trategically combining elements of research and development, McKnight's Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) seeks innovative solutions to real problems that will improve availability, access, and utilization of nutritious food by rural people with the fewest resources. We strive for a world where all people have access to the nutritious food they need on the terms they can afford, and where food is sustainably produced to protect local resources and respect cultural values.

Since 1983, The McKnight Foundation CCRP has committed more than $100 million to help build capacity to achieve food and nutritional security for resource-poor rural people in developing countries. Experts in developed countries are linked with experts in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The program encourages a holistic, ecosystem approach to agriculture, supporting research and partnerships with community groups that lead to increased crop productivity, improved livelihoods, and better nutrition.

In its CCRP program, McKnight funds work through several "communities of practice," or CoPs, based in Africa and South America. The CoP model allows the Foundation to support geographically clustered projects that collaborate on interrelated issues. Program grantees meet regularly to discuss their work and to address cross-cutting issues such as climate change and links between agriculture and nutrition. Grantees in the Southern Africa CoP underake projects in Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania.

Work in Malawi

mong the developing countries in which the CCRP works, the southeast African nation of Malawi presents some of the most daunting challenges.

Agriculture remains the backbone of Malawi's economy, contributing almost half of national income and employing two-thirds of the working population. Small farmers in Malawi face significant challenges — meager landholdings, depleted soils, climate variability, high costs, and limited access to markets. Average incomes are low, and more than half of the population lives below the poverty line. Malnutrition is high, particularly among infants, and more than 10% of children do not survive their fifth birthday.

The production of maize, the main staple, has fluctuated in recent years, depending on rainfall and access to fertilizers and seed of high-yielding varities. McKnight and other donors have funded research on improving maize yields and, despite some success, there is still a large gap between yields obtained in the research environment and on farmer fields. As a result, there is growing concern within Malawi over the decline in the productive capacity of the country's soil resources. The challenge facing Malawi today is how to produce more food under these conditions.

Legumes, Soil Fertility, and Organic vs. Inorganic Fertilizers

he viability of crops in Malawi, just like the viability of crops anywhere in the world, is dependent on the presence of certain chemical nutrients in the soil. Fertilizers are used to get these nutrients — such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur — into the soil and make them available to the developing plants.

There are two types of fertilizers, organic and inorganic, and each has their advantages and disadvantages. While inorganic fertilizers deliver the nutrients more readily and directly, they also are prone to a variety of problems, including leaching, chemical “burning” of seedlings through desiccation, and the building up of toxic concentrations of salts in the soil that can create chemical imbalances. Organic fertilizers, while they take a little longer to break down in the soil, offer a variety of advantages. These include improving the soil structure, or tilth, and increasing its ability to hold both water and nutrients. The risk of toxic buildup is also minimal.

Since 2006, the CCRP has funded research at Bunda College, University of Malawi, on the role of legume crops in increasing soil fertility to benefit subsequent maize crops. At the same time, research in Malawi and Kenya has documented that soils with low organic matter content have limited response to fertilizer applications. A unique window of opportunity has opened in Malawi for country-wide scaling up of what is known as Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM). This process uses legumes to regenerate soil fertility to raise productivity levels without damaging the environment. Increased legume production offers further benefits — improved nutrition, as protein malnutrition is a frequent consequence of a maize-dependent diet, particularly for infants; and added household income for farmers who sell the crops.

A national targeted fertilizer and seed subsidy program has reached three million households over each of the past three seasons, resulting in greatly increased maize production. However, due to the high cost of inorganic fertilizer subsidies, it is becoming increasingly evident that food security in Malawi — both at national as well as household levels — cannot be sustained through inorganic fertilizer use alone. Furthermore, the use of inorganic fertilizer also leads to less viable soil for subsequent crops.

ollowing discussions at the Southern Africa CoP meeting in October 2008, Bunda College and its grantee-partner the University of Michigan initiated a unique collaboration with grantees on projects working on Bean Seed Systems and Climbing Beans in the national Department of Agricultural Research and Malawi offices of international Centres CIAT and World Agroforestry Centre. This group prepared a synthesis of findings on how to combine best practices, validated in field research, on the benefits of organic fertilizers, adhering to ISFM principles, and using an otherwise holistic approach to farming and natural resource management. They capitalized on the window of opportunity presented by discussion of the future of fertiliser subsidies in Malawi to engage with national agricultural policy makers and industry stakeholders to attempt to solve some of Malawi's agronomic challenges.

The solution to Malawi's maize dilemma will not come easily. Put deceptively simply, there are two important pieces to the puzzle: the soil and the seed. Fortunately, both pieces can be improved. As research has shown, the most fertile soil for maize comes from using organic fertilizer and from having grown legumes in the soil first. There have been economic and policy-level pressures on farmers — in the form of agricultural vouchers and a complex certification system — to use seed of hybrid maize varieties and inorganic fertilizer, a system that fails to regenerate and maintain healthy, productive soil.

Legumes including beans, cowpeas, groundnuts and pigeon pea can be matched to the range of agro-climatic conditions found in Malawi and when grown as inter-crops or in rotation with maize act as biological factories, adding nitrogen and improving soil health. Being non-hybrids, varieties of these legumes are advantageous for yet more reasons: smallholders can use farm-saved seed, and with local level certification the best of the seeds from these crops can be sold to other farmers to use on their farms, thereby perpetuating the benefits.

The Malawi government included a legume seed option in subsidy program for the first time for the 2007/08 planting season. However with little previous interest from the local seed industry, which targets profits available from the maize crop effort is need to ensure availability of quality legume seed so that benefits of ISFM become widespread. CCRP funded work is demonstrating how locally based seed systems can ensure Malawi farmers have sustained access to the seed they need.

Networking, Learning, and Collective Action

ike any network, the Southern Africa CoP can only be successful if the people and organizations that comprise the community are resourceful, creative, and dedicated problem-solvers. Fortunately, that is precisely the nature of this group, and it is why there is reason to be optimistic that solutions to Malawi's agronomic challenges can be reached through this promising research.

To stimulate the ISFM debate and consider opportunities for taking this to farmers nationwide, CCRP grantees in Malawi first organised a meeting with Ministry of Agriculture officials and in August 2009 a national workshop to discuss their research findings. Policy makers at the national level in Malawi look for ISFM recommendations that are evidence-based and consider performance over the long-term, to promote efficient use of fertilizers and other inputs, and enhance smallholder abilities to cope with variability imposed by weather and markets.

Following encouraging feedback from the policy workshop, CCRP has approved additional funding for Bunda College to lead synthesis of findings from ongoing and past programs and supplement them with new information on economic, social, and agronomic aspects of ISFM, and the most effective ways of disseminating knowledge of the unique role legumes can play in enhancing sustainability of smallholder livelihoods. Ministry of Agriculture officials will work with grantees in this new initiative to generate the information needed to inform national policy supporting the promotion of integrated soil fertility management approaches.

As inspiring and resourceful as they are, the tale of these CCRP grantees coming together to collaborate is only part of their success. Their progress further proves that practical, beneficial outcomes can result from the CoP approach, which is explicitly founded on the three cornerstone values of networking, learning, and collective action. Each of these values is present here, and each was a necessary ingredient in the success of this endeavour. Perhaps most exciting is the fact that, through their collaborative effort, real-world systems and policy changes — changes which will ultimately bring more and healthier food and more sustainable livelihoods to the people of Malawi — have every chance of taking hold in a measurable way.

Related links

McKnight's international program
International Network of Local Efforts (website feature)