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Systems, scaling, and suitable mechanization for smallholder farmers

A new approach is helping to extend the benefits of international maize and wheat research to more farmers and consumers in developing countries in transformative and lasting ways.

Photo: A local service provider uses a bed planter on farms near Barisal.

Known among development experts as “scaling,” the approach has enabled a mechanization and irrigation project by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA-MI) to foster and promote more than 3,300 local operators of small-scale agricultural machinery who serve approximately 213,000 farmers on more than 100,000 hectares in southern Bangladesh.

With more than 1,250 inhabitants per square kilometer, Bangladesh is among the world’s most densely populated countries and depends on intensive agriculture for its food security and nearly one-sixth of its economy.

“Scaling” is about expanding appropriate technologies and practices to benefit many farmers and consumers with lasting improvements– for example, the permanent adoption of more profitable and climate-smart methods such as conservation agriculture to grow crops, according to Jack McHugh, a senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), who leads CSISA and the mechanization and irrigation project.

Photo: Padma engineering workshop, Rajshahi

“To support local agriculture machinery services, CSISA-MI assists more than 76 mechanics and workshops, 80 spare parts shops, and over 120 machinery dealers, many of which did not exist a year ago and may not have come into being, had we not focused on certain scaling elements,” said McHugh, explaining that CSISA-MI aims to boost dry-season agriculture in southern Bangladesh through adoption of surface water irrigation and right-sized agricultural machinery services.

McHugh and colleagues decided to examine project successes and constraints employing CIMMYT's Scaling Scan tool in 2018, as CSISA-MI was facing its final year. Using around 40 tactical questions, the Scaling Scan walks users through diagnostic steps to assess and score a project’s ambitions, business plan, value chain and collaborative linkages, and other real-world factors that impinge on its lasting impact and possible external consequences.

“The clinical analysis we conducted following the scaling scan helped us to re-focus our efforts, leading among other things to dramatically reducing the number of target sub-districts and concentrating on those with the highest market potential, “ McHugh explained. “The success of CSISA-MI’s final year can be directly attributed to the scaling scan.”

Two-wheel tractor service provider, Ethiopia

Mechanization for smallholders across regions

Similar projects led by CIMMYT and partners in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia are providing technical support and business advice to promote appropriate mechanization among smallholder farmers, according to Jelle Van Loon, a CIMMYT mechanization specialist.

“Around half of the world’s food is grown by smallholder farmers in low- or middle-income countries, largely using hand labor,” said Van Loon. “They are being forced to intensify and become more competitive, as the costs of labor and farm inputs rise, while many youths and working-age men migrate to cities to find work.”

Van Loon and colleagues are testing and promoting technology such as two-wheel tractors and related implements that are suited to small fields, sloped lands, and rural households unable to afford expensive equipment and often headed by women.

(L-R): Visitors test tractors during a field day in Zimbabwe; New manufacturers are trained in Harare; A youth group provides mechanization services in Ethiopia.

“Many farmers cannot afford or obtain credit to purchase even small-scale equipment,” Van Loon said. “So our projects are helping to establish low-cost rental centers or local entrepreneurs able to purchase equipment and sow, harvest, or thresh grain for farmers willing to pay for such services.”

To better address the constraints for such operations, Van Loon and his colleagues applied the Scaling Scan to CIMMYT-led mechanization initiatives in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mexico, and Zimbabwe, in addition to CSISA-MI project countries.

“Preliminary results suggest that, rather than subsidizing equipment, we should incentivize potential clients to access machine services while linking potential service providers with machinery dealers and mechanics,” Van Loon explained. “The demand for services actually appears to outstrip the supply in all three regions. Poor distribution networks for machines and spare parts are a problem, especially in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, where there is little awareness about the potential financial benefits for farmers to hire machine services.”

Van Loon noted that more extensive adoption of appropriate machinery is held back by smallholders’ lack of financing and a long-term need for technical and business training for service providers.

Finding system “sweet spots” for change

“Scaling draws on the notion that technology adoption relies largely on parallel and supporting innovations in other sectors such as finance, public governance, and capacities,” said Lennart Woltering, CIMMYT scaling advisor who is working with CGIAR and other partners to explain and apply scaling in agricultural research for development. “This helps bring our projects face-to-face with the complex realities they must address for success, as well as fostering a more demand-driven, systemic approach so that whatever we change with our intervention continues beyond the project.”

The idea, explained Woltering, is that systems of people, relationships, and norms perpetuate the problems that development efforts seek to address. “Accordingly, systems thinking and tools like the scaling scan can help find leverage points for the same system to perpetuate a solution,” he said. “Successful scaling requires a mindset that critically distinguishes between artificial changes due to a project and changes in the system.”

Key partners for scaling include the PPP lab (a consortium of SNV, Erasmus University, Aqua4All and CDI Wageningen) and MasAgro (a partnership between the Mexican government and CIMMYT). Essential funding is provided by Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Germany, and the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) supported by work mentioned in this piece.
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