmers can make decisions that increase profits and productivity. The ability to adjust agricultural activities based on reliable information allows for optimal resource allocation and taking advantage of favorable weather conditions. Additionally, the time and effort saved through informed decisions improve the efficiency.In a general way, seasonal forecasts are relevant for yearly planting activities planning whereas rainfall alerts are day-to-day decisionmaking tools. Incorporating seasonal forecasts and rainfall alerts into farming activities planning can help optimize decision-making and increase the chances of climate risk management and successful crop production. Therefore, the study recommends the use of climate information services for national climate policy, projects and programs for climate-related risk reduction, and building sustainable socio-economic resilience of the farmers in Mali and Niger.","tokenCount":"6266"}