Overview of Africa RISING –INVC partnership

Regis Chikowo

Background

The Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC) project is funded by the USAID under the United States Government’s global hunger and food security Feed the Future (FtF) initiative. INVC is essentially a development project that is targeting over 200,000 households across seven districts in Malawi (Mchinji, Lilongwe, Dedza, Ntcheu, Balaka, Machinga and Mangochi). The project aims to use country owned plans to sustainably reduce rural poverty and improve nutrition. The project addresses legume (soyabeans and groundnuts) and dairy value chains where as nutrition is being integrated in the value chains, and targets households with land holding size of 0.5 to 1.2 ha.

Early meetings with DAI_INVC

During mid 2012, the Africa RISING team had a series of meetings with different stakeholders in Malawi. During these meetings, we met with DAI representatives, who are implementing the INVC project. These early meetings identified the gaps that needed our attention.

  • We joined in the discussion with DAI and ICRISAT on the problems that are currently being encountered in the groundnut value chain in Malawi, and what is being done to reduce aflatoxins levels in the produce. Much of the groundnut produced in Malawi is destined for the confectionary export market. We were informed that wet-shelling of groundnut was popular as this reduces shelling breakages and dust emissions, but there were concerns of increasing the risk of aflatoxins due to high moisture as the groundnut is immediately marketing to on-site traders soon after the wet-shelling. Hand shellers were being fabricated locally. Crop rotations, use of manure and liming (calcium hardens the shell) could be used to control aflatoxins.
  • Legumes seed remains a challenge as there is currently no private sector involvement in certified seed production. Only about 350 t of seed is expected from contract growers, implying a large deficit during the coming cropping season. While there is a government seed system in place at Chitedze Research Station, it is gravely underfunded.
  • Much of the yield gap in production could be explained by weeding regimes, time of planting and plant population – with systematic challenges posed by maize (which has wider spacing than ideal for grain legumes) and lack of residues for soil building. Doubled up legumes and targeted nutrient application provide some possible solutions, see DAI discussion below.
  • The DAI team received a contract for one of the key USAID-Malawi investments over the next decade, ‘Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC)’ a multi-year project involving grain legumes and dairy value changes. While DAI officials were initially exclusively interested in groundnut and soyabeans, it was made clear that the system in Malawi was skewed towards intercrops, and in some regions pigeonpea-maize intercrops were a must. The doubled-up legumes technology is an option that the programme could adopt towards grain legume intensification, and there was considerable interest by DAI in this ‘best bet’ technology, particularly for meeting the needs of the poorer resourced farmers. Farmers with larger land area (more than 1 ha) and with adequate access to labour may opt for sole-cropped groundnut or soybean, with targeted application of small doses of fertilizer (DAP or similar P source, ~10 kg P/ha) as a proven, high return per input production technology.
  • We also discussed the challenges concerning conservation agriculture – basins or on the flat with targeted application of compost, fertilizer or roundup as a pre-emerge herbicide – as a technology that requires widespread adaptive, participatory research and testing as residue management remains inadequate and weed, pest and nutrient challenges as well.

Africa RISING backstopping

The INVC project awarded sub-grants to Malawi-based organization that work directly with farmers to alleviate poverty. Key partners that have spearhead soyabean and groundnut intensification include CADECOM (Catholic Development Commission), FUM (Farmers’s Union in Malawi), the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi. While these organizations have wide networks of extension staff in the districts targeted by INVC, the challenge is related to expertise and implementation approaches by grassroots personnel that are often questionable, resulting in ineffective delivery of technologies for meaningful change in production systems. To improve the capacity for effective delivery of technologies, together with scientists from Chitedze Research Station (including Dr Kananji), Africa RISING developed training materials for soyabean and groundnut intensification. A group of technicians from Chitedze and the INVC agronomist (then Mr Chavula) where taken through steps so they could understand the principles of crop production as they apply to smallholder farmers.

The sole and intercropping discourse

While sole cropping and sequential systems are universally the norm for commercial and mechanized agriculture, the situation on smallholder farms in Malawi calls for crop arrangements that result in multiple crops being harvested on limited land. As part of legume intensification, Africa RISING has advocated for intercrops of two legume crops that have contrasting phenology and crop architecture, attributes that result in minimal intra-specific competition, a technology that is known as the ‘doubled-up legume technology’. The most successful doubled-up legume technology system involves groundnut- pigeonpea intercropping. Pigeonpea has a very slow early growth rate, and only begins rapid development when the companion crop (groundnut is near or at physiological maturity). This growth pattern enables an additive intercropping system to be viable.

During the 2013/2014 cropping season, INVC undertook to support 10% of its beneficiary farmers to implement the groundnut-pigeonpea based doubled-u cropping system.

Challenges

Since the departure of Mr Issac Chavula (the agronomist) from INVC during 2014, we have found it difficult to interact with other non-agronomists on the INVC team. We have resorted to engaging the INVC partners, mostly in Dedza and Ntcheu districts during our field trips and R4D platform meetings

The future engagements

We encourage INVC partners to participate in Africa RISING workshops and R4D platform meetings.