2.1. The Current Strategy
2.2. Continuum Programme
2.3. Sahel Programme
2.4. Mangrove Swamp Rice Programme
2.5. Training and Communications
2.6. Cross Programme Issues
2.1.1. WARDA's Goal and Mandate
2.1.2. Programme Structure and Approach
WARDA's strategy is based on the facts that new technologies to increase the efficiency and sustainability of West African rice production are urgently needed; and that the improvement in land and labour productivity of the region's smallholder rice farmers must be achieved while preserving the resource base on which their livelihood depends. WARDA believes that the future sustainability of rice ecosystems is under severe threat, and that its task is to help the national scientists and policy makers to provide West Africa's rice producers with more and better choices.
In formulating its current strategy, the new WARDA took note of the lessons learnt from the past, namely that technologies and policy solutions from outside West Africa are seldom directly applicable; and that rice cannot be treated in isolation from other crops. Consequently, WARDA's strategy aims at the development of research-based technologies and solutions to overcome constraints, with a focus on the smallholder farm family, and the strengthening of the national research systems. The strategy also recognizes that being a single commodity Centre, WARDA needs a farming systems approach to research with a strong ecological focus so as to be of short- and long-term environmental, social and economic benefit.
In the light of the above, WARDA has thus defined its goal as follows:
"To strengthen the capability of agricultural science in West Africa for technology generation to increase the sustainable productivity of intensified rice-based cropping systems in a manner that will improve the well-being of resource poor farm families, and conserve and enhance the natural resource base."
WARDA's formal mandate has remained unchanged since the Association was founded in 1970 (Appendix VI), and has been seen as providing a satisfactory basis for an international centre with a regional focus. However, the operational mandate of the old WARDA was primarily to stimulate and assist national programmes in adaptive research, as well as to promote regional rice development and trade. The new WARDA as a fully-fledged CGIAR Centre had to formulate a different operational mandate and a commensurate set of programmes.
The operational mandate of the new WARDA requires the Association to conduct and promote research to improve the technical and economic options available to smallholder farm families in three West African rice growing environments: as a first priority, the upland/inland swamp continuum; as a second priority, the irrigated Sahel; and as a third priority, the mangrove swamps. The research aims at developing new rice varieties and improved production methods; finding ways of reducing post-harvest losses; assessing and increasing the acceptability and impact of new technology; and investigating issues affecting technology adoption and national policy options. It is through this research programme, and related training and communications activities, that WARDA seeks to achieve its goal.
WARDA's new programme structure reflects its revised operational mandate as a research, training and communications centre. The Association has undertaken the role of catalyzing the planning of regional rice research, and acts as a clearing house for new rice technology and other initiatives proposed for West Africa. Since its inception, the new programme structure was designed to facilitate a strong and effective working relationship with national programme partners.
In 1992, the Association allocated 57% of its core programme funds to research, 14% to research support and 29% to communications and training. Percentage distribution of WARDA resources across the three rice programmes, by research activity (crop improvement vs crop and resources management) and by type of research (strategic vs applied) is shown in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Percent Allocation of Resources Among Research Programmes by Research Activity and Type of Research
|
Rice environments |
Total resources |
Research activity |
Research type |
||
|
Crop improvement |
Crop and resources management |
Strategic |
Applied |
||
|
Continuum |
66 |
52 |
42 |
34 |
66 |
|
Sahel Irrigated |
21 |
42 |
58 |
60 |
40 |
|
Mangrove Swamp |
13 |
80 |
20 |
15 |
85 |
|
Share of total |
100 |
57 |
43 |
37 |
63 |
WARDA has adopted a decentralized research programme structure, in which multi-disciplinary teams of national and WARDA scientists collaborate to address key problems in three major rice growing environments of West Africa. Working closely with national scientists, WARDA has established three advisory regional Working Groups, two on research (varietal improvement, and crop and resources management) and one on training. Through these Working Groups seven regional research Task Forces would have been established by the end of 1993. The Task Forces have introduced new dimensions to partnerships with national programmes. The partnerships have two operational objectives. The first is to shape a more complementary and efficient sharing of research tasks by allocating responsibilities on the basis of comparative advantage. The second objective is to achieve scientific critical mass at the regional level. WARDA believes that this approach provides the most cost-effective means of generating and transferring new rice technologies within the region as a whole, while at the same time establishing a regional rice science infrastructure as an integrated and interdependent system.
The Task Forces are self-managed, with Steering Committees chaired by national scientists and with representatives of national programmes, WARDA and other regional collaborators. Through Task Forces regional plans have been developed for sharing tasks in key thematic areas. The assignment of tasks was based on an assessment of priority constraints and comparative advantage of each NARS and WARDA in conducting research to address those constraints.
The Panel considers WARDA's goal and operational mandate, and its programme structure and approach to partnership with national programmes to be moving the evolution of the Association in the right direction. The following Sections describe and assess research, communications and training programmes, and examine how WARDA has responded to a number of cross-programme issues.
2.2.1. Relation to Earlier WARDA Programmes
2.2.2. Current Focus
2.2.3. Relationships with Other International Programmes in West Africa
2.2.4. Achievements and Potential Impact
2.2.5. Assessment and Recommendations
WARDA has assigned highest priority and by far the largest proportion of its scientific manpower and resources to the set of ecosystems referred to as the 'continuum'.
The continuum is defined as including:
· the upland rainfed ecosystem where crop water demand is met entirely by incident rainfall;· the hydromorphic ecosystem in which the water table is within reach of plant roots;
· the lowland rainfed ecosystem, also known as inland valley swamps, where the crop is periodically flooded; and
· the irrigated lowland ecosystem, a subset of the lowland rainfed ecosystem where a high level of water control is exercised.
By this definition no major rice growing ecosystem is excluded except those separately defined as irrigated Sahel and those on the coastal wetland of which the most important are the mangrove rice areas. The danger with such a broadly defined target set of ecosystems is that the sharp focus of research, which is so important in a critically resource constrained organisation, will be lost. On the other hand, the penalty for focusing too narrowly initially would be inadequate understanding of farming systems for which the research should be relevant. Constant management attention will be required to maintain a sharp focus and, as characterisation work progresses, the objectives and strategies of projects will need to be re-examined to ensure that sufficient attention is given to removing constraints to crop performance across ecosystems. The 'continuum' philosophy is of value to the extent that it assists the constant refocussing of inter-ecosystem priorities and helps to integrate consideration of those farming systems elements that cut across ecosystems.
WARDA's current programmes are sharply distinguished from old WARDA programmes in two particular ways: comprehensiveness of R & D strategies, and extended ecosystems focus. Whereas the research programme of the old WARDA consisted mainly of adaptive field trials the current programme involves an extended array of disciplines ranging from soil sciences and hydrology through breeding, physiology and crop protection to cropping systems and economics. The ecosystem priorities have been redefined and the primary focus extended to encompass both the true upland and the inland valleys collectively making up the continuum.
WARDA's new approach to research was comprehensively described in the 1990-1994 Medium Term Plan (MTP) and is further refined in the draft 1994-1998 Plan. Severe resource constraints have forced reductions in all of WARDA's Programmes including the Continuum Programme which has been cut from the projected 13 core positions (1990-1994 MTP) to only seven funded core scientist positions in 1993. The situation is improved considerably by the availability of a Centre-based collaborating weed scientist from NRI. Negotiations for the placement of up to five other collaborating scientists are at various stages of completion and it is expected that a nematologist (NRI), an entomologist (CABI) and a physiologist (CIRAD) will be located at WARDA in 1993.
Research on the Continuum is focused on three areas: the rainfed upland/hydromorphic ecosystem which comprises approximately 57% (1.8 million ha) of the total rice area and 44% of regional production; the hydromorphic rainfed lowland ecosystem comprising approximately 20% (630,000 ha) of total area and 22% of regional production; and the lowland irrigated ecosystem comprising approximately 5% (160,000 ha) of total area and 10% of regional production. Relative allocation of research effort in the Continuum is summarised in Table 2.2.
These data show that approximately 45% of total continuum SSY currently go into research for the uplands. WARDA proposes that this be reduced to 36% in the 1994-98 plan period when a greatly increased effort will be applied to the lowland ecosystem. Proposed increases in core staffing are small and most of the increased effort will come from collaborating scientists.
There is essentially no difference in the relative distribution of effort between AEZ's either currently or in the future proposals.
Issues of cropping sustainability are most urgent in true upland areas where erosion and soil fertility degradation can be severe under some systems of shifting as well as continuous cultivation. WARDA is depending on characterisation studies to identify areas of the upland in which research is urgently needed to develop more sustainable cropping systems to avoid more serious degradation. Such research will obviously not be confined to rice and the Panel believes that it is important to involve IITA and possibly other partners in this work.
Table 2.2: Allocation of Senior Staff Time (SSY) in the Continuum Programme by Ecosystem and Agroecological Zone (AEZ)
|
Period/Staff Type |
Ecosystem |
AEZ |
||||
|
Upland |
Lowland |
Irrigated |
Humid |
Sub-humid |
||
|
1990-94 Actual |
||||||
|
|
Core Staff |
3.03 |
2.47 |
1.50 |
3.88 |
3.13 |
|
Collaborating Scientists |
1.09 |
0.57 |
0.34 |
1.02 |
0.99 |
|
|
Total SSY |
4.12 |
3.04 |
1.84 |
4.90 |
4.11 |
|
|
1994-98 MTP (Draft) (base plus 24%) |
||||||
|
|
Core Staff |
3.47 |
3.76 |
1.77 |
4.90 |
4.11 |
|
Collaborating Scientists |
2.58 |
3.84 |
1.59 |
3.94 |
4.06 |
|
|
Total SSY |
6.05 |
7.60 |
3.36 |
8.84 |
8.17 |
|
Concentrated attention given to reviewing the results of past rice research in West Africa has had two important outcomes. WARDA has produced 'State of the Art' papers in several major discipline/activity areas which will help to ensure that full advantage is taken of useful results and duplication of previous work avoided. Project proposals set out in the Strategic Plan and the 1990-1994 MTP have been critically examined and modified in the light of these reviews leading to more sharply focused projects detailed in 'Research Project, Sub-Project and Activity Summaries' 1992-1994 and further refined in the draft 1994-1998 MTP.
Five interrelated multi-disciplinary projects, each comprised of a number of carefully defined sub-projects, make up the Continuum Programme. The nature and extent of the Programme is evident from the list of projects and sub-projects in Table 2.3 which is extracted from information provided in the 1994-98 MTP. Responsibilities of individual scientists are clearly defined within projects and the lead/client scientists identified for each activity within sub-projects. Details of objectives, methods to be used, milestones to be achieved and publications/reports to be submitted, are also provided.
The Review Panel was very impressed with the detail and quality of planning reflected in the documents referred to above, as well as in discussions with senior staff and management of WARDA. They were also impressed with the way in which NARS have been built into an integrated research network through the working groups and task forces. Ultimate success of these networks will depend heavily on allocation of research tasks within the capacity of the NARS to accomplish and on strong commitment from the NARS to WARDA-coordinated programs. Careful targeting of financial support by the task force steering committees will be crucial in achieving desired outcomes.
Table 2.3: Projects and Sub-Projects of the Continuum Programme
|
PROJECT |
SUB-PROJECT |
|
1. Characterization of Rice-Growing Ecosystems in West Africa |
1.1 Macro-level characterization of rice-growing agro-ecosystems |
|
1.2 Micro-level characterization of rice-growing ecosystems |
|
|
2. Cropping Systems |
2.1 Intensification of inland valley cropping systems |
|
2.2 Stabilisation of intensified upland cropping systems |
|
|
2.3 Costs of production and profitability of rice cropping systems |
|
|
2.4 Agricultural intensification and women |
|
|
2.5 Development of weed management options |
|
|
3. Soil Fertility Management |
3.1 Farmer perceptions and soil fertility management practices |
|
3.2 Diagnosis and characterization of nutrient disorders |
|
|
3.3 Nutrient x water interactions on the Continuum |
|
|
3.4 Management of iron toxicity |
|
|
4. Integrated Pest Management |
4.1 Farmer perceptions and management of pests |
|
4.2 Distribution and abundance of pests |
|
|
4.3 Integrated blast control |
|
|
4.4 Control of rice yellow mottle virus |
|
|
4.5 Biology and ecology of key insect pests |
|
|
4.6 Screening for insect resistance |
|
|
5. Varietal Improvement |
5.1 Farmer perceptions and adoption of new rice varieties |
|
5.2 Germplasm characterization |
|
|
5.3 Breeding for appropriate plant types, grain yield and yield stability |
|
|
5.4 Breeding for tolerance to drought stress |
|
|
5.5 Breeding for tolerance to waterlogging and submergence |
|
|
5.6 Breeding for resistance to diseases |
|
|
5.7 Breeding for resistance to insects |
|
|
5.8 Breeding for tolerance to soil mineral stresses |
|
|
5.9 Grain quality analyses |
|
|
5.10 Exploring the potential of O. glaberrima and its wild relatives |
WARDA's upland and lowland breeding programmes are already in full swing based as they are on substantial work done by the old WARDA, IITA, and IRAT.
Whereas the emphasis of the old WARDA's upland breeding programme was on improvement of yield under moderate to high input levels, the objective of the current Programme is to produce varieties suited to both high and low inputs. Characterisation work already completed has shown that two of the most important characteristics required are ability to suppress weeds and to perform well with falling fertility levels. Tolerance to drought and low levels of phosphorus are also required. These are key objectives in the new breeding programme and progress has already been made in identifying useful parent varieties.
Particular attention will be given in future work to improvement of Oryza glaberrima and to transfer of useful characteristics between O. glaberrima and O. sativa. Anther culture will be used to rapidly produce fixed lines, to reduce the problem of sterility and to broaden the genetic base by introgression of genes from diverse sources. With assistance from CIAT and Rockefeller Foundation, WARDA has already developed a basic laboratory and acquired necessary expertise to start work with anther culture. It seems likely that complementary funds will be obtained in the near future to allow provision of services to national breeders through the varietal improvement task forces.
The lowland breeding programme located at Ibadan is concentrating on producing varieties for the rainfed lowlands, including irrigated rainfed lowland. For non-irrigated ecosystems emphasis is being placed on intermediate height and resistance/tolerance to the pests, diseases and adverse soil conditions encountered within the inland valleys. Particular attention is currently being given to improving the level of resistance to gall midge and Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV), and tolerance of Fe toxicity and drought, all of which are common in inland valley swamps.
The Panel was impressed with the size and comprehensiveness of the breeding programmes and the vigour with which they are being pursued. The excellent collaboration of breeders with cross programme scientists who are contributing strongly to the identification of useful parents and to the screening of lines for performance with respect to their disciplines is also to be commended.
A notable feature of the breeding work is the strong connection between the upland and lowland programmes. This is particularly evident in the selection within both upland and lowland programmes for ability to perform under the fluctuating water supply and often unfavourable soil conditions of the hydromorphic zone.
The varietal improvement work is supported by characterisation studies which are directed towards understanding agro-ecosystems geographically, followed by intensive site-specific diagnostic studies which are crucial to developing and prioritising rice research objectives and activities. Particular attention is being given to inland valleys which are increasingly being exploited by farmers shifting down the slope from upper parts of the toposequence. While several classification systems have been proposed for inland valleys most have been based on too few sites to provide a reliable measure of the extent, constraints and potential for sustainable intensification; furthermore, social, institutional and economic factors have generally not been included.
The baseline data coming from characterization work will be very important for future studies of impact as well as serving as the appropriate basis for allocation of resources for research. The Panel believes that appropriate priority is being allocated to characterization (see Section 2.6.4)
Adoption of new technologies developed by WARDA will depend at least initially on how well the new packages fit into existing farming systems where rice is only one of the enterprises within the system. Resources use must be compatible with competing demands of other activities. As well, changes in output patterns and in factor returns must satisfy household objectives.
WARDA's cropping systems project has not yet been fully established because of the need to recruit a new Cropping Systems Agronomist. However, work has proceeded on surveying the type and distribution of weeds in existing farming systems, their impact on rice yields and methods used by farmers to control them. Particular attention will be given to stabilising production in the uplands and developing highly productive cropping systems for the inland valleys. The Panel is particularly pleased to note that WARDA is already taking steps to involve other institutions which are specialized in the field in a study of the human diseases likely to be crucially important in the development of inland valley swamps.
Soil fertility management is likely to be a crucially important component of technology packages developed for various parts of the continuum and the Panel agrees with the priority it is currently receiving. Sustainable intensification of the uplands will be impossible without attention to nutrient management. Similarly in the inland valleys the variable hydrological conditions will pose special problems for soil nutrient management. Studies of soil x nutrient x water interactions will be adversely affected if the budget is insufficient to employ at least a post-doctoral hydrologist.
Within the soil fertility management project, work has proceeded on characterising the nutrient status of soils in various ecosystems and surveying farmer understanding and fertility management practices. Nutrient disorders commonly associated with various ecosystems have also been studied and a start made on identifying varieties tolerant of low phosphorus levels for inclusion in the breeding programme.
Integrated pest management (IPM) receives strong emphasis in WARDA's programmes. The work is directed initially at characterizing disease and insect incidence and prevalence in existing farming systems, and at understanding how farmers deal with them. Particular emphasis will be given to enhancing the effectiveness of biocontrol agents especially with respect to insect pests and to improvement of varietal resistance to pests and diseases.
WARDA's IPM work is strongly oriented towards reducing yield losses from insect and disease attack through non-chemical means. Improvement of variety resistance to pests and diseases is a cornerstone of the project. The Panel strongly supports this approach and believes it to be consistent with natural resources management priorities in West Africa.
Sources of durable resistance to insects and diseases are relatively few and this is where effort needs to go. WARDA is already collaborating with IRRI and CIAT on the use of modern biotechnology tools to characterise variability in the pathogen of the most important disease, blast, and to ensure future access to improved sources of resistance arising from biotechnology programmes.
2.2.3.1. Relationships with Other CGIAR Centres
2.2.3.2. Relationships with Other Programmes
WARDA's relationships with IITA are particularly important. WARDA's Continuum Programme described in the 1994-98 draft MTP includes a sub-project on the intensification of the inland valley cropping systems in West Africa (see Table 2.3). IITA has also developed a significant programme on inland valley ecosystem for implementation during the 1994-98 plan period. The Review Panel notes the high degree of complementarity of the two programmes and recommends that WARDA seek agreement with IITA on a joint project for inland valleys bringing together the complementary resources of the two centres. This aspect is further discussed in Chapter 4.
WARDA is presently taking a lead in collaborating with the University of Wageningen and Winand Staring Centre (Netherlands), and IITA on level II macro-characterization of the agro-ecosystems of the region (see Section 2.6.4). A joint Steering Committee is already in place and WARDA plans to establish a Task Force on Characterization, which will have the effect of more closely involving the NARS in this work. A very high priority was given to characterization work by NARS in their responses to the TAC Secretariat questionnaire on the value of WARDA activities (Appendix IV).
WARDA also collaborates with IRRI and CIAT in several strategic research activities including blast characterization, tolerance to high Al and low P, root growth and germplasm exchange. More detail is given in Section 3.8.2.
Other CGIAR Centres like ILCA, IIMI and IFPRI have programmatic interests in the region and WARDA is seeking to interact with them in appropriate ways. For example, it is likely that an ILCA animal traction specialist will be located with WARDA as a collaborating scientist on the inland valley cropping systems project. Very early discussions about the placement of a policy economist at WARDA have also been initiated with IFPRI.
WARDA has signed an agreement with CIRAD, ORSTOM and INRA which opens the way for more extensive collaboration with these programmes. CIRAD has about a dozen scientists working on rice in West Africa, about half of them on upland and half on lowland and irrigated ecosystems. Negotiations with CIRAD for placement of a physiologist at WARDA in 1993 are almost complete. The CORAF rice network, which is mainly confined to francophone countries is similar in nature to the WARDA network. A set of regional trials is being arranged and there appear to be opportunities for collaboration to the benefit of all concerned. WARDA has taken a number of initiatives in this respect such as inviting the Rice Network Coordinator of CORAF on to the Steering Committees of key Task Forces.
Still other international agencies are expected to participate in the Continuum Programme. NRI already has a weed scientist at WARDA and will probably post a nematologist there by 1994. A CABI entomologist is also expected to arrive in 1993. Discussions with AVRDC about placement of a vegetables agronomist have been initiated.
Most research staff were only appointed to the new WARDA in late 1990 and early 1991. In the period of less than two years since they have been on the Programme the new facilities have been built at M'bé and activities have necessarily been dominated by review and planning processes. Consequently, the current research programme has as yet had little impact.
However, significant accomplishments during the period which must be recognised include:
· completion of State-of-the-Art monographs in all major disciplinary areas;· development and refining of detailed research plans;
· establishment of seven regional Task Forces and their effective use for integrated planning and initiation of coordinated research activities with NARS;
· initiation of work with a number of research partners from advanced institutions; and
· initiation of field research programmes.
The achievements and impact of previous WARDA programs have been documented in State-of-the-Art monographs and were summarised for the review in 'Highlights of WARDA's Research Achievements and Impacts: Past and Projected'. They will not be reviewed in detail here. However, it is important to note that the current Continuum Programme will benefit substantially from past work. For example, the upland breeding programme is now benefitting from the rice hybridization programme of the old WARDA initiated in 1984 where a large number of crosses were made and from which promising lines emerged. A wide range of African cultivars was also evaluated and the most promising purified and disseminated. This work has been further advanced by new WARDA. Very promising lines have also been identified from WARDA's upland breeding programme. Six promising lines selected from crosses made in the mid-1980's were included in Côte d'Ivoire's national coordinated rice evaluation trials in 1992. A further three were included in Nigerian national rice trials.
In the wider context, WARDA's earlier hybridization work at Bouaké benefited significantly from materials developed or identified by IRAT, CIRAD and CIAT. For example, the WAB 56 series, which is currently the most promising upland material, was developed by WARDA using IRAT 216 and IAC 164 as parents.
The lowland breeding programme, for which responsibility was assumed only in 1991, has benefited greatly from previous work done by IITA. Considerable progress was made by IITA breeders in selecting for resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic constraints encountered in the inland valley lowlands including Rice Yellow Mottle Virus, blast, gall midge and iron toxicity. The WARDA lowland breeder is building strongly on this work and has intensified efforts to incorporate higher levels of resistance to biotic and abiotic constraints including drought.
This work can be expected to have significant impact in the fairly immediate future. For example, an initial set of varieties selected for gall midge by IITA has already been more widely evaluated and the resistance of the variety Cisadane to gall midge confirmed. The variety is now undergoing pre-release trials by the national programme in Nigeria.
The first phase of characterization work has been completed and the major rice based cropping systems of Côte d'Ivoire identified, classified and mapped. Micro-characterization work has been in progress at M'bé since 1989 and will be extended to eight key sites in each of the three major zones - forest, transition and savanna - as the macro-characterisation work is completed.
Continuum Programme projects and activities are directed towards removal/moderation of constraints to rice production and the assembly of sustainable, productive, profitable cropping systems for all ecosystems. Critical information is lacking for:
· the extent and geographical distribution of the major rice growing agro-ecosystems of the upland/inland valley swamp continuum;· quantitative characterization of soils, hydrology, cropping systems and the socio-economic components that define major rice growing agro-ecosystems; and
· quantitative evaluation of the production potentials and constraints of the major rice growing agro-ecosystems.
These information gaps are most significant for the inland valleys.
It is expected that sustainable improvements in yield will be most easily achieved in the inland valley swamps with their associated hydromorphic zones and that the pressure for further intensification on the uplands may perhaps be reduced by their development. However, there are important constraints on their development and improved technologies are needed in a number of areas including water management, soil fertility management, weed and pest management, varietal improvement and land development.
WARDA has identified target output for each project, set time scales for their achievement and estimated their impact on production potential of rice in the region. Target setting is used deliberately by WARDA as a means of establishing clear research goals and milestones against which progress can be monitored.
Careful estimates have also been made of the overall impact of Continuum Programme research on potential rice production in West Africa. These calculations indicate that by 1998 WARDA will have developed technology permitting average yields to increase by about one third, corresponding to more than one million additional tonnes of rice valued at over US$ 200 million per annum at 1993 prices.
The Panel endorses the high priority assigned by WARDA to the Continuum Programme, which takes account of the large areas involved and the large farm population. At the upper end of the continuum, in the true upland, the potential for improving yields is acknowledged to be small but WARDA concludes that, because of the extensive area under cultivation, the overall leverage on regional output can be great.
Varietal improvement in Africa, and particularly in the continuum, faces a degree of complexity not commonly encountered elsewhere. Varieties of both the indica and the japonica sub-species of O. sativa are cultivated. In addition, farmers still grow varieties of O. glaberrima. Transfer of useful characters between indica and japonica varieties is often frustrated by limited recombination of genes and the occurrence of high sterility in progeny. Problems of this nature may be even more severe in crosses between O. sativa and O. glaberrima.
WARDA breeders are aiming to improve varieties of all three groups and are in the process of establishing an anther culture facility to be used in the work. While in theory anther culture has the potential to overcome incompatibility problems, it is likely that strategic support from IRRI and other advanced institutions will be needed to extract the best from the gene pool available.
The complexity of the breeding challenge is particularly significant for national programmes of the region. Only four of the NARS have the capacity to engage in a hybridization programme, and most will rely on WARDA to provide breeding materials for selection and/or evaluation.
The Panel is pleased to note that WARDA scientists are involved with universities and other advanced institutions in this and other important areas of work. The significance of these relationships is emphasised as a means both of maintaining contact with peers in specialist disciplines and of keeping in touch with basic research in fields such as biotechnology from which powerful tools for future use by WARDA scientists may arise. Relevant examples would be recent developments in DNA fingerprinting of the blast fungus and in interspecific gene transfer.
The Review Panel acknowledges WARDA's fresh approach to identifying the varietal characteristics which contribute most to farmer acceptance, and the resultant emphasis being placed on plant type, threshability, milling quality and cooking time. Characterization studies will further improve understanding of the factors affecting adoption of new technology by resource-poor subsistence farmers, predominantly shifting cultivators, who currently have little incentive to increase their level of production beyond that required to meet household needs.
The Review Panel is conscious of the fact that attempts to introduce new technology to these areas have met with very modest success historically. For this reason the Panel has some reservations about the projected adoption rate for WARDA's new technologies for the uplands. With respect to yield improvement, experience of the World Bank suggests that "under traditional systems of management the improved seed that is available may provide farmers with some yield increase, but that is not enough to stimulate a demand for seed at anything approaching the true cost of production and distribution" (Carr, S.J. Technology for Small-Scale Farmer in Sub-Saharan Africa-Experience with Food Crop Protection in Five Major Ecological Zones. World Bank Technical Paper Number 109).
Overall the Panel was very impressed with WARDA's achievements in the brief period since staff were appointed to the Programme. The production of State-of-the-Art monographs, refinement and extension of project plans, and initiation of a substantial programme of field research is evidence of the ability, energy and initiative of the scientists involved and the excellence of leadership provided.
Budget constraints have prevented full development of the Programme as originally envisaged. The Panel can see no reasonable alternative to the cuts made, but is concerned by the downgrading of the project dealing with soil erosion and run-off management in the uplands. The Panel also notes the lack of expertise in soil physics within WARDA and cautions against neglecting this important area of research. WARDA is urged to find ways of filling the gap. A particularly attractive solution would be to secure IITA collaboration for this purpose.
The need to recruit a new systems agronomist has delayed commencement of a significant part of the work within the cropping systems project. Full implementation of this project will be crucial to the success of much of WARDA's work particularly in the uplands.
For the MTP period 1994-98 the Panel endorses WARDA's determination to maintain the strength of its highest priority programme. In the view of the Panel, the Continuum Programme should have at least ten core scientists to be fully viable. This is three more than at present. Under the draft MTP this would require the funding of posts for a hydrologist, an ecophysiologist and a policy- and market-oriented economist.
The Panel notes that the comprehensiveness and robustness of projected Continuum Programme staffing should be considerably enhanced by the collaborating scientists from other centres to be located at WARDA (details in Section 2.2.3. above). The negotiations with ILCA and particularly with AVRDC are at a very early stage and may or may not eventuate. While the vegetable agronomist position may be useful as cropping systems work proceeds, the animal scientist position may have much more significance because it is likely that some form of power, possibly animal power, will be crucial to extensive development of the inland valley lowlands.
The Review Panel has observed that, despite considerable effort by all concerned, much of the potential for exploiting complementarities between WARDA and IITA remains unrealised. The question is pursued further in Chapter 4.
The Panel also hopes that the recently signed agreement with CIRAD, INRA and ORSTOM will lead to extended opportunities for collaboration with those agencies.
Appropriate technology is only one of the requirements for major increases in rice production in the continuum. It is unlikely that sufficient incentives to intensify rice production will emerge without adjustments to government policy and attention to markets and infrastructure. This is further discussed in Sections 1.1. and 2.6.2.
Recommendation 2.1.
The Panel recommends that WARDA take further steps to obtain the cooperation of other institutions such as IFPRI in undertaking research on the effects of markets, infrastructure and government policies on the adoption of improved technology by rice farmers.
2.3.1. Relation to Earlier Programmes
2.3.2. The Current Focus and Future Prospects
2.3.3. Relationship with Other International Programmes in West Africa
2.3.4. Achievements and Impact
2.3.5. Assessment and Recommendations
Irrigated rice culture was introduced in the Sahelian countries during the colonial period in the nineteen-twenties (Office du Niger). Unlike Asia, it is not an integral part of rural life and tradition.
Rice consumption in the Sahel is increasing very rapidly, by 5% every year, as compared to 2.6% for population growth and 0.4% for rice production. It is in this sub-region that the level of self-sufficiency in rice has decreased most rapidly and is now the lowest in West Africa.
About 150,000 ha are presently under irrigated rice cultivation, mostly in state run projects. This represents about 5% of the area cropped to rice in West Africa and 12% of the rice production.
The potential for irrigated rice in the Sahel is, in theory, enormous. Based on the annual flow of the rivers and the size of the associated alluvial flood plains, there is technical potential to irrigate as much as 3 million hectares which is 20 times greater than at the present.
In addition, there are possibilities in many locations to produce two crops per year if rice proves to be competitive with other crops during the dry season.
If the potential is enormous, so are the obstacles. They include: huge investments needed for river regulation and infrastructure, scarcity of rural human resources, high cost of land development for irrigation (65% higher than in Asia), high cost of rice production, deficiencies in management of the schemes, insufficiency in well adapted technologies and in mechanisms for transfer and, above all, often inadequate national rice policies leading to major socio-economic constraints.
Based on past experience, it appears that important changes in the design and management of irrigated schemes as well as in rice policies and production systems are necessary to make irrigated rice a profitable crop and to meet the current high demand.
WARDA's first involvement in research on irrigated rice in the Sahel started in July 1976, with the launching of a special project funded by several bilateral donors. The project was located at Richard-Toll and Fanaye, in Senegal.
The principal objectives were to identify, through a testing programme, superior introduced varieties of rice adapted to irrigated conditions in West Africa. Other objectives were to investigate soil and crop management techniques.
The research team in Senegal included up to 13 professional staff representing several scientific disciplines (page 30 of the draft Report of the 1986 Mid-Term Review of WARDA). Senegal had no separate national research programme on irrigated rice: in effect, this responsibility was entrusted to WARDA.
The current Sahel Programme of WARDA is very modest in scale compared with its predecessor. In substance the present programme builds on the old, particularly in the field of varietal improvement. However, it is scientifically better structured and puts a special emphasis on the role of physiology in the design of crop improvement work. It also utilizes a different approach to working with national systems, and through the working groups and task forces the NARS participate much more actively than before in the design and implementation of an integrated WARDA/NARS programme in the Sahel.
The current focus has been derived from a set of constraints identified by WARDA, namely: (i) climatic stresses caused by extreme temperatures and dry dust-laden wind during the dry season; (ii) soil problems arising from salinity, toxicities and decline in fertility due to intensive cropping; (iii) poor irrigation efficiency; (iv) lack of suitable varieties and crop management techniques for double cropping; (v) biotic stresses caused by weeds, insect pests, diseases and birds; (vi) high cost and low profitability of production; and (vii) risks to human health arising from irrigation development, particularly malaria and schistosomiasis.
Based on the above constraints, the WARDA Medium-Term Plan for the period 1990-94 anticipated that the Sahel Programme would be composed of four projects: characterization of the Sahel environment; germplasm improvement and utilization; development of sustainable cultural practices and rice-based cropping systems; and water resources management.
In 1991, due to financial constraints, only the first two projects could be implemented with two core scientists (breeder and physiologist) and one post-doctoral scientist (economist).
These two projects are interactive. The characterization project provides criteria for the selection of better adapted germplasm and the germplasm improvement project contributes to the ecosystems characterization by analyzing genotype by environment interactions and stresses that affect plant growth and development.
The goal of the characterization project is to better understand the target environment as a system. The project is divided into eight sub-projects of which one is related to economics. Part of the project started at the end of 1990. The socio-economic studies were initiated only during the second quarter of 1992. The field experimentation was initially limited to the sites at N'Diaye (Senegal delta) and Fanaye (middle valley) but has been extended to sites in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso through the Sahel Task Force.
The goal of the germplasm improvement and utilization project is to develop improved varieties with a broad genetic base, adapted to the Sahelian environment and suitable for the diverse rice production systems in the Sahel. The emphasis is on achieving stable crop duration and yield under variable thermal conditions and soil salinity. The project started in the dry season of 1991, with varietal selection being performed simultaneously at N'Diaye and Fanaye.
Collaboration with NARS is specially active in Senegal with two national institutions: ISRA (Agricultural Research) and SAED (Rural Development). With ISRA, which cooperates closely with CIRAD, it is concerned with the rice-rice double cropping calendars and the timing of intercrop operations as well as with varietal improvement. With SAED, it involves studies on evapotranspiration and agrometeorology. The excellent collaboration between WARDA, ISRA and SAED is worth emphasizing, as it should greatly facilitate the technology dissemination process in Senegal at a later stage.
Efforts to pave the way for collaborative, multilocational testing of advanced germplasm were not successful in 1991. The situation has improved in 1992 after the visits of the physiologist and economist to NARS of the region and the creation of a rice improvement Task Force for the Sahel. The Task Force met for the first time in May 1992, and WARDA is keen to establish mechanisms to develop cooperation with NARS of the region outside Senegal for rice germplasm testing and distribution.
The Sahel Programme as proposed in the draft MTP for the period 1994-98 is composed of three projects, as shown in Table 2.4. Although the content of the projects has changed, the general structure and orientation are similar to those in the first MTP, with the exception of the project related to water resources management which has not been retained in the second MTP. However, water management and the control of salinity constitute a sub-project of the rice-based cropping systems project.
Corresponding to four funding options for the 1994-98 period, WARDA has developed four scenarios for the staffing and budget of the Programme. It is proposed that one core position (physiologist) be transferred to the Continuum Programme as from 1995. Thus, in the first two funding assumptions (base and base +10%), only one core position (breeder) is assured in the Sahel Programme for the years 1995-98 while five core positions had been previously approved (first MTP). Two core positions are envisaged with median funding (base +24%) and three with the optimum funding (base +34%).
WARDA expects to call on external collaboration to compensate as far as possible for this gap. The scientific programme will involve five disciplines: breeding, physiology, economics, agronomy and soil science. Depending on the funding assumption, the collaborating scientists will be either senior, post-doctoral or associate scientists. Weed science will be represented by an associate scientist only if the most optimistic funding scenario is realized.
IIMI's work on water management in West Africa is of direct interest to WARDA. Relations between IIMI and WARDA have mainly concerned the exchange of information and training. In the field of research, agreement in principle had been reached on locating, in Senegal, an IIMI scientist to conduct studies on water management and the control of salinity through irrigation, as part of the WARDA Sahelian Programme team. Unfortunately, this plan did not materialize because of shortage of funding for this IIMI specialist.
Several research and/or development institutions from developed countries work on irrigated rice in the region under bilateral agreements with national institutions. WARDA is progressively developing contacts and links with them.
From outside West Africa, it is with IRRI that WARDA has established the strongest links of cooperation covering various areas. With regard to varietal improvement, IRRI was a major source of germplasm for the Sahel Programme during the two last years, both directly and through INGER. WARDA also benefitted from IRRI's assistance in screening for cold and salinity and also from IRRI's contribution to training. Other areas of cooperation with IRRI concerned agrometeorology and crop model development. This cooperation has also involved scientists from CABO (Wageningen, The Netherlands). Similar opportunities for cooperation have been created by WARDA for scientists from Hamburg and Leuven Universities.
Table 2.4: Projects and Sub-Projects of the Sahel Programme (1994-1998)
|
PROJECTS |
SUB-PROJECTS |
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1. Characterisation of irrigated rice eco-systems in the Sahel |
1.1 Yield and production gap analyses |
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1.2 Evolution of the irrigated rice sector |
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1.3 Evolution of biological constraints |
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1.4 Consumers' and producers' grain and plant type requirements |
|
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1.5 Production costs, technology adoption and impact |
|
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1.6 Classification and mapping of Sahelian rice soils |
|
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2. Development of higher yielding and more stable rice varieties |
2.1 Selection of varieties for the dry season |
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2.2 Selection of varieties for the wet season |
|
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2.3 Breeding for salt tolerance under arid conditions |
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2.4 Breeding for adverse temperature tolerance under arid conditions |
|
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3. Development of sustainable rice-based cropping systems for the Sahel |
3.1 Development of integrated weed management systems |
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3.2 Improvement of soil fertility under rice double cropping on poorly percolating soils |
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3.3 Development of rice-based cropping systems for soils with moderate percolation |
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3.4 Water management and the control of salinity through irrigation |
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3.5 Development of simulation models for intensified rice-based cropping systems. |
Achievements of the old WARDA were in breeding, cropping systems, water management and training. By the mid-eighties, the main constraints to irrigated rice in the Senegal River Valley, and - to a lesser extent - in other regions of West Africa, had been broadly identified and prioritized, even if for some of them (weather constraints) the mechanisms of their action had not been fully understood and explored.
With a strong contribution from IRRI, WARDA identified a number of good varieties for irrigated cultivation during the rainy season in the Sahel. Two of them now occupy 90% of the area cropped to irrigated rice in Mali and Niger. However, no superior variety was identified for double-cropping in the hot dry season.
The work on improving soil fertility through the use of Azolla and Sesbania gave interesting experimental results, but these techniques have not been adopted by farmers. Studies on water management, conducted in cooperation with Wageningen University over several years helped to develop new concepts for the design of small scale irrigation schemes, with particular emphasis on sociological aspects.
The Association also conducted training activities on irrigated rice which were for the benefit of the region. Despite some limitations, the Panel regards these achievements as being far from negligible, and having provided useful information and breeding material for a follow-up programme.
The present Programme is very young, since it began only in 1991. It is therefore too early to evaluate its achievements and impact. What can be said, however, is that given the very severe limitations of funds, the research priorities have been correctly chosen. The two projects have been well conceived, are interactive, and of very high scientific standard.
The Sahel Programme has conducted innovative research and has already produced some outstanding results which include the following:
· Better understanding of the mechanisms of action of weather constraints (temperature, winds) on yield reductions and crop duration.· Recognition of the effect of microclimate on crop duration and growth including: (i) the role of water temperatures on plant growth; (ii) the often wide differences between water and air temperatures under the influence of canopy development and the advective cooling effect of dry winds, and (iii) the variation of water temperature as a function of several agrometeorological parameters.
· Evidence of strong differential reactions of the varieties to weather constraints.
· Varietal quantification of upper, thermal response limits for crop development.
· Based on the above results, conceptualization and testing of a multi-location crop duration model of great value in guiding breeding activities and developing optimal crop calendars.
· New and useful information on reactions of varieties to salinity and on salinity management.
The Panel wishes to stress that the research in the Sahel Programme is soundly based, well thought out and organized, and conducted by highly qualified scientists. Further, the Panel is convinced that under these conditions the Programme should rapidly produce useful information and economically important results, provided that the financial and staffing constraints are not too severe.
Consequently, the projected impacts of the Programme for the period extending from 1993 to 1998, as established by the WARDA scientists both in terms of advances in knowledge and ultimate impact on farm-level production, do not seem unrealistic.
Up to the year 1998, the potential impact on rice production is only expected from plant improvement: creation of high yielding varieties tolerant to salinity for the main wet season, and of high yielding varieties tolerant to cold and to salinity for the dry season. These new varieties would be created and released in two steps: in 1994, as a result of selections of already existing materials and in 1997 for varieties which will result from new crosses.
The estimates of the ultimate impact on rice production seem appropriate and may even appear rather conservative. Altogether, WARDA developed technology could lead to an increase in rice production of some 280,000 tonnes (225,000 tonnes from crop improvement), or about 50% of the current level.
However, it must again be pointed out that the actual impact on production will be dependent on the political and socio-economic environment and on the efficiency of the mechanisms for technology dissemination.
The Panel believes that it is important for WARDA to maintain a research programme for irrigated rice in the Sahel. Enormous investments have been made in the development, maintenance and rehabilitation of irrigated schemes in which rice is the predominant crop, but in most cases results have so far fallen far short of expectations. No other organization is tackling the research Problems on a regional basis. The NARS have high expectations and attach considerable hopes to the contribution from WARDA. Of the three WARDA research Programmes, the Panel feels that this has the greatest potential for a rapid pay-off and success.
The two current projects dealing respectively with characterization and plant improvement are well organized and implemented. They are innovative and fully interactive. They have already produced in a short span of time an array of very useful results and should continue to do so during the present phase. As of 1993, the Sahel Programme will have to extend its focus from Senegal towards the eastern countries of the interior, where the weather and salinity constraints are significantly different from those in the Senegal delta and lower valley.
The proposals in the MTP for 1994-98 build on the first phase but substantially increase the scope of research. The three MTP projects are well conceived and articulated, and the major problems are adequately considered and addressed. However, the Panel is concerned about the proposed staffing level in the different disciplines.
At the base level of resources, and base +10%, the MTP envisages that from 1995 there will be only one core scientist in the Sahel Programme (the breeder), rather than two as at present. There will be an increase (compared with 1992/93) from one to two adjunct scientists, and an addition of two collaborating scientists (there are none at present). The Panel is highly doubtful whether these adjunct and collaborating scientists can compensate for the loss of a senior core position. The Panel does not challenge WARDA's decision on priorities at base and base +10% funding. It does, however, feel that the Sahel Programme will be seriously under-staffed at these levels of resources.
Recommendation 2.2.
The Panel recommends that donors enable WARDA to maintain at least a second core scientist position in the Sahel Programme.
In the view of the Panel, the Sahel Programme should have three core scientists to be fully viable. Under WARDA's MTP the third position would for an economist. This may need to be re-examined if and when the opportunity to fill the post arises, and NARS views on the orientation of the Programme should be taken into account.
Should it prove possible to maintain the second core scientist, WARDA proposes to appoint an agronomist from 1995, assuming that by that time the physiologist will have completed the main part of his work. The Panel agrees that an agronomist should be the top priority. It urges WARDA, nevertheless, to exercise caution and not withdraw the physiologist before it is certain that the breeding and cropping systems work can draw full benefit from his research.
It is not envisaged in the MTP that the Programme will include a water management specialist. The need for this discipline was urged on the Panel during its discussions in Senegal. As mentioned earlier, IIMI is active in the region and has an ongoing relationship with WARDA. The Panel believes that there is scope for a WARDA-IIMI joint initiative, and puts forward the following recommendation:
Recommendation 2.3.
The Panel recommends that WARDA explore with IIMI the possibility of a joint ecoregional initiative in the irrigated areas of the Sahel.
2.4.1. Relation to Earlier WARDA Programmes
2.4.2. Current Focus and Future Prospects
2.4.3. Relationship with Other International Programmes in West Africa
2.4.4. Achievements and Impact
2.4.5. Assessment and Recommendations
Mangrove swamp ecologies, located in tidal estuaries close to the ocean, consist of mangrove or former mangrove swamps. After the removal of mangrove trees, the swamps become viable rice environments with varying length of the growing season (i.e., the salt-free period), the duration of which is directly related to distance from the ocean and varies from less than four months (short season zone) for the estuaries nearest to the sea to more than six months (long season zone), for those most remote from the sea. Mangrove swamp soils are generally more fertile than those of other rice-growing environments because they receive regular silt deposits during annual flooding.
Being subject to annual floods, mangrove swamp rice fields are usually remote from the homesteads. However, mangrove swamp farmers grow rice not only in the mangrove but also in adjacent inland swamps and upland areas.
The present Mangrove Swamp Rice Programme of WARDA is much reduced in scale and scope compared to the former programme which was established by the old WARDA in 1976 at the Rice Research Station, Rokupr, Sierra Leone. Thus, in 1983 the old WARDA team comprised eight principal scientists at Rokupr (page 61 of Report of Second External Programme Review of WARDA) but only one was retained by the new WARDA at the end of the 1989, the last year of the transition period. The 1990-94 MTP provided for three scientists (agronomist, breeder, and entomologist) per year during the plan period; in addition, there was an annual provision for three post-doctoral scientists and two research scholars to join the team from 1992.
However, an unexpected down-turn in its funding in 1990 compelled the new WARDA to drastically scale down its research activities on mangrove rice. Consequently, the scientist positions were reduced to one senior scientist (who eventually became the Network Coordinator) and one post-doctoral scientist (breeder). With the limited funds available to it, WARDA decided to constitute its activities in mangrove rice research into a collaborative research network which was formally inaugurated in March 1991. The Mangrove Rice Research Network comprises all the six mangrove rice producing WARDA member countries (Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone). WARDA has supported the Network through a US AID restricted core project which terminated in September 1992; however, uncommitted funds are expected to carry it up to March, 1993.
Thus, by the end of March 1993, WARDA proposes to phase out its direct involvement in research activities on mangrove rice, although it is pursuing initiatives that will ensure that it retains a catalytic presence in mangrove rice research and development efforts of Member States. Sierra Leone has a strong mangrove rice programme which could provide technical back-stopping to the Network, if funds are obtained for networking activities.
At present, WARDA's major thrust in mangrove rice research and development is the coordination of network activities. The main objectives of the Network are to transfer improved mangrove swamp technologies to participating NARS and their farmers and to strengthen the capacities of national programmes to undertake mangrove swamp rice research. Consequently, in addition to funding networking activities of participating NARS, the Network was designed to concentrate on research, technology transfer, training, and information exchange.
At its March 1991 inaugural meeting, the Network's Steering Committee accorded high priority rating to the following production constraints: inadequate availability of short- and medium-duration varieties, sulphate acidity, salinity, mineral toxicities, nutrient deficiencies, inadequate water management, little or no technology for mechanized land preparation, and poor or no systems for seed purification/multiplication. Stem borers and seedling blast were given medium priority rating while all other remaining constraints (biotic, abiotic and socio-economic) were rated low. The Committee allocated responsibilities for tackling the high- and medium-priority constraints among the participating NARS and WARDA, according to their relative strengths.
Thus, the strongest national programme, Sierra Leone, participated in all components of the network research agenda (except grain quality) as did WARDA (except soil/plant analysis). Further responsibilities for soil/plant analysis and for screening for resistance to diseases and pests were given to Nigeria and Senegal, while Gambia accepted responsibility to screen for tolerance of salinity and resistance to insect pests and diseases. All national programmes (including Guinea and Guinea-Bissau) and WARDA participated in multi-locational and on-farm evaluations of network materials as well as in seed multiplication. Most of these research activities were executed in the 1991 and 1992 growing seasons. Additionally, the following benefitted from the training activities of the Network during the two years: two research assistants (B.Sc. holders trained on-the-job by WARDA), two research scholars (for Ph.D. degree training); one post-doctoral fellow; and many visiting scientists (from Gambia, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau). Finally, rice scientists in participating countries benefitted from the literature materials they received (depending on their research profiles) through WARDA's Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) Service.
The future prospects for WARDA's role in mangrove rice are mainly dependent on its ability to locate funds for continued activities of the network, in one form or another, after March 1993. In proposing its "new role in the mangrove swamp" environment in the draft MTP 1994-98, WARDA indicated a set of activities it hopes to implement from mid 1993 to sustain the momentum in mangrove swamp rice research. A careful scrutiny of the five sets of activities suggests that four of them would be implemented without the need for any additional WARDA funds for mangrove swamp rice. Thus, coordination and priority setting will be absorbed by the normal budget of the NARS/WARDA Lowland Rice Breeding Task Force while germplasm exchange would be assigned to INGER-Africa at no extra cost. The services to be rendered by the Division of Training and Communications from Headquarters would be accommodated in the core budget of the division. For the fifth set of activities, WARDA proposes to assist NARS to formulate proposals for, apparently bilateral, donor funds for execution of on-going technology generation activities.
A more purposeful role for WARDA in mobilizing funds for most of the activities of the present Mangrove Rice Network was proposed as one of the Association's complementary activities in the draft MTP. If donor funds are subsequently secured for the joint WARDA/NARS research project, there would be financial provisions for a regionally-recruited Coordinator, network research, review/planning meetings, and monitoring tours. This is probably the only way of avoiding loss of direction and momentum in regional mangrove rice research.
Apart from INGER-Africa, the Mangrove Swamp Rice Programme has no special relationship with any other international programme located in West Africa. In 1989 and 1990, INGER-Africa distributed 14 and 11 sets, respectively, of its African Mangrove Swamp Rice Observatory Nursery (AMSRON) to interested NARS. The nursery was not distributed in 1991 but in 1992 AMSRON sets were sent directly to NARS by WARDA; this was in compliance with one of the decisions taken at the 1991 INGER-Africa Workshop held in Bouaké. Earlier, the Programme evaluated thousands of tidal/wetland rice lines from IRRI. The old WARDA also collaborated with the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), U.K. in development of the African white borer (Maliarpha separatella) pheromone which was used in its population dynamics work.
The achievements made by 1983 have been noted on page 62 of the 'Report of the Second External Programme Review of WARDA'. Since then, several fixed lines, developed through WARDA crosses and tested in on-farm trials by NARS, are grown by farmers in one or more of the countries; among these the short- and medium-duration varieties are in greatest demand because of the increasing reduction in the length of the growing season. These varieties yield 25-45% more than the highest yielding locals. Undergoing multi-locational and on-farm trials are many other lines that consistently are producing much greater yields than the above newly released varieties.
The Mangrove Programme has also identified local and improved varieties with good ratooning ability; their cultivation in areas with long growing season has the potential of increasing productivity of labour used for land preparation, nursery management and transplanting. Lines with higher levels of tolerance to salinity, sulphate acidity, and iron toxicities have also been identified, although the tolerance levels are still inadequate for severe stress situations that exist in some sites; also identified are lines with combined tolerance to salinity and acidity. More recent work has highlighted the complexity of the mangrove environment; thus toxicities due to Fe, Mn, Al and salinity vary, not only among fields but among sites in the same farm.
A recent impact assessment study by WARDA has shown that among sample farmers the total mangrove swamp rice area grown to improved varieties in Sierra Leone increased from 11% in 1988 to 21% in 1990; in Guinea the area increased from 2% in 1989 to 9% in 1990. Combining study areas in both countries, the mean share of the total mangrove swamp rice area under improved varieties increased from 9% in 1988 to 16% in 1990. The study estimated the cumulative farm-level impact of improved mangrove rice varieties in the Great Scarcies region of Sierra Leone during the period, 1986 to 1990, at US$ 14 million. Follow-up studies have shown that the rates of adoption of improved mangrove swamp rice varieties in both Guinea and Sierra Leone have been increasing rapidly since 1990. The Panel applauds WARDA for conducting this type of study, which records the impact attributable to the old and the new WARDA, as well as to the NARS.
At present, only about 210,000 hectares out of the 1.2 million hectares of mangrove swamps along the West African coast are grown to rice, producing about 10% of the total rice production in the region. Because of the great difficulty and high cost of clearing and maintaining mangrove land, as well as the loss of wildlife habitats, additional impact of mangrove rice research will accrue mainly from intensified production on the existing mangrove ricelands. Given a wider adoption of the recently released, higher-yielding short- and medium-duration varieties, the average yield of mangrove rice can be increased from the present 1.8 t/ha to 2.2 t/ha within five to seven years, provided that the present momentum is maintained. This will contribute about 80,000 tonnes per annum. Indeed, several of the new mangrove varieties are among those being multiplied by the Sierra Leone Seed Multiplication Project funded and supervised by GTZ.
One major impact of both old and new WARDA has been the training of a large number of technicians and scientists in the science and art of mangrove rice production. The commendable strength and maturity of the Sierra Leone national programme is an excellent testimony of the impact of WARDA's training programme. WARDA and the Sierra Leone national programme are also commended for the harmonious working relationship between their staff at Rokupr. The Panel notes that WARDA has effected smooth hand-over of germplasm materials (fixed lines and segregating populations) to the Rice Research Station, Rokupr. In addition, WARDA has contributed immensely to the development of physical facilities at Rokupr. There is, however, considerable doubt as to whether the Rice Research Station in Rokupr can maintain these facilities without the type of support it has been receiving through its close relationship with WARDA over the past 16 years.
Given the drastic and unexpected reduction in its financial resources, WARDA's decision in 1990 to scale down its mangrove rice research to a collaborative research network of mangrove swamp rice producing countries was painful to WARDA management but the decision was correct and inevitable. The Network, which has operated for only two years, was well-conceived and the mechanism for setting and review of priorities is appropriate. Both the Network Coordinator and the Steering Committee have discharged their respective responsibilities admirably. The post-doctoral scientist is dedicated and his contribution within the short period of his contract has been remarkable. The two research scholars have produced valuable information that would guide future mangrove swamp rice research.
Nevertheless, a lot of work that requires a regional focus still remains to be done. For example, both the Steering Committee and the Sierra Leone national programme agree that WARDA has no mangrove rice mechanization programme (the earlier development-oriented work with the power tiller, not withstanding) despite the urgent need to reduce the enormous drudgery associated with mangrove swamp land preparation. In addition, soil toxicities (due to salinity, sulphate acidity, Fe, Al, and Mn) are becoming increasingly widespread and a lot more complex than had hitherto been envisaged, as well as being aggravated by lower amounts of rainfall over the last decade. Also adequate levels of resistance to seedling blast, RYMV, brown spot and stem borers are yet to be incorporated into improved mangrove swamp rice varieties. The widespread cultivation of these varieties could trigger new problems whose resolution might require regionally-focused research.
The above situation is further complicated by the fact that mangrove swamp rice production constitutes 80% and 54% of total rice production in Guinea Bissau and Gambia, respectively. To date, these countries have depended on WARDA for mangrove swamp rice research as have Senegal and Guinea. Even Nigeria's recent decision to resuscitate its Mangrove Swamp Rice sub-station at Warri was based on WARDA's progress in this environment, and with the hope of obtaining the latter's technical back-stopping.
The argument that the area cultivated to mangrove swamp rice in the above countries is likely to remain static, or even decrease, in the next 10 years cannot justify future neglect of mangrove swamp rice research. Even if the present total mangrove swamp rice area of about 214,000 hectares remains unchanged, the mangrove swamps represent one of the more favourable ecosystems for sustainable increases in rice production in West Africa, provided that there is a supportive marketing environment. This implies conducting regionally focused research geared towards alleviation of production constraints, while addressing the issues of sustainability in the mangrove environment. The minimum commitment for this research is the present WARDA Mangrove Swamp Rice Research Network.
The Panel is aware that WARDA recognizes the need to sustain the present momentum of the Network and that it has problems with adequate funding of network activities.
Recommendation 2.4.
The Panel recommends that WARDA intensify its effort to mobilise complementary funding to maintain most of the present Mangrove Swamp Rice Network activities.
The above recommendation will ensure that WARDA retains its catalytic responsibility for mangrove rice research and development. There is also the likely spillover to inland valley swamp environment of progress made in mangrove swamp rice research in respect of Fe toxicity, salinity and sulphate acidity. Provision of funds for networking activities should receive much greater priority over WARDA's proposal to help individual countries obtain bilateral donor funds (regardless of whether or not part of the funds could be used to execute regionally oriented mangrove swamp rice research).
2.5.1. Relation to Earlier WARDA Programmes
2.5.2. Current Focus
2.5.3. Relationship With Other International Programmes in West Africa
2.5.4. Achievements and Potential Impact
2.5.5. Relative Priority of Research and Training
2.5.6. Assessment and Recommendations
The main objective of WARDA's Training Programme is to develop skilled capacity in rice research and production technology within the Association's member countries. This goal emerged in response to the dearth of well trained rice scientists at all levels and an attempt to meet demands for the transfer of improved technologies to rice farmers in the region whose numbers have been increasing rapidly.
The achievements and impact of WARDA's past contribution to strengthening the capacity of NARS is rated very highly by the Member States. The Review Panel in 1983 commended the Association for the significant results it had realised with modest resources. A total of 907 participants from all the 16 Member States had been trained by 1983, providing a core of middle-level rice scientists and technicians in each member country. A degree programme supported by external donors had trained 31 graduates, about half of whom were from WARDA Member States. Follow-up surveys in 1978, 1982 and 1988 indicated that about 80 percent of WARDA's trainees continued to be directly or indirectly involved in rice research, production, management or training. About 39% of these were engaged in research, 46% in extension and 22% in training activities.
Although the structural organization of WARDA's training and communications activities has remained essentially the same following its reorganization in 1988, there have been important differences in the approach and focus. Particularly notable is the adoption of itinerant training courses in the new WARDA. This has proved to be a very effective framework for building the confidence of NARS scientists and enhancing their collaboration with WARDA in training activities. Communications activities have made considerable progress in providing well targeted rice science literature to scientists in the region and support to NARS libraries and documentation centres has been initiated.
The WARDA model involves institutional capacity building within its member states as a major objective. In accordance with this mandate WARDA's training and communications activities have been reorganized to provide strong support to its Task Forces and networks in assisting NARS in developing their own capacity to conduct training courses. But the full realization of these objectives has been constrained by two important factors: the complete loss of WARDA's fully equipped training centre in 1990 following the collapse of civil order in Liberia, and inability to develop a new training centre at Bouaké and to recruit an international staff in training as a result of financial limitations. Any comparisons between training and communications activities of the old and new WARDA must therefore take these important constraints into serious consideration.
The availability of a relatively well equipped and relatively better staffed training centre had facilitated the concentration of virtually all training activities of the old WARDA in a single location. The loss of the centre forced WARDA to start itinerant training in member countries earlier than had been envisaged. Generally, this has been a very positive improvisation. It has significantly enhanced WARDA/NARS collaboration and also ensured greater support by member governments. One particularly important innovation has been the selection of course topics on the basis of demand by NARS scientists and their design utilizing expertise from national, regional and international organizations. To facilitate this the concept of expert panels has been adopted. An important benefit of this approach is that the involvement of NARS personnel at all stages of course development helps to instil confidence in the NARS scientists and to afford them the opportunity to acquire the capability for eventually planning and implementing their own training courses.
So far group training courses at WARDA Headquarters and in other locations in West Africa have focused on rice research, production and technology transfer. Other courses have included general topics such as computer applications and statistical analysis in agriculture research, development of training materials, and scientific communications.
Expecting to devolve responsibility for conducting production related courses to the NARS, WARDA initiated the process of training selected NARS scientists in curriculum development, planning, organization and management of group courses. So far four WARDA member states (Nigeria, Gambia, Togo, Benin) have been involved and are now able to organize production-oriented courses satisfactorily. Overall, a total of 286 trainees from the NARS have participated in various group training courses since 1990 (Table 2.5).
In addition, in the effort to target women as the primary producers of rice in many of the WARDA member states, a Women Trainers Internship programme has recently been initiated to develop a cadre of woman trainers within national systems. Implementation of this programme is still in its early stages and only one woman intern has been undergoing training at WARDA Headquarters since 1991. A second trainer intern (Francophone) joined the programme in January 1993.
WARDA acknowledges that success in devolution of responsibilities for training will depend on effective follow-up and support of former trainees, including provision of training manuals and other training aids. The goal should be involving them in the organization and management of in-country training courses, providing them continuing learning opportunities and encouraging them to provide useful feed back on training activities. Follow-up of former trainees is being met through publication of the training newsletter, 'Trainerlink'. It should be recognized that the proposed expansion of trainee follow-up has important cost implications which need clarification, since NARS would not be in a position to bear all the related financial costs. The Review Panel suggests that WARDA should assist the NARS in raising funds to sustain production-related training courses.
Table 2.5: Number of Participants in WARDA Group Training Courses February 1990 - July 1992
|
Course |
1990 |
1991 |
1992 |
Total |
|||
|
M* |
F |
M |
F |
M |
F |
||
|
Training of Trainers (English) |
20 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
22 |
|
In-Country TOT |
|
|
30 |
5 |
|
|
35 |
|
RR and Production |
23 |
|
|
|
|
|
23 |
|
RR Assistants |
21 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
23 |
|
Scientific Writing |
|
|
16 |
4 |
28 |
4 |
52 |
|
On-Farm Res. Method |
|
|
13 |
|
|
|
13 |
|
Mangrove Rice Produc. |
|
|
13 |
|
|
|
13 |
|
Seed Multiplication |
|
|
15 |
|
|
|
15 |
|
Corn. App. & Stat. Anal. |
|
|
|
|
13 |
3 |
16 |
|
Water & Irri. Mgt. |
|
|
|
|
21 |
|
21 |
|
Training of Trainers (French) |
|
|
|
|
16 |
4 |
20 |
|
Crop Protection |
|
|
|
|
19 |
1 |
20 |
|
Upland Rice Production |
|
|
|
|
15 |
|
15 |
|
Number of Courses per yr. |
3 |
|
5 |
|
6 |
|
14 |
|
Number of Trainees/yr |
64 |
4 |
87 |
9 |
110 |
12 |
286 |
|
Total Number of Males |
|
|
|
|
|
|
261 |
|
Total Number of Females |
|
|
|
|
|
|
25 |
* M - Male, F - Female
In the effort to enhance working relationships between WARDA scientists and researchers in academic institutions within its member countries and elsewhere, the Association facilitates research by young scholars and more experienced scientists seeking to deepen their knowledge in specialized aspects of rice research. The programme of individual research internships and visiting fellowships is managed by the Research Division and currently has four categories of researchers: Research Assistants from NARS receive hands-on training under supervision of senior WARDA scientists; Research Scholars from WARDA Member States receive fellowship grants from the Association enabling them to conduct field studies for the MSc or Ph.D. degree on rice-related topics. Visiting scholars are also supported by funds from WARDA but they stay for only short duration. Post-Doctoral Scholars are supported for up to two years by allocations from core funds. They are expected to facilitate the strengthening of research capabilities of WARDA scientists and to broaden the international network of rice researchers linked to WARDA's Programmes.
The post-doctoral and visiting scientist programmes appear to be particularly suited to attract mid-career rice scientists from the NARS. However only one Ph.D. holder and two other scientists have participated in the programme since 1990. During visits to member countries national researchers emphasized to the Review Panel the need for post graduate and post-doctoral training in rice science. It was pointed out that such training had previously been provided by IRRI. Thus the apparent diminution of opportunities for such training since the establishment of the new WARDA gave NARS researchers a sense of 'loss'.
Since 1990 there have been five Research Scholars pursuing the Ph.D. degree and two Post-Doctoral scientists. Surprisingly there has been no participation in this programme by any scholar from the one country in the region with the largest number of universities and, by implication, the largest number of potential candidates. Significantly, this is also the country in the region in which rice production has experienced the highest rate of increase in the last ten years. It is also notable that only one woman scholar has been involved in the programme to date. This may be partly explained by the fact that the African Development Bank supported fellowship programme is relatively new.
The Review Panel has also observed that there is inadequate internal collaboration between WARDA's Research and Training programmes in relation to individual research training. The Panel notes that individual research-related higher degree training is administered entirely by the Research Division. In order to facilitate more formal liaison with universities in the region, the Panel is of the view that WARDA should adopt the general practice in other CGIAR and associated centres (i.e., ILRAD, IITA, ILCA, ICIPE) where individual research-related training is coordinated and administered by training departments. The technical aspects of such training and supervision of research scholars remain the sole responsibility of research departments. The Panel urges that WARDA strengthen internal collaboration in the administration of individual research-related training, promote PhD internships and post-doctoral fellowships in a range of disciplines for aspiring rice researchers in West Africa and establish closer scientific collaboration with academic researchers within the region and abroad.
Since 1990 WARDA has initiated closer collaboration in training activities with specialists in other international research and scientific organizations active in West Africa. Some of the organizations have contributed funds and/or provided resource persons to assist in planning, organizing and implementing specific courses. Activities undertaken so far include specialist training in mangrove rice production, water and irrigation management with IIMI, computer applications and statistical analysis with ICRISAT, and scientific writing for agricultural research scientists with CIRAD, INSAH, SAFGRAD, CTA, and the African Association of Science Editors. Discussions are underway for collaborative training with IRRI in the genetic evaluation and utilization of rice.
While collaboration with some of the institutions may appear to have pulled WARDA toward some general topics not immediately related to rice research it needs to be commended nevertheless. It should be noted that WARDA's course topics are normally selected by the Training Working Group consisting of NARS scientists and therefore reflects genuine demand by the prospective beneficiaries. In any case, the range and diversity of course topics also underlines the fact that most NARS rice specialists also work on other crops as indeed several research dissemination problems concurrently.
There appears to be room for improvement in coordination of training activities, among the main international agricultural research institutes. Some preliminary efforts have been initiated by IARC's in Africa to achieve this kind of coordination. But the effort should be given additional urgency. In some instances individual NARS researchers have received invitations to attend training activities scheduled at the same time in separate locations by different IARCs. The Panel encourages WARDA to strive for the establishment of a regional inter-centre training coordinating mechanism to streamline course schedules and ensure reasonable consistency in remunerations to resource persons and participants.
WARDA has established very useful collaborative arrangements for exchange of information with CABI, IRRI, CTA and the Agricultural University of Wageningen in Holland. This has not only facilitated periodic updating of the library's agricultural database, but has also enabled WARDA to provide timely bibliographic information to NARS scientists and other rice-researchers in the region. It is expected that active participation in these networks will be continued during the next planning period.
There has been some concern about possible linguistic bias in WARDA's training and communications activities. However, on the basis of analysis of language used in training courses, origin of resource persons and location of the courses, it is evident that this view arises from psychological rather than objective perception. Over 75 percent of the course since 1990 have been held in francophone countries, including courses at WARDA Headquarters. Only 43 percent of resource persons used in such courses were from anglophone countries. It is clear therefore that linguistic orientation of WARDA's training activities objectively reflects the linguistic balance within its area of jurisdiction.
In spite of resource limitations since WARDA's reorganization, training and communication activities have continued to be impressive. During the Panel's visits to Member States, research scientists expressed appreciation for these services. Among the services frequently mentioned by NARS researchers and other scientists in the region were the practical relevance of training courses and course materials, periodic distribution of current content of journals held in the WARDA library and circulation of photocopies of requested articles. The prompt translation of WARDA documents in French was also mentioned.
Clearly, WARDA's training and communications activities have satisfactorily responded to demands from NARS researchers and rice scientists in the region. But as the number of rice researchers expands and information about services available at WARDA spreads, it is unlikely that these services can be enhanced in the near future nor even sustained without significant injection of financial resources. Recently the international position of translator was phased out to be replaced with two locally recruited translators. It is doubtful that such individuals will develop in a short time the high level of expertise in concepts and terminology relating to rice science and agriculture in West Africa demonstrated by the previous translator. It must be recognized that the limited number of personnel and resources available to the Training and Communications Division makes it impossible to maintain the high standards already established and meet the raising expectations relating to institutional building and research dissemination that NARS scientists and other researchers in the WARDA Member States have come to expect.
The three major Programmes of WARDA are research, communications and training, with research having clearly and understandably the highest priority in terms of resource allocation. In the first MTP, WARDA took proper cognizance of the relative importance and work load of its three major Programmes in allocating resources. Because of financial exigencies, none of the levels of the projected Senior Staff Years (SSYs) has been attained since 1990. At the beginning of 1993, only nine core senior scientist positions in the Research Programmes were filled, compared to one position in the Communications Programme and none (in real terms) for the Training Programme, although the situation in the latter was ameliorated by the training expertise of the Director of Training and Communications.
The ratio of SSY's in research and training was 4.5:1 in WARDA's first MTP. Funding at the base +24% level of (median plan) will enable an increase in scientist positions by one in 1994 and two in 1995 respectively, while one trainer will join the training unit. The ratio of SSYs in Research in relation to Training and Communications will then become 33:1. However, if funding is at base or base +10%, WARDA proposes to solicit complementary funds to support all group training activities and training centre operations.
The Panel endorses the necessity for WARDA to seek complementary funding for training activities at all levels. The Panel also strongly supports WARDA's proposal to hire a trainer at base +24% funding level. Indeed, the Panel believes that an internationally recruited trainer is vital for effective implementation of WARDA's training mandate. The Panel is of the opinion that WARDA should make a concerted effort to urgently recruit a Trainer, supporting this position with core or complementary funds, depending on its level of core funding.
WARDA's Training and Communications activities have proved useful in giving the Association visibility within its mandate area and facilitating research dissemination and technology transfer. Such activities are rated at par with the Association's research programme by NARS scientists. WARDA's courses are considered to be of practical value and are highly commended by member NARS. There is the desire that more courses be organized, particularly those catering for high level researchers. Dissemination of research results and publication services have been similarly useful to WARDA's client organizations and researchers. It is commendable that these remarkable achievements have been realized in spite of surprisingly modest financial and human resources. The current acute resource limitations seriously threaten to erode the viability of training and communications activities and to undermine the confidence which WARDA has carefully built since its reorganization. While the Panel appreciates the reasons for resource reductions made so far it is seriously concerned that any further reductions would render these programmes unsustainable.
Recommendation 2.5.
Donors should enable WARDA to (a) restore the position of Trainer, and (b) assist NARS to assume responsibility for conducting rice production-related courses.
2.6.1. The Future of INGER
2.6.2. Rice Economics and Policies
2.6.3. Environmental and Sustainability Issues
2.6.4. Characterization
2.6.5. Gender Issues
The Panel comments below on several issues which concern more than one programme. These are: the future of INGER, rice economics and policies, environmental and sustainability issues, characterization work, and gender issues.
The International Network for Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER) grew out of the former International Rice Testing Programme (IRTP) initiated by IRRI in 1975. While INGER is a global programme, it includes two regional networks originally set up by IRTP. The Latin American Network was established in cooperation with CIAT in 1977, and that for Africa in cooperation with IITA and WARDA in 1984. INGER-Africa, and its predecessor the IRTP, have been very important for WARDA and the NARS, especially as a mechanism for making the world's elite germplasm available to rice scientists in Africa for use as varieties or as parents in crossing programmes.
Since the beginning, INGER-Africa has been based at IITA. From 1984 to 1989 (when the funding ran out), there was also a sub-regional coordinator for East, Central and Southern Africa posted in Tanzania. The Network is a substantial operation currently employing about 25 staff, mainly for the production and distribution of seed. The IRRI Liaison Officer posted at IITA acts as INGER Coordinator.
The 1990 External Programme Review of IITA recommended that, in transferring the IITA Rice Research Programme to WARDA, "the INGER liaison scientist be transferred to WARDA as soon as office, laboratory and field facilities are available, in order to service Africa's requirements as an IRRI/WARDA activity from the Association's Headquarters in Côte d'Ivoire. The full cost of the INGER programme shall be the responsibility of WARDA and IRRI as of 1 January 1991".
The Memorandum of Understanding between WARDA, IITA and IRRI, signed in September-October 1991, specified that "The ... International Network for the Genetic Evaluation of Rice or INGER for all of Africa, which is currently being conducted by IRRI in collaboration with WARDA, will continue as an IRRI/WARDA activity". However, an Addendum to the Memorandum of Understanding, signed at the end of October 1991, stated something much less categorical: "All parties ... (i.e., WARDA, IITA and IRRI) will make a joint effort to review the future role, structure and management of INGER in Africa, to achieve their common aim of finding the most efficient and effective mechanisms to provide the National Agricultural Systems in Africa with enhanced germplasm for local selection and adaptation." At the time of this Review, there has been no final decision on the future of INGER.
There are still three major unresolved issues: will there be a single Network for the whole of Africa, or will there be separate sub-networks for West Africa and for Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA)? Will the Network (or the West Africa sub-network if it is split) be based in IITA or in WARDA? And how is INGER going to be funded? The Panel comments on these three questions below.
The idea of splitting INGER into two sub-networks is based on the reasoning that this will make it easier to meet the particular germplasm needs of different and distant national programmes. It was articulated in a joint submission for UNDP funding by IRRI and WARDA in 1991. The proposal envisaged a budget of about $1,750,000 over four years for a West Africa wing based in WARDA, and $800,000 for the ECSA wing. Subsequently IRRI had further thoughts about the split, and its Director General submitted a series of options in a letter to the Chairman of TAC dated 17 September 1991. IRRI's strong preference was to maintain INGER in IITA as a single programme serving the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, with special arrangements to cater for the particular requirements of WARDA and the West African NARS.
On the particular issue of whether to split INGER or maintain it as a unity, the WARDA Review Panel has no doubts: it would be a tragic error for the "parish pump politics" of international centres to divide an exercise which has functioned successfully on a unitary basis for nearly a decade. INGER should be maintained as a single Network for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Special arrangements should be made to meet the requirements of WARDA and the West African NARS. If the countries of ECSA want similar arrangements that would permit the INGER trials to be more carefully targeted to their specific requirements, such arrangements should be made.
The question of whether INGER should remain at IITA or be moved to Bouaké does not have such an obvious answer. On the one hand, the INGER operation at IITA is functioning satisfactorily, and there are no compelling short-term reasons, either of an economic or of a technical nature, for an urgent shift to Bouaké. On the other hand, over the longer term it does not make much sense to have the main international rice trials for West Africa being conducted out of IITA, while the main action on rice research is at WARDA.
The Panel feels that the relocation of INGER-Africa to Bouaké should be accepted in principle and that detailed arrangements should be examined together with the issues of funding and management. While this is more a matter for the Inter-Centre Rice Review, the Panel deeply hopes that IRRI will be as closely associated with a future unified INGER-Africa, both in funding and in management, as it has been in the past. Insofar as core and complementary resources are insufficient, or not available, fund-raising for a single INGER should be done jointly by WARDA and IRRI. The combined sponsorship of INGER-Africa should be reflected in management: the INGER Coordinator should be appointed jointly by both WARDA and IRRI. A series of interim measures will be needed to ensure a smooth transition from the present to the future organization; they should be set in train jointly by IRRI and WARDA.
The web of issues surrounding the future of INGER should be sorted out by WARDA, IRRI and the NARS concerned, with TAC keeping an overview. The transitional steps, the move to Bouaké and the definitive arrangements should then be launched as a sequence of measures that will put INGER-Africa on a stable, long-term foundation.
In the meantime, there is one step that could be taken. The West African NARS have complained about the multiplicity of regional rice trials in which they are asked to take part. There are three: those of WARDA, INGER and CORAF. It is basically up to the NARS to formulate their requirements, especially in terms of tailoring the various nurseries to their particular requirements. So far as WARDA and INGER are concerned, the Panel suggests that this could be done by the WARDA Task Forces for Varietal Improvement, with the participation of the Chairman and the West African members of the INGER Advisory Committee, as well as the Coordinator of INGER-Africa.
The Panel puts forward the following recommendation:
Recommendation 2.6.
INGER-Africa should be maintained as a unitary Network for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, sponsored and managed jointly by WARDA and IRRI. The new INGER should be so organized as to meet the specific requirements of WARDA and West African NARS; special arrangements should also be made for the ECSA countries if they so request. The ultimate location of INGER should be in WARDA; the timing of the move should be worked out as part of an overall package that will guarantee the Network's future stability and effectiveness.
Economic input in the design of projects and interpretation of research results is important. Input from economists is needed especially during the period of characterization leading to determination of research priorities. WARDA's concern for the welfare of low-resource farm families in rice-based farming systems also makes the participation of economists essential. Thus, the Panel endorses the practice of including an economist on the disciplinary team for many projects.
It would appear, however, that given only one economist in the core scientific team, this interdisciplinary work seriously limits his time to engage in or even direct research on rice-based farming systems, costs of production, comparative advantage, market structures and performance, or governmental policies affecting rice production and consumption. As noted by WARDA, these are subjects about which additional knowledge must be gained if the WARDA goals are to be achieved.
The total economic effort of WARDA has been enhanced by the work of a collaborating economist at the Sahel station and by interactions with faculty and graduate students from CIRES in Abidjan University. The fact that WARDA's Director of Research is a respected economist adds also to the overall economic input to research considerations. Nevertheless, additional efforts to gain greater knowledge about the economics of rice in West Africa are required.
WARDA has recognized this by seeking to contract for a study funded with a grant from the African Development Bank. Among other objectives, this study will update information obtained in a comparable comprehensive study of the regional rice economy in the late 1970's. The information obtained will help guide rational setting of future rice research priorities. WARDA also is seeking a source of funding to add the services of a collaborating economist from IFPRI to conduct research on governmental rice policies in West Africa. The Panel strongly supports these efforts to strengthen knowledge relating to the economics of rice in West Africa.
The Panel noted the proposal in the draft Medium-Term Plan 1994-1998 to "add a market economist to initiate long-term research on policy and market constraints to rice production". There can be no doubt that weakness in domestic processing and marketing institutions will be a major constraint to creating the incentives necessary to encourage adoption of new technologies by rice producers. It is essential, therefore, that knowledge of market constraints and their removal be developed concurrently with research on production constraints. In the view of the Panel, a fully viable Continuum Programme should include a policy- and market-orientated economist. If this is not possible, steps should be taken in collaboration with other institutions to collect whatever information is available .
In addition to more knowledge of marketing per se, WARDA correctly identifies the need for better information on the influence of governmental policies on the relative profitability of rice production and the performance of rice-based farming systems in West Africa. Much more must be known about the specific impact of such policies, and the likely consequences of policy changes that could be considered.
Limitation of policy research to policies internal to West Africa would be a mistake. For example, developed country agricultural pricing and trade policies undoubtedly influence the cost of imported rice to West Africa. This is a factor of extreme importance, not only to West African policy makers but to the marketing sector and rice farmers as well. It is desirable therefore, that WARDA encourage development of additional knowledge about the influence of both internal and external policies on the West African rice industry.
In designing its strategy, WARDA has stressed that the improvement in land and labour productivity of the region's smallholder rice farmers must be achieved while preserving the agricultural resource base. Thus, WARDA has placed long-term sustainability as a central concern in its efforts to generate new technologies to increase output and production efficiency. This was not the case with the old WARDA, which was involved in adaptive research for crop improvement.
WARDA has refined its overall goal statement to include achievement of a critical balance between productivity and sustainability (see Section 2.1 for WARDA's goal statement). In doing so, WARDA recognized that, as producers shift from extensive to intensive land use systems, risks of degrading the environment and damaging the production potential of the land resource base can increase, and sustainability issues need to be addressed explicitly in its programmes.
In organizing its research, WARDA has defined its operational mandate at several levels of environmental complexity. The institutional focus on broad agroecological zones within West and parts of Central Africa is narrowed, at the Programme level, to the three major rice growing environments - the continuum, the Sahel irrigated and the mangrove swamps. At the level of projects and sub-projects, WARDA focuses on distinct agroecosystems.
This approach is carried through into programme planning and implementation by an emphasis on resources management research to complement varietal improvement. WARDA has accepted the principle that single-crop single-discipline solutions will not work, and that the development of more productive and sustainable systems requires an interdisciplinary team effort. Improved rice technologies must enhance the natural resource base, while at the same time fitting with the competing resource demands of other farm and non-farm activities and with overall household objectives.
WARDA refers to its approach as 'holistic and participatory', requiring a multi-commodity focus on land use and a high level of farmer participation at all stages of technology development.
The Panel is impressed with the comprehensiveness with which WARDA has incorporated environmental and sustainability concerns in its strategy and its research activities. WARDA is particularly commended for designing projects that provide a logical sequence from the characterization and diagnosis of the production environment, to the development of new technology components, and finally to the assembly of components into improved cropping systems. The Panel welcomes, as one example of WARDA's broad approach, its decision to initiate, with the assistance of WHO, studies on the effect of rice production on human health in irrigated and inland valley ecosystems.
The task for WARDA in the years ahead will be to maintain a clear focus on specific problems which can be solved within a reasonable time frame, without losing sight of the broad picture, and without dissipating its efforts over too wide a front. The problems of sustainability can unfortunately be expected to worsen in much of West Africa in the face of mounting population pressure, declining soil fertility, pervasive poverty, and continuing economic crisis. Working in conjunction with the NARS, WARDA will have to monitor the trends, identify the most promising areas for research, and slot its programme carefully into the overall effort underway in the region.
Technological and/or policy solutions to development problems in West Africa can rarely be simply transferred from the outside. Also, there are no quick fixes to be found from within the region because relevant and sustainable improvements require strengthening of the knowledge base which permits the generation and dissemination of technology, together with the creation of an enabling policy environment. The development of comprehensive national knowledge bases by national institutions is a daunting task, and will not be achieved without major inputs into the process of data collection by WARDA and by the development and maintenance of a regional knowledge system for rice.
Activities undertaken to generate primary data for descriptive, diagnostic and decision-making purposes have come to be labelled as 'characterization studies'. Such studies are logical and essential for the design of WARDA's ecosystem-based research programmes and projects, but are costly and time consuming. Clear definition of objectives is essential to avoid unnecessary accumulation of data. Careful planning is also needed to ensure compatibility in approaches across their different horizontal (spatial) and vertical (scale) dimensions.
The Panel commends WARDA for linking all its characterization studies closely with specific objectives. The Panel is pleased to note that WARDA has collaborated extensively with IITA's GIS unit in its level I characterization (continental/regional scale) of broad agroecological and socioeconomic zones, and is involved in defining the different categories of continuum ecosystems at (macro) level II (sub-regional and national/sub-national scale). The Panel commends WARDA for its excellent macro-level characterization, classification and mapping of rice growing ecosystems in Côte d'Ivoire. This work is now paving the way, in cooperation with IITA, to the identification of key sites and micro-level (level III) characterization of selected key sites in the most important ecosystems.
WARDA's commitment to adopting a GIS-based approach to characterization appears correct to the Panel, and the upgrading of the IDRISI system to the ARCINFO system is a step in the right direction. However, the Panel wishes to highlight that most, if not all, characterization work necessarily involves the adoption or development of methods and application models many of which are, or can be, of transnational value. And, depending on their scale and type, characterization studies offer opportunities to involve national and international institutions in the region that may benefit from them. In this regard, WARDA's contacts with NARS to assess their priorities and capabilities in characterization work was correct, and the implementation of the proposal to set up a Task Force on Characterization should not be delayed. This Task Force could play a pivotal role in coordinating activities of WARDA, other IARC's and the NARS in future characterization work, including the development of common standards and access and retrieval procedures.
In some respects much of the characterization work undertaken by WARDA can be regarded as addressing the first generation issues concerning the development of WARDA research infrastructure, inventories of different rice ecosystems and land use types, and identification of major biophysical and socioeconomics constraints. These studies are of the 'static' type. Looking ahead, the Panel wishes to encourage WARDA to prepare itself for the next stage in the development of characterization studies which would need to address the more 'dynamic' aspects of biophysical and ecophysiological processes, as well as of socio-economic and bioeconomic processes. WARDA is commended for introducing ecophysiological modelling as a basis for some of its characterization work in the Sahel Programme and the identification of systems components for strategic research; the Panel also endorses WARDA management's decision to build similar capacity in the Continuum Programme through the addition of a physiologist with systems analysis skills during the second MTP period.
The Panel is convinced that WARDA's characterization work must begin to lay the foundation for its ex-ante and ex-post impact analyses in addition to meeting the needs for priority setting. At the same time, the information must allow WARDA to directly address the sustainability and environmental issues relevant to the region, both for technology generation and adoption, and for policy analysis and planning. An area which will need to receive attention at some stage in the future will be the nature of the rice processing and marketing systems, since as suggested in Section 1.1.3., these are crucial for delivering the benefits of improvements in productivity to both producers and consumers.
Inrecognition of women's important role in the production of rice in West Africa, WARDA has established an agenda for well designed and rigorous research on gender issues. WARDA is to be commended for adopting an objective approach to gender issues in rice production. A recent review of the literature by WARDA on 'Economics of Rice Production in West Africa' takes a refreshingly critical view of some often-repeated orthodoxies. The Association has also initiated a women Trainers Internship programme aimed at facilitating the transfer of improved production and post-harvest technologies to women farmers by increasing the number of well-trained women extension personnel within the NARS specialized in rice.
It has been observed in many parts of Africa that while women provide the bulk of agricultural labour their control over productive resources, especially land, is only tenuous as it derives from their relationship to men - husbands, brothers, uncles and fathers. Generally, women have the obligation to contribute labour to farm enterprises controlled by their husbands as heads of households, homesteads or compounds. Often, however, they do not enjoy equal power of control over disposal and use of produce from fields controlled by men. Some analysts have argued that because of the meagre returns to their labour in farming enterprises controlled by men, there is a tendency among women to withdraw their labour from the household's commercial farming activities, investing it instead in food crops over which they have full control.
Underlying the above argument is a simplistic assumption of rigid separation of farm enterprises by gender, including maintenance of separate budgets by men and women in most African societies. In actual practice, the norms governing intra-household allocation of responsibilities and resources are not only complex but vary markedly with cultural characteristics, ecosystems and exogenous influences on local economies. Where intensive rice production is introduced through land improvement and water control, it has generally emerged as 'men's crop'.
Although rice is often perceived as a women's crop in many parts of West Africa, available evidence suggests that women's role in rice production varies very widely, depending on agronomic systems, socio-cultural characteristics and ecosystems. For instance, while inland swamp rice is considered a 'women's crop' among the Mandinke of Gambia, the Dioula of Senegal, the Kusasi of Northern Ghana, and in the Banfora area of Burkina Faso, it is mainly a 'men's crop' among the Bete of Côte d'Ivoire and in the Mopti area of Mali. However, in Sierra Leone and the lower Casamance in Senegal, both men and women have complementary roles in rice production.
In order to redress gender inequalities in resource allocation, an orthodoxy has recently emerged in the Women in Development (WID) literature advocating deliberate intervention by development agencies in order to alter patterns of distribution of productive resources. So far however very few intervention programmes predicated on such radical approaches have had significant impact on gender inequalities in resource allocation. The history of an irrigated rice development project in the Jaharly-Pacharr area in The Gambia demonstrates how men have successfully manipulated and redefined rules governing land use practices by gender to deny women exclusive rights to improved irrigated land, even though project designers sought to allocate such land only to women. This experience suggests the need for careful integration of local socio-cultural dynamics in designing intervention programmes seeking to make a frontal attack on deeply-grounded ideologies of social legitimation.
To the extent that intensification and commercialization tend to increase demand on women's agricultural labour without relieving their traditional obligations for household maintenance and child care, it can be argued that women's productivity is likely to be less than optimal. Remedial measures in this respect would require interventions designed to improve the efficiency of women's labour. In the case of rice production this would entail taking women's preferences into consideration in varietal selection, promotion of labour saving farm implements, dissemination of improved production and post-harvest technologies, preferably using female extension personnel to ensure rapid adoption. For instance, in many parts of West Africa where women harvest rice by knives, the preference is for tall varieties with good panicle exsertion. Selection of such varieties would facilitate easy harvesting. The Review Panel is encouraged by WARDA's clear appreciation of the socio-cultural interactions with new farming technologies. WARDA will need to work closely with other agencies in West Africa targeting women in developing and refining gender sensitive rice technologies.
The socio-economic studies proposed by WARDA show a keen awareness of the intricacy of gender issues relevant to rice production in West Africa. In the sub-project on characterization of rice-growing systems in West Africa it is proposed to make an assessment of the impacts of technological change and intensification of rice production, employment, incomes and health of women farmers. An on-going study in Côte d'Ivoire is designed to utilize gender-differentiated programming models to quantify the impacts of rice intensification technologies on labour shares within agricultural households and on the productivity of communal, individual male, and individual female-managed fields. The findings of the studies, which are scheduled to be completed by 1996, will assist in setting priorities for development of gender sensitive rice technologies in a number of different ecological systems in West Africa.
The Panel observes that these studies promise to go well beyond simple documentation of seemingly plausible assertions and are likely to generate very useful information. The Panel notes that WARDA has established collaborative relations with one university within West Africa and another one overseas and involved two women graduate students in the sub-project on Gender issues. The Panel encourages WARDA to expand collaborative links with universities within the region to attract graduate students, women particularly, to conduct rigorous social science studies on gender related issues in rice production.
The Panel endorses WARDA's initiative in establishing a programme for the training of women trainers from the Member States in rice production technologies. Given the small number of women specialists in rice in national extension systems, the Panel encourages WARDA to actively recruit women participants by offering NARS extra allocations for women in rice production courses. In so far as WARDA may be seeking funds for this and other gender related activities, it is important that the activities be well conceived and properly formulated. This would help to facilitate the involvement of bilateral donor organizations who support Women in Development activities.
