Knowledge Management Portal

In the early 1980s, disease susceptibility in short-season lentil landraces began to limit productivity in areas where relay cropping took place in Bangladesh. Since then, several improved high-yielding lentil varieties, which are resistant to rust and blight and suitable in the relay cropping system, have been released jointly by national and international research centers. This study used three methods, namely a panel of experts, a survey of 1000 households where the respondents named the variety they used, and DNA fingerprinting of seed samples collected from all lentil plots cultivated by survey households to estimate adoption. Double hurdle and instrumental variables regression methods were applied to the household survey and DNA fingerprinting data to identify determinants of adoption and measure their impacts. Of particular interest was whether estimates of adoption, determinants of adoption and impacts varied by method of variety identification. Results showed that the expert panel overestimated the adoption of more recent varieties while about 89% of the farmer-reported varieties were accurate, as verified by DNA fingerprinting. DNA fingerprinting appears to have little advantage for estimating the level of adoption in this case, where few varieties of lentils are found, local variety names do not exist, and most seed is obtained through a formal system. However, even under these conditions, determinants of adoption vary by identification method, and use of farmer-reported information on the variety can lead to erroneous conclusions about determinants of adoption. Because recent breeding efforts have focused on taste and cooking considerations, yield impacts were not significantly different from zero.

The communication plan is designed to support the two main objectives of the IFAD-funded initiative ‘Strengthening knowledge management for greater development effectiveness in the Near East, North Africa, Central Asia and Europe’: • Enhancing the knowledge management (KM) skills of key rural institutions and other stakeholders in Moldova, Morocco and Sudan • Fostering and promoting knowledge exchange across in-country, cross-country and transregional partners to facilitate improved knowledge uptake, transfer, and management. The plan reflects the principles and recommendations set out in IFAD’s Strategy for Knowledge Management1, recognizing that effective KM can play a critical role in the promotion of new solutions to tackle rural poverty, and understanding that KM must be rooted in core competencies and embedded in the work processes, cultures and mindsets of organizations to be effective. The plan provides a framework that outlines strategies to implement the following outcomes.

Strengthening Knowledge Management for Greater Development Effectiveness: Inception Workshop day 1 and 2.

Countries in the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region are dependent on imports of wheat to meet their food security needs. Mechanized raised-bed wheat production is an effective means of increasing productivity and saving scarce water, but the technology needs substantial adaptation to local conditions. This paper estimates the economic benefits from a long-term adaptive research project designed to adapt and promote mechanical raised-bed wheat production in Egypt. The technology itself is associated with a 25% increase in productivity due to higher yields, 50% lower seed costs, a 25% reduction in water use, and lower labor costs. The mechanical raised-bed program is now a component of Egypt’s national wheat campaign and it is estimated that by 2023 approximately 800,000 ha of wheat will be planted with the technology. This paper estimates that over a 15 year project horizon, the benefits will exceed US$ 4 billion, with most of the benefits accruing to more than one million Egyptian wheat producers. Other benefits include reduced wheat imports (by more than 50% by 2025), reduced dependence on international commodity markets and increased productivity on more than 200,000 ha of water-starved lands.

The International Potato Center (CIP) and Peruvian National Agricultural Research Institute (INIA) have invested a substantial amount of resources towards the development of improved potato varieties in Peru. These varieties are adaptable to the agro-ecologies of the Andes and have specific biotic and abiotic attributes. These efforts have led to the release of several prominent varieties including Canchan-INIA, Amarilis, Unica, Serranita and others. A 2013 household survey conducted by CIP was used to describe the diffusion of improved potato varieties in Peru. These data were also used to identify specific constraints to their adoption and dis-adoption. The assessment focused on a two-step adoption model, adoption and dis-adoption, by utilizing a Heckman Probit model to demonstrate two-steps of the adoption process. The Heckman Probit model was used to analyze variables affecting adoption and dis-adoption of improved varieties. Results suggest that adoption is region specific, time dependent, and in some cases relies on informal transmission methods. Risk to food insecurity and recurrent natural phenomena affect adoption and sometimes dis-adoption. Additionally, factors affecting a farmer’s exposure to risk, such as information constraints and household head age, wealth, and social network were found to affect the adoption and dis-adoption of improved varieties.

We tested the effect of different substrate (sugar, honey) on Bracon hebetor adult performance, along with the effect of addition of different proportion of cowpea flour to host-larvae Corcyra cephalonica diet on parasitoid multiplication. The field trials included direct release of 400, 800, 1600 adults of B. hebetor per 5km2 compare to control villages which did not received any parasitoids. Furthermore timing releases of the parasitoids in relation of pearl millet phenology and pest dynamic have been tested for better controlling the pest. Finally discussions have been engaged with farmers’ organization to identify the best model for parasitoid commercialization.

Cooperation-88 (C88) is a late blight resistant potato variety that was formally released in China in 2001 and has become popular in China’s Yunnan Province. The International Potato Center (CIP) and Yunnan Normal University collaborated to produce the variety, which is one of CIP’s most successful varieties. C88 is popular due to its high quality and taste, and it is used commonly in China’s expanding potato chip processing market. The purpose of this study is to examine adoption of C88 in the Yunnan Province, its value chain, and economic impacts. The analysis indicates that C88 is still popular with 16.8% of the potato area in Yunnan devoted to this variety in late spring 2015. To examine factors affecting household decisions to adopt and the intensity of their adoption, village adoption, household adoption, and household intensity of adoption were assessed. A village’s proximity to a metropolitan county was the most important factor explaining adoption and intensity of adoption. Households in villages closer to a metropolitan county disadopted at higher rates than those farther away. To quantify the economic benefits of C88 adoption, an economic surplus analysis was conducted. Total surplus changes ranged from $2 to 3 billion indicating significant economic benefits to consumers and producers in Yunnan.

Goats and sheep are versatile domesticates that have been integrated into diverse environments and production systems. Natural and artificial selection have shaped the variation in the two species, but natural selection has played the major role among indigenous flocks. To investigate signals of natural selection, we analyzed genotype data generated using the caprine and ovine 50K SNP BeadChips from Barki goats and sheep that are indigenous to a hot arid environment in Egypt’s Coastal Zone of the Western Desert. We identify several candidate regions under selection that spanned 119 genes. A majority of the genes were involved in multiple signaling and signal transduction pathways in a wide variety of cellular and biochemical processes. In particular, selection signatures spanning several genes that directly or indirectly influenced traits for adaptation to hot arid environments, such as thermo-tolerance (melanogenesis) (FGF2, GNAI3, PLCB1), body size and development (BMP2, BMP4, GJA3, GJB2), energy and digestive metabolism (MYH, TRHDE, ALDH1A3), and nervous and autoimmune response (GRIA1, IL2, IL7, IL21, IL1R1) were identified. We also identified eight common candidate genes under selection in the two species and a shared selection signature that spanned a conserved syntenic segment to bovine chromosome 12 on caprine and ovine chromosomes 12 and 10, respectively, providing, most likely, the evidence for selection in a common environment in two different but closely related species. Our study highlights the importance of indigenous livestock as model organisms for investigating selection sweeps and genome-wide association mapping.