Record Details

Seven seasons of learning and engaging smallholder farmers in the drought-prone areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through Tropical Legumes, 2007–2014

OAR@ICRISAT

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/9635/
 
Title Seven seasons of learning and engaging
smallholder farmers in the drought-prone areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through
Tropical Legumes, 2007–2014
 
Creator Monyo, E S
Varshney, R K
 
Subject Smallholder Farmers
South Asia
Chickpea
Pigeonpea
Groundnut
Drought
Legume Crops
Sub-Saharan Africa
 
Description Tropical Legumes II (TL II) is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored project implemented
by three International Agricultural Research Centers – International Crops Research Institute
for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and
International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA). The project aims to improve the livelihoods
of smallholder farmers in the drought-prone areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia
(SA) through improved productivity and production of six major grain legumes – chickpea,
common bean, cowpea, groundnut, pigeonpea and soybean. The project activities were
implemented in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi,
Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe in SSA, and India and Bangladesh in SA.
The project has been running for the past two phases: Phase I (2007 – 2011) and Phase II
(2012 – 2014).
The project is designed to help the smallholder farmers to overcome constraints, such as
drought, pests, diseases and lack of improved seed varieties. TL II is expected to enhance
the productivity by at least 20% through increased adoption covering 30% of legume area,
strengthening national breeding programs and generating at least $1.3 billion in added value.
This has resulted in significant achievements. The active breeding programs are now in place
in all 15 countries. New seed varieties (163) have been released and are fast replacing the
old ruling seed varieties. Thirty seven national partners were trained at MSc and PhD levels.
As a result of the enhanced skills and knowledge of seed value chain actors, seed production
significantly increased by 221% (from 139,048 to 446,359 tons) over the project period. The
program adopted an inclusive approach for the poor, especially women, through promotion
of various innovative approaches, such as small seed packs, seed loans and decentralized
production schemes.
Since 2007, dissemination of improved varieties has been adopted on at least 2 million hectares
and more than $448 million has been generated from the project funding and nearly $976
million from the project and investment partners. Even when using the adoption rates data from
adoption and expert opinion surveys, the aggregate gross benefits from TL II-related modern
legume varieties is estimated at about $978 million, which is still far above the total
TL II investment grossly compounded at $48 million. In effect, for each dollar invested, the
project generated $9 with direct project investment or $20 with partnership’s investment and
again $20 when using adoption rate based estimate.
These successes and associated challenges will be discussed in detail in subsequent chapters of
this book.
 
Publisher ICRISAT
 
Date 2016
 
Type Book
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/9635/1/Seven%20Seasons%20Of%20Learnings_book_Tropical%20Legumes.pdf
Monyo, E S and Varshney, R K (2016) Seven seasons of learning and engaging smallholder farmers in the drought-prone areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through Tropical Legumes, 2007–2014. ICRISAT, Patancheru. ISBN 978-92-9066-568-7