improving productivity and resilience for the rural poor through enhanced use of crop varietal...
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Improving productivity and resilience for the rural poor through enhanced use of crop varietal diversity in integrated production and pest management (IPPM)
Devra Jarvis, Analyzing Diversity, Damage, and Yield data from Crop Varietal Mixtures, 20-24 April 2015 Italy
Vulnerability in agriculture: increased probability of future crop loss
Large areas planted to monocultures of leading cultivars (high genetic uniformity)
Prod
uctiv
ity
Vuln
erab
ility
Remember the wide-scale famine caused by the 1840 Irish potato blight?
• Sugarcane rust attack in Cuba (losses up to 500 million USD)• Rice blast epidemics in Korea - 30-40% yield losses. • Black sigatoka in Central American countries loosing nearly 47% of their
banana yield
Earlier actions
Resistance BreedingModern varieties, are frequently overcome by new races of pathogens and pests in only a few cropping seasons.
PesticidesHarmful impact on human and environmental health
Very limited use of the opportunities offered by effective management of intra-specific diversity (local crop varieties) within the agricultural ecosystem in IPPM strategies.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)• Agronomic management techniques to modify the environment
around modern cultivars and reduce the need for pesticides.
Crops: food security of small farmers; different breeding systems
• Coverage of different resistance gene system (where resistance is controlled by both major and minor genes)
• Transmission systems: seed-borne, soil-borne, and air-borne• Plant organ affected: leaf, stem, seeds and roots
Host - pest/disease systems (known variation in resistance)
Genetic Diversity(Y)
LowPro
du
cti
vit
y
(yie
ld,
qual
ity ,
cultu
ral g
ains
)
(Z)
Vu
lner
abili
ty(X
)
Site AHigh XLow YHigh Z
Site BLow XHigh YHigh Z
High Z
High X
High Y
AHD Brown, 2012
Prob
abili
ty o
f cro
p lo
ss in
the
futu
re
This is the axis we can maneuver
Including crop varietal diversity in pest and disease management strategies
Prod
uctiv
ity
Vuln
erab
ility
Reduce crop loss from pest and disease damage Varietal mixtures, improved resistance in local varieties, improved productivity of resistant traditional varieties, improved genetic diversity management
(2) Reduce vulnerability – reduce the probability of crop loss in the future
Increased number of different landraces with different resistance available to farmers
(3) Provide alternatives to pesticides
Monitoring the impact of adding in the element of crop varietal diversity into IPPM strategies:
Component 1: Practices and Procedures to determine and optimally use crop genetic diversity to reduce pest and disease pressures
Identify and compile farmer knowledge and practices Conduct experiments using intra-specific diversity
Determining when and where intra-specific diversity is the answer (or not) – FGD, HH, Field Lab trialsStep 1. Are pests and diseases a problem?
Step 2. Does variation for resistance among and within traditional crop varieties exist for the target disease
Step 3. Does this variation reduce disease and pest damage and vulnerability in the field
Step 4. Is there variation in the population structure of pests and pathogens over time and space (are we are dealing with a variable pathogen or pest species, and the nature of the variation)
Step 5. Is crop varietal diversity accessible to farmers?
Step 6. How are seed systems affecting pests and diseases movement?
Step 7. What “genetic choices” do farmers make to minimize crop loss?
Crop varietal diversity assessment on farm – the problem of variety names and distinctiveness
Diversity fairs
Focus group discussions
Individual interviews
Research protocol (involves farmers and scientists)Identifying pest and disease and host resistance
Pest/disease descriptionPlant part affected and stage affected
Disaggregated data by gender, age, social groups
Var
ieti
es
Pests and diseases
Scoring resistance of varieties to pests and diseases
Varietal diversity in field resistance to black sigatoka
Variety diversity to nematode damage
Lower number of functional leaves = more disease
Functional leaves
Agama, Vera, Vaca, Cabanilla, and Suarez, 2011
The concepts of richness and evenness
Richness = 9 (local varieties): A=B
Evenness (less dominance): A>B
Farm A Farm B
Are
a p
lan
ted
Different varieties (v)V1
V2 V3
V4
left right
In front
SPOT 3
left right
In front
left right
In front
left right
In front
left right
In front
SPOT 5
SPOT 1
SPOT 6
SPOT 2
left right
In front
SPOT 4
GPS Reading
Local mixture of 3 barley landraces (Shangrila)
Weevils
ALS Anthracnose
Richness Richness
Simpson (evenness) Simpson (evenness)
Richness VS Percentage Disease Panicle for Rice Blast
Wu Shuo, Yang Xue Hui, Peng Huaxian, Wang Yunyue, 2012
Measuring vulnerability reduction – or the probability of future crop loss
F-test says that the disease variance decrease with the increase of richness
Maize from Sichuan: Richness vs Damage
Any relationship between agro-morphological traits diversity and disease incidence for traditional and modern varieties?
Peng et al in progress
On farm maize experiment, planted in Zhaojue, Sichuan Province, China (2009)
Sichuan traditional varieties
Yunnan traditional varieties
Modern Varieties
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on agro-morphological traits
Damage variance: modern vs traditional varieties (Zhaojue 2009 experimental trials)
● 3 groups of variety● 2 different groups of landraces● Different level of disease
incidence among the three groups
Peng et al in progress
Photo: Joyce Adokorach
Can increasing the level of diversity in a field, in a controlled selected repeatable way, with well chosen components, give a benefit over monocultures, or over treatments with less diversity?
Musa spp. (banana, plantain) mixture trials - Uganda
Population growth in this field was observed to be very low compared to expected increase of 1000 adult weevils per year
Mulmba et al., unpublished data
Wee
vil
den
sity
per
he
ctar
e
Component 2: Enhanced Pro-Poor Capacity and Leadership of farmers and other stakeholders to use local crop genetic diversity to manage pests and diseases
ECUADOR: Improving farmers knowledge
Farmer meetings: children (schools) and adult (promoters)
Training manuals: basic aspects of pest biology and diseases
management, basic aspects of crop diversity
China
Conserved total 38 local rice varieties,73.68% is upland rice and 9 local maize varieties from Menghai county in Xiding community seedbank.
Posters also were put on the wall of the government and hospital
Morocco - Materials
UGANDA: Capacity building/ awareness raising activities
Participatory Research with farmers including:
Trials establishment
Monitoring
Data collection
Scaling up and benefit sharing
(i) Damage Abatement Framework
Daniela Horna et al.
Replicating and Adapting good practices
Achieving project outcomes
(2) Increased quality diverse varieties to farmers
(1) Crop losses reduced
(3) Portfolio of diverse rich practices
Crop losses reduced by 10% from reduced pest and disease damage for at least 20% of the farms in project sites
1. FDG, HH survey with On-farm observations show increased diversity of crop varieties distribution across farmers’ fields corresponded to a decrease in average crop damage levels and reduced risk to future damage
2. Cross-site, on-farm experiments identified traditional varieties with more effective resistance to pests and diseases when grown outside their home sites
3. Increased production (yield and/or less crop loss) from clean diverse sets of seeds provided from community seed banks, seed fairs, and other project for small holder farmers in the sites (% or amount yield increase; % or amount of decrease in crop loss)
4. Intra-specific (variety) mixtures with non-uniform resistance tested in all countries and specific cases where mixtures out-performed their component monocultures in reducing crop damage and increasing yields identified for further testing
Increased number of different landraces with different resistance available to farmers (amount of seed; number of varieties; number of farmers reached)
Measured by:
• Change in the amount of diversity (number/richness; and evenness) in farmers’ field; Change in type: agromorphological types, molecular characteristics
• From community genebank (number of varieties accessed each year, amount of seeds accesses. Characterization of the materials.
• Change in local seed suppliers in supplying traditional varieties or enhanced local varieties – number of seeds supplied (quantity of seeds, number of varieties, number of people distributed too).
A portfolio of diversity-rich practices provide alternatives to pesticide use to minimize crop damage in project sites
1. Examples of linking good agronomic practices with intra-specific crop diversity to management pest and diseases to improve production
2. Examples of locally identified resistant materials integrated into national resistance breeding procedures with farmer selection criteria
3. Progress in developing or using a damage abatement methodology and/or choice experiments developed to determine economic trade-offs using crop genetic diversity versus other IPM, resistant breed varieties or chemical input methods
Acknowledgements: Participating farmers, local, national and international institutes, organisations and partners, IFAD, SDC, DGIS, FAO, UNEP/GEF, and Ford Foundation.
Global cooperation: National partners lead the way!!!
http://agrobiodiversityplatform.org/cropbiodiversity/