Maize research for stress environments : proceedings of the Fourth Eastern and Southern Africa Regional maize conference

The number of farm families in Africa that are able to produce enough food to feed themselves throughout the year is declining. Traditional mechanisms for raising food sup.ply have included increasing the area under cultivation, and shifting cultivation. However, the closing of the agricultural frontier over much of Africa makes these options unsustainable into the future. Progress in changing the unsatisfactory trends in smallholder agriculture will require a revised operational paradigm involving close and effective collaboration between the variety of organizations with a concern for improving the welfare of African farmers. Critical to this effort will be an effective mechanism for bringing the farmer directly into the research process, as well as more balanced emphasis between investments in crop improvement and those in crop management. OVERVIEW service agencies, as well as local farmer groups, NCOs, and other rural associations, is needed to This is a tale of a growing CrISIS in African ensure that priorities are set correctly, that the right agriculture. It deals with a riddle, whose questions are asked, and that the solutions found are dimensions have grown increasingly apparent over delivered quickly to those who need them. While the years, and which is generating great volumes of the agenda is complex, and the organisation needed literature dealing with possible causes and solutions. difficult, there is clear evidence that these In this paper, a small piece of the overall puzzle is approaches can yield substantial benefits to examined. Maize is a major food crop in southern smallholders and that they are practical in the and eastern Africa. It is widely grown by unpromising world of African agricultural smallholders, and forms an important part of the improvement. transformation of smallholder agricultural systems that has taken place this century. But, despite THE BREAKDOWN OF TRADITIONAL considerable and commendable efforts in technology SYSTEMS development at both the national' and the This story is well known and onlyrequires summary international level, agricultural productivity here. African countries have an economic structure performance is well below that necessary to help heavily reliant on agriculture. The sector typically create strong, healthy African economies. generates around 40% of GNP, employs 70 to 90% of No single quick solution is apparent for this the labour force, and, except for oil or mineral problem. Nor is one likely to be found. But there exporters, provides a similar proportion of exports. are actions which can be taken today, and which, if Population growth rates are high, with limited carefully planned and coordinated, can lead to a opportunities for industrial or urban employment reversal of the present undesirable trends. In this (World Bank, 1993). In most countries, much of the paper, two major possible foci are outlined. Firstly, population still lives in the countryside but the there is a need to match the advances in crop opportunities for increased incomes there also are improvement (through breeding) with scarce. Thus it is on agricultural growth that developments in crop management. Too often poor development strategies that embrace broad based agricultural productivity is blamed on poor enhancements to employment, export earnings, management methods by farmers. If that is the case, income distribution, and human nutrition will then the methods accessible to the farmer are clearly depend. deficient -few farmers choose to be poor. The The emphasis in this paper will be on smallholder obligation is on the researcher to work with the agriculture. In Africa, smat1holders occupy much of farmer to find and refine management methods that the available agricultural land (although, in southern address real farmer problems. Africa particularly, historical factors, until recently, Secondly, and directly associated with the search for closed the more productive ecologies to them). improved crop management methods, a concerted Smallholders are also the largest employers of effort, involving public and private agricultural labour. The numbers of smallholders, their latent