国际玉米和小麦改良中心

Smallholder farmers in Ecuador are the main producers of staple grains, yet postharvest losses remain one of the major constraints they face. This study aimed to document postharvest practices, identify key determinants of grain loss, and explore gendered perceptions of participation in postharvest activities among small-scale farmers in Ecuador. Stratified sampling was used to survey 613 farmers, collecting sociodemographic, production, postharvest, and gender-perception information. Maize monoculture predominates, with small areas cultivated (≈2.5 ha) by manual planting and a combined use of native and hybrid varieties. Drying is mainly on the plant while harvesting, shelling, and cleaning of grains are carried out manually. Nearly 70.0% of farmers store shelled grains (74.6%) in polypropylene sacks (32.3%) for 3 to 5 months. Losses are high, with 74.5% and 85.0% of farmers experiencing grain loss during drying and storage, respectively. The main postharvest pests during storage identified by farmers are maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) and Angoumois grain moth (Sitotroga cerealella), with chemical products being the most widely used (96.0%) control method. A logistic model indicates that education level, harvest and drying practices, and access to improved technologies significantly influence storage loss risk. Women and men farmers had different perceptions, with men reporting higher levels of participation overall and underestimating women's involvement across most production and postharvest stages. These findings highlight the need for region-specific interventions, including improved drying and hermetic storage technologies, gender-sensitive capacity building, and strengthened pest monitoring systems, to reduce postharvest losses, mitigate climate-related risks, and enhance food security.

Soil health is central to agroecological transitions, yet guidance for integrating it into agri-food system design and monitoring remains fragmented. Institutions increasingly use frameworks to define indicators, guide interventions, and report progress against climate, biodiversity, and food-security agendas. However, to our knowledge, there is no integrative soil health framework which coherently links biophysical diagnostics, socio-institutional enablers, and multiscale accountability. This leaves critical gaps in design, sequencing, and measurement of agroecological transitions. Here we review how soil health is operationalized within agroecology and agri-food systems and translate these patterns into an actionable programming guide. We reviewed 64 frameworks and extracted 652 indicators across 12 agroecological principles to build a framework-by-principle evidence matrix. Frameworks were classified by use-orientation (theory, practice, analysis), and indicator thematic profiles were analyzed using hierarchical clustering with adaptive branch detection. The major findings are as follows: (1) framework evolution exhibits four chronological waves with shifts from conceptual foundations to operational measurement and outcome reporting, alongside changes in global and regional agenda setting and a rising demand for comparable indicators; (2) clustering identified five soil health design domains separating biophysical and socio-economic principles and revealing stable micro-constellations beyond earlier pathway framing. These include soil management and input stewardship, soil-health assessment, agroecological and ecosystem-based, integrated landscape and livelihood, and policy- and outcome-based. These findings were translated into a sequenced, multi-domain programming architecture that operationalizes complementarity across diagnostics, stewardship implementation, ecosystem safeguards, landscape–livelihood embedding, and iterative learning, thereby closing the gaps between farm practices, governance mechanisms, and outcome monitoring for soil health.

Small seed packs for demonstration and testing are widely used to stimulate the uptake of improved crop varieties, yet evidence on their effectiveness remains mixed. This study examines whether small seed packs distributed either for free or at a subsidised price enhance farmers' knowledge and subsequent adoption of improved legumes, drought-tolerant maize, and improved traditional African vegetables in Tanzania and Zambia. Drawing on mobile phone survey data and applying entropy balancing alongside machine-learning methods to address selection bias, we find consistent evidence that seed packs increase both technical knowledge and adoption of these crops. Knowledge gains are strongest for crops with limited prior exposure, while improvements for familiar crops such as drought-tolerant maize likely reflect experiential learning rather than new information. Adoption effects are positive across all crops and robust to alternative estimation strategies. Overall, the results indicate that small seed packs can serve as an effective demand-creation tool, particularly in settings where farmers face information gaps or uncertainty about the performance of improved germplasm.

In Ethiopia, maize production is significantly threatened by insect pests such as stalk borers and fall armyworm (FAW), as well as the major ear rots, notably Gibberella ear rot (GER) and Fusarium ear rot (FER). Smallholder farmers, particularly those operating in resource-limited environments, often lack effective and accessible pest management strategies. Thus, the current study aimed to evaluate the effect of using the "push-pull" (PP)-cropping system, which involves inter-cropping (maize) with insect-repellent forage legume in the genus Desmodium (Desmodium uncinatum) as a "push" plant and the Brecaria grass (Brachiaria decumbens) forage as the "pull" plant on the incidence of maize stalk borers and FAW and the intensity of GER and FER at Bako, western Ethiopia. Field trials with the cropping systems (maize cropping in the PP-system, maize mono-cropping, and maize mono-cropping with insecticide/Radiant 120SC-treatment) randomized to the main plot units and three hybrid maize varieties randomized to the sub-plot units were arranged in a split-plot design with three replications during the main cropping seasons of 2021 to 2022. Three maize hybrids (BH546, BH549, and P3812W) were planted in subplots at a spacing of 75 × 30 cm in four rows with a 10 m row length. The incidence and severity of GER and FER, were recorded upon manual harvest at physiological maturity. Some important agronomic traits were also recorded during the maize growing seasons. The analysis of variance confirmed highly significant (P < 0.001) interaction among cropping systems and maize hybrid varieties in both seasons. However, no significant interactions were indicated among the cropping seasons for stalk borer, foliar damage p = 0.116, ear damage, p = 0.429 and FAW; foliar damage, p = 0.925, ear damage, p = 0.446 as well as ear rots severity; FER, p = 0.778 and GER, p = 0.054 were observed between the cropping seasons. Among the tested varieties, BH546 recorded significantly (P < 0.001) lower insect infestation and ear rot disease intensity (FER and GER) with the PP-cropping system and Radiant 120SC insecticide treatment when compared to the non-treated mono-cropping system. Additionally, the PP-cropping system improved agronomic traits such as grain yield, plant height, ear height, ear length, ear diameter and kernel characteristics (grain weight), particularly using the BH546 hybrid, suggesting that hybrid selection is critical to maximizing the benefits of inter-cropping strategies. This finding imply that the strategy could be further verified on the small holder farmers field before recommending to be used by small-holder farmers in major maize-growing regions in Ethiopia.

As resource envelopes to fund research for development activities become tighter, demonstrating value for money is key. This is difficult for various reasons, chief among these being the failure to embed evaluation frameworks in project design. The multiplicity of scaling partners and their interests, and levels of involvement makes it even more complicated to ensure consistent monitoring and evaluation. We demonstrate how to estimate the reach in research for development projects using a population-based computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) survey methodology that is statistically representative at the desired administrative unit level. This approach was applied to the CGIAR Research Initiative - Diversification in East and Southern Africa (Ukama Ustawi) implemented with several scaling partners across 12 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. The assessment focused on five of the 12 target countries covered in phase one of implementation. The goal of the assessment was to measure the extent of reach and use of agronomic, mechanization, livestock, and nutrition innovations promoted under Ukama Ustawi, and to assess the extent to which the Initiative reached its intended targets. The data comes from 6,445 randomly sampled rural individuals across 27 districts in the five countries. Approximately 1.05 million people were aware of Ukama Ustawi activities, with Kenya and Zambia showing the highest awareness at 16%. Overall, 164,363 people benefited from various innovations promoted by Ukama Ustawi as of September 2024, about 3 years from the beginning of the project. Of these, 135,767 people were direct beneficiaries in areas where specific interventions were implemented. The rest benefited from spillover effects. About 52% of the beneficiaries were female and 56% were youth aged 18-35 years. Innovation use was highest for minimum tillage and post-harvest mechanization in Zimbabwe, followed by agronomic and mechanization options in Malawi. The benefit-reach ratio was highest in Zimbabwe at 61%, followed by Malawi at 31%. This means that Ukama Ustawi activities were most effective at converting reach to beneficiaries in Zimbabwe and Malawi, partly because implementation was layered on past similar interventions. While our results are comparable to more traditional case studies, our survey approach is nearly fourfold cheaper, demonstrating cost-effectiveness and efficiency. We discuss project design and implementation issues necessary to facilitate this kind of evaluation in international development projects.