Excellence in Agronomy 2030 - Use Case term sheets - May 2021

The Excellence in Agronomy 2030 (EiA 2030) Initiative aims at developing and delivering agronomy at scale solutions based on demand from scaling partners. Such demand is then formulated and operationalized around Use Cases

Landscape-based nutrient application in wheat and teff mixed farming systems of Ethiopia: farmer and extension agent demand driven approach

Introduction: Adapting fertilizer use is crucial if smallholder agroecosystems are to attain the sustainable development goals of zero hunger and agroecosystem resilience. Poor soil health and nutrient variability characterize the smallholder farming systems. However, the current research at the field scale does not account for nutrient variability across landscape positions, posing significant challenges for targeted nutrient management interventions. The purpose of this research was to create a demand-driven and co-development approach for diagnosing farmer nutrient management practices and determining landscape-specific (hillslope, mid-slope, and foot slope) fertilizer applications for teff and wheat. Method: A landscape segmentation approach was aimed to address gaps in farm-scale nutrient management research as well as the limitations of blanket recommendations to meet local nutrient requirements. This approach incorporates the concept of interconnected socio-technical systems as well as the concepts and procedures of co-development. A smart mobile app was used by extension agents to generate crop-specific decision rules at the landscape scale and forward the specific fertilizer applications to target farmers through SMS messages or print formats. Results and discussion: The findings reveal that farmers apply more fertilizer to hillslopes and less to mid- and foot slopes. However, landscape-specific fertilizer application guided by crop-specific decision rules via mobile applications resulted in much higher yield improvements, 23% and 56% at foot slopes and 21% and 6.5% at mid slopes for wheat and teff, respectively. The optimized net benefit per hectare increase over the current extension recommendation was $176 and$333 at foot slopes and $159 and$64 at mid slopes for wheat and teff (average of $90 and$107 for wheat and teff), respectively. The results of the net benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) demonstrated that applying landscape-targeted fertilizer resulted in an optimum return on investment ($10.0 net profit per$1.0 investment) while also enhancing nutrient use efficiency across the three landscape positions. Farmers are now cognizant of the need to reduce fertilizer rates on hillslopes while increasing them on parcels at mid- and foot-slope landscapes, which have higher responses and profits. As a result, applying digital advisory to optimize landscape-targeted fertilizer management gives agronomic, economic, and environmental benefits. The outcomes results of the innovation also contribute to overcoming site-specific yield gaps and low nutrient use efficiency, they have the potential to be scaled if complementing innovations and scaling factors are integrated

A decision support tool for landscape targeted fertilizer management in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, smallholder agriculture is characterized by spatial and temporal variability of production factors such as climate, soil type, topographic, and crop management. This variability also affects the potential crop yield, fertilizer use efficiency, and return to fertilizer investment. Fertilizer recommendations are often based on soil test and crop response at specific locations which disregard the variability of production factors over space and time. Optimum fertilizer application should be differentiated according to landscape strata, soil type and fertility status, cropping system, and climate. The government has supplied only 1.7 million metric tons of fertilizer in 2020 that shows prioritization of fertilizer investment and site-specific recommendation is a major concern

Nutrient-efficient, resilient and sustainable legumes for prosperity in the drylands

The CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes is an ambitious international program to improve eight legume crops that are vital to the health, prosperity and resilience of millions of poor people across the developing world – especially children and women, who are the most vulnerable to malnutrition. Grain legumes are protein rich and affordable foods. Protein sourced from grain legumes costs one-fifth as much as protein from milk. These are also vital sources of micronutrients such as iron.In addition to feeding their households, many poor grain legume farming families derive vital income by selling part of their crop. They are often primarily cultivated by women in Africa, providing a strategic window for focusing research benefits towards women – also benefiting the children who depend on them. Smallholders generally cannot afford to buy enough chemical nitrogen fertilizer; as a result the yields of their crops are very low. A stellar advantage of grain legumes is their capacity to biologically convert nitrogen from the atmosphere into nitrogen in the soil – in other words, creating free fertilizer out of thin air. A second major environmental benefit is that grain legume crops diversify typical farming systems. Greater diversity increases food and income security: if one crop fails due to drought or pests, another may rescue the total farm operation. The research program is a partnership among four members of the CGIAR Consortium: ICRISAT as lead center, CIAT, ICARDA and IITA, along with several public and private institutes and organizations, governments, and farmers worldwide

Meghdoot—A Mobile App to Access Location-Specific Weather-Based Agro-Advisories Pan India

Timely agricultural advisories to farmers can enhance their decision-making and reduce production risk under challenging weather conditions. To enhance access to relevant climate information services in India, a mobile application called Meghdoot was designed to deliver weather information and crop-specific advisories, as a joint initiative of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Indian Institution for Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Building on IMD’s District Agrometeorological Advisory Service (DAAS) which issues crop-specific weather-based agro-advisories twice a week for all districts in India, the Meghdoot app makes available observed weather recordings, forecasts, and warnings generated by IMD and IITM. This working paper describes the concept design, the framework and a preliminary user analysis of the Meghdoot mobile application. Meghdoot mobile app is available on Google Play (Google Play Store) as well as Apple App Store. Since its inception more than two years ago, Meghdoot has received a good response with 200,000+ downloads/installs and an average rating of 3.3/5.0 by 863 app users (as of July 26, 2021) on Google Play(Google Play Store)

Validated fertilizer use at landscape scale: demand driven approach in sorghum, wheat and teff mixed farming systems in Ethiopia: A Technical Report

Soil nutrient management is very critical to maximize crop yield and to maintain soil health for a sustainable productivity. Decline in soil fertility and soil quality, among other factors, are major constraints to the agricultural productivity and disfunction of environmental services (Bahr, 2015). In Ethiopia, soil nutrient mining and very less replenishment of organic and inorganic resources are the recurrent problems that resulted in soil nutrient depletion. Besides, severe topsoil erosion associated with steep slope cultivation made the country one of the highest nutrient depletion rates in Africa with 41, 6 and 26 kg ha-1yr-1 of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, respectively (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990). Soil nutrient balance assessments in central Ethiopia showed that nutrient losses even worsen and reached an amount of 122 kg N, 13 kg P and 82 kg K ha-1 per year-(Haileslassie et al., 2005). In addition to the poor nutrient and organic matter status, aluminum toxicity and phosphorous fixation are other constraints in Ethiopian soils apparent in pH less than 5.5 which enhances nutrient limitations and toxicity (Agegnehu and Amede, 2017; Agegnehu et al., 2006). The state of nutrient depletion entails context specific nutrient management and fertilizer applications