Biocontrol News and Information

September 2004, Volume 25 No. 3

• General News
• IPM Systems
• Training News
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IPM Systems

This section covers integrated pest management (IPM) including biological control, and techniques that are compatible with the use of biological control or minimize negative impact on natural enemies.

Learning from Failure

Two participants in a smallholder IPM project in Malawi have written an account of its failures¹. Far from being driven by disenchantment, this atypical project output gives a useful assessment of the lessons that were learnt, and from which future projects can plan. Given the acknowledged poor uptake of IPM by smallholder farmers in Africa, this examination of the reasons for the failings of an IPM project is an important addition "to the small but growing literature that documents the learning process in technology development with and for resource-poor farmers."

In fact 'failure' is hardly a fair description of the Farming Systems IPM (FSIPM) project in southern Malawi, which was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). It largely met its project objectives, but in their paper the authors are assessing how far the project is likely to contribute to its 'supergoal' of 'Improved incomes for resource-poor farmers'. They say that although it is too early to make a formal assessment, in their opinion it is unlikely to succeed in this sense.

The 3-year FSIPM project was designed to a blueprint which assumed pests were the major constraint on smallholder production. Reconnaissance surveys and on-farm trials showed that this was not the case. The paper's authors (an agricultural economist and an IPM specialist) argued that, in Malawi at least, smallholder IPM will only be effective within the context of improving crop management (e.g. improved fertility and better varieties) to increase yields. Without higher yields there is no economic incentive for IPM. IPM strategies are more likely to be accepted by farmers if they are clearly linked to technologies which raise cash incomes.

It would be wrong to assume that the project continued blithely without addressing the perceived shortcomings as they became apparent. In fact, the project made the learning process an integral part of the project, rather than leaving it to later external review. During the project, which tested 18 IPM strategies (including three farmer-developed strategies) against seven major pests and diseases of maize, beans, pigeon pea and sweet potato, 'new learning' was identified at the end of each crop season, and both the mistaken assumption that preceded it and the changes made to the project as a result of the new learning were recorded. The recent paper summarizes these into six lessons.

1. The project addressed the wrong problem. The assumption that crop losses from pests were a critical constraint was incorrect. Although the smallholder farmers of southern Malawi do experience severe losses following pest outbreaks, this is less of an issue than poor soil fertility and the high price of fertilizer. IPM can have a role, but as one component of a broader integrated strategy to improve crop productivity, not as a stand-alone solution for improving smallholder livelihoods.
2. Farmers had little economic incentive for adopting IPM. Smallholders everywhere need to perceive an economic benefit before they will adopt a new farming technology. The assumption that the high costs of pesticides would make IPM (with reduced pesticide applications) economically attractive failed to take into account how little, if any, pesticide farmers apply to food crops. IPM does have potential in some vegetable cash crops where farmers are prepared to make greater investments (in pesticides, weeding, etc.) but this needs to be market-led and linked to wider efforts to raise productivity and incomes. Varietal resistance and classical biological control are the most attractive approaches from the farmers' point of view, since the costs are borne by the national agricultural system.
3. Pest damage varied between sites and seasons. The project was designed on the assumption that the target pests were equally serious everywhere in every season, which they were not. As a consequence, some of the on-farm trials gave inconclusive results. Reasons for farmers overestimating pest incidence varied from confusion over names to a wish to be included in a project that might provide valuable inputs. The problem was exacerbated by the need to fulfil socioeconomic targets for inclusion of different farming household types.
4. The 'basket' of technologies was almost empty. The project was expected to test IPM technologies developed in earlier projects but almost all of these proved inappropriate, so the project had the additional task of developing alternatives to test. A common misconception is that resource-poor farmers will adopt labour-intensive IPM practices. New interventions may also not be adopted because they conflict with something the farmer is already doing (whether or not it is effective), or they may prove to be economically beneficial only under certain circumstances (e.g. high pest pressure).
5. Standard research methods had their limitations. Statistical rigour and verification did not fit easily into the context of testing IPM strategies in the on-farm trials (especially in view of the problems described above), and while qualitative approaches lend themselves more easily to location-specific interventions and interventions that vary with the pattern of events, they are difficult to validate. Participatory rural appraisals (PRA) that use group discussion tended to produce a "chorus line of mutually agreed responses", and individual interviews provided better insight into how and why a farmer chooses a particular course of action.
6. Farmer participation was not optimized. Farmers found it difficult to assess the results of the on-farm trials; the factorial design included several treatments on the same plot and farmers did not have a directly comparable control to look at. Other interventions were difficult for farmers to understand because of gaps in their knowledge (e.g. about pest biology), and training in farmer field schools (FFS) was not always enough to allow them to evaluate a strategy as well as the researchers.

The paper goes on to discuss why, despite identifying failings and making efforts to redesign the project to meet farmers needs better, it still proved largely unsuccessful in contributing to the supergoal. Some successes are also highlighted. Why these succeeded where other interventions failed backs up the explanations for the failures.

• An IPM strategy needs to be market-led. In Malawi, pigeon pea has a large internal market and export potential. Farmers ranked it as their second most important cash crop, but Fusarium wilt was identified as a constraint to production. One IPM option assessed was planting with a new variety, ICEAP 00040. This proved to have a promising combination of attributes: as well as good resistance to Fusarium wilt, the new variety gave high yields with large seeds that are easy to process and have good taste and colour. These attributes led to a high demand for the new variety from processors and consumers, and it was approved for release.
• IPM needs to form part of improving crop management. Infestation by the parasitic weed Striga is a symptom of low soil fertility. One of the IPM strategies tested for its control involved green manures (Tephrosia vogelii, Crotolaria ochroleuca). These contributed directly to improving soil fertility and, although there was no evidence that Striga incidence was reduced, maize yields were increased. There is thus an economic incentive for this IPM technique and work on it is continuing as part of a soil fertility research programme.

The authors note that project learning usually takes second place to technical results. Where initial expectations are not met, donors and scientists are often reticent about exploring what went wrong. However this paper draws out the relevance of these issues for agricultural research with African smallholders in the firm belief that "a fertile error is better than a sterile truth."

¹Orr, A.; Ritchie, J.M. (2004) Learning from failure: smallholder farming systems and IPM in Malawi. Agricultural Systems 79: 31–54.
(Available online at www.sciencedirect.com)

Web: www.nri.org/research/farmsys-ipm.htm

Contact: Alastair Orr, Natural Resources Institute, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4TB, UK.
Email: A.W.Orr@gre.ac.uk

Mark Ritchie, The Old Cottage, Upper Street, Hollingbourne, Kent ME17 1 UJ, UK.
Email: JMarkRitchie@compuserve.com

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