Simple labour-saving ways to boost maize and rice harvests in southern Africa

Farmers in dry uplands in southern Africa mainly grow maize. In wetlands, where their fields flood in the rainy season, they intercrop maize with rice. But maize and rice are labour-intensive and harvests were poor. Now, farmers use simple labour-saving practices and work their oxen more effectively. New farmer groups in Masvingo, Zimuto, Mshagashe, Chatsworth and Chivito, Zimbabwe, are spreading the word that soaking seeds, planting on ridges to combat waterlogging, ridging fields to get rid of weeds, and conserving moisture in furrows and pits saves work and boosts harvests. The Universities of Zimbabwe and Gweru, and agricultural colleges also now teach these and other practices. Plus, seeing the benefits for themselves, farmers are quick to copy what obviously works.

Project Ref: CPP48:
Topic: 1. Improving Farmers Livelihoods: Better Crops, Systems & Pest Management
Lead Organisation: Silsoe Research Institute, UK
Source: Crop Protection Programme

Contents:		Description
		Validation
		Current Situation
		Lessons Learned
		Impacts On Poverty
		Environmental Impact
		Annex

Description

Research Programmes:

The Crop Protection Programme funded the projects which validated the core outputs described in this document.  Salaries and facilities for University and field staff of Zimbabwean partner institutions were funded by the University of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Government.  Activities under R7189 in Botswana were co-funded by Government of Botswana.

Rice lines evaluated in Zimbabwe by R7474/R8191 were provided by the rice breeding programme at WARDA, The Africa Rice Centre.

Relevant Research Projects:

Research Outputs, Problems and Solutions:

Participatory technology development with farmers in the semi-arid Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe (1992-2005) produced a series of outputs to improve crop yields by using labour-efficient practices within tillage systems based on animal draught ploughing:

R5742

1)      Validated practices for management of the perennial grass weed Cynodon dactlyon.  Research showed that under dryland cropping systems in Botswana and Zimbabwe suppression of the weed was achieved and maize yields increased by ploughing early in the spring and applying a herbicide to grass regrowth before planting;

R6655

2)      Characterised farmers existing weed management practices: and identified that weeds are a constraint in seasonally flooded vleis (wetlands that are vital for food security in rainfed areas) due to access problems after rain;

3)      Validation of innovative crop establishment and weed control options for uplands and vleis: Use of a low draught ripper tine for reduced tillage planting; use of the mouldboard plough for inter-row weeding, shown to reduce labour and improved timeliness of operations;

R7474

4)       On-farm validation of modified tillage and crop establishment systems for vlei fields:  Preparation of broad-beds and ridges with the mouldboard plough owned by the majority of farmers to raise maize roots out of standing water.  The beds or ridges are cropped with maize and separating furrows are cropped with rice.  This system reduces the impact of water-logging on maize and provides water harvesting for rice;

5)      Improved weed management in maize and rice in vleis: i) Application of pre-emergence herbicides provides weed suppression during maize vegetative stage and reduces need for labour-demanding hand hoeing in saturated soils, ii) Use of the mouldboard plough for inter-row weeding in dryer vleis. This allows farmers to conserve soil moisture during drought spells and drain excess water in wet periods;

6)      Participatory selection of high yielding rice lines: Farmer groups selected and multiplied lines selected from seed provided by WARDA.  These were distributed on a local scale in the project area and subsequently have spread rapidly from farmer to farmer;

R7189

7)       Use of seed priming in maize validated under farmer-management: Soaking of maize seed over night prior to planting improved maize establishment, reducing the need for gap filling and significantly increased yield (at 5% level);

R8191

8)      Promotion and dissemination of findings.  Field days, workshops, and papers, extension "Best Practice Guidelines" and posters for land, preparation, weed management and knapsack sprayer use were prepared on the basis of findings of previous projects (Annex 1)

9)      Development of a participatory technology development (PTD) process for farmer testing of the alternative weed management practices. This involved farmers and farmer groups facilitated by Government agricultural extension staff;

10) Strengthened capability of participating organisations to use participatory approaches.

Types of Research Output:

Major Commodities Involved:

These outputs focus on maize grown in both dry uplands and seasonally flooded land (vleis) in southern Africa where inter-cropping with rice is also common as a risk reducing strategy. Most of these outputs are specific to animal draught systems.

Production Systems:

Farming Systems:

Potential for Added Value:

Outputs from this cluster include:

• Validated options for weed control in maize and rice, including the integrated use of herbicides with hand or draft animal weeding and early winter ploughing;
• A participatory technology development approach for farmer testing and selection of methods appropriate to their resources.
• Extension and training material.

Maize production in southern Africa faces a number of constraints not investigated during the series of projects from which these outputs were drawn.  Validated technologies to address these are available under the following topics:

Soil fertility management

R8215 and R8452 - recommendations for use of green manures in maize based systems developed in Tanzania.

Other legume based options have been evaluated on-farm in Zimbabwe by the CIMMYT mid-altitude maize programme based in Harare.

Maize Stalkborer control

R8215 and R8452 - use of field margin planting of napier grass and application of neem based botanical insecticide in Tanzania.

R8449, R8212 - use of Desmodium inter-crops and napier grass field margins in the "push-pull" system developed in Kenya.

Striga tolerant maize

R6291 and R8215/R8452 - selected sources of resistance in early maturing lines provided from CIMMYT and validated their performance under farmer management in Tanzania.

Animal draught tillage/weeding equipment and extension messages

R7352 - recommendations on how to improve draught animal performance validated in Zimbabwe.

Weed control in direct seeded rice

R8234 - herbicide options for DSR validated in Bangladesh

Validation

How the outputs were validated:

The projects that contributed outputs described in this document used a participatory technology development approach.  Workshops with a range of local stakeholders including farmers, government extension (AREX), NGO and research staff and subsequently farmer focus groups were used to develop an understanding of constraints and the opportunities for improving farm productivity.  Stakeholders then agreed the selection of crop management practices to be evaluated and these were included in a series of on-farm trials that were managed by farmers.  Research staff collected data on crop stand establishment, weed control; yield etc and sites were used as replicates for statistical analysis which generally employed REML methods for unbalanced designs.  Farmers came together with the research teams to undertake mid season and harvest evaluations of trials. Generally each group of farmers visited trials in its area and participants used matrix ranking to assess the performance of maize crops, establishment or weed control practice according to a set of their own previously agreed criteria.  The advantages and disadvantages of each practice evaluated were also assessed in group meetings for households with a range of resources as described in section 11. Where new practices were evaluated that required cash inputs, including ripper tines or herbicides, these were provided by the projects.  Otherwise farmers took decisions on ploughing and planting dates and undertook field activities with their own labour and draught power.

Best bet options identified for upland maize production included i) over night soaking of seed in water (priming) prior to planting to improve crop establishment (significant yield increase at 5% level); ii) low-draught crop establishment by seeding into a rip line followed by reduced labour demand for weeding by using a plough; iii) control of the perennial grass Cynodon dactylon by application of the herbicide glyphosate after harvest or after an early ploughing and before planting (average of 40% yield increase compared to planting on a single ploughing).  On wetland vlei fields farmers selected early maturing high yielding rice lines in place of the local land race and maize establishment by planting in rows onto broad beds or ridges created by a plough (significant 56 % increase in maize yields with similar rice yields). Farmers also found it more profitable to grow sole crop rice at a high population density on portions of the wettest vlei where maize production carries a high risk. Labour non-availability remains the key concern and many farmers do lose their entire vlei crop due to weeds.  Hand weeding of traditional row planted maize inter-cropped by broadcast rice required large amounts of labour and partial budget analysis showed higher net benefits on sole maize crops using herbicides.  However in wetter years, when maize yields are very low due to early season water logging, rice yields are impressive, particularly where weeds were controlled with herbicides.  Key again has been the non-availability of labour to control weeds.  Where farmers were not able to control them 100% yield loss resulted.

Rice lines were assessed using "Participatory Variety Selection (PVS)" approaches within projects R7473 and R8191.  At the same time a farmer was contracted to multiply seed of lines obtained from WARDA in West Africa and the national programme in Zimbabwe as well as providing land for replicated yield trials.  Sufficient seed to plant two plots each of 5m x 3 rows of up to 12 lines was provided to experienced rice farmers selected by their communities.  A total of 22 lines were distributed and trials were co-ordinated by the crop specialist at the Masvingo Provincial AREX office.  Sets of seed were also evaluated by farmer groups participating with CARE Zimbabwe. 

Where the Outputs were Validated:

All the outputs were derived from projects undertaken in semi-arid areas of Masvingo Province (450-650 mm annual rainfall), on granitic sandy soils, largely in the communal areas of Gutu and Zimutu. Focus group discussions between researchers and extension staff led to establishment of farmer study groups in four further areas for validation of vlei technologies under projects R7474/R8191.  A total of 400 farmers in 20 study groups were involved in this validation work in Mukara and Zimutu communal areas, Chatsworth re-settlement area and Mshagashe small-scale commercial farming area.  These were selected to represent major classes of land tenure and farmers of different resource categories. (Table 1)  On-farm trials on Cynodon control were also implemented in Zvimba communal area (annual rainfall 750-1000 mm) and in SE Botswana. Project participants and those hosting trial were volunteers, rather than being purposively selected according to pre-determined criteria.

Table 1:  Farmer resource or wealth groups

¹DAP=Draught animal power

Most households in the communities where outputs were generated would be categorised as "moderate poor" according to RIU criteria but a significant (and now increasing) proportion were "extreme vulnerable poor" who rely on working for others to afford to hire or borrow draught power for ploughing.  Consequently this group plant smaller areas often later and tend to weed later than better resourced household.

Current Situation

Who are the Users?

DFID-Harare held a three-day agricultural research and dissemination workshop and fair in Harare during September 2005. This brought together policy-makers, researchers and field practitioners from the private sector, donor community, and the natural resource sector to consider and discuss DFID RNNRS programme outputs as well DFID-Zimbabwe's "Protracted Relief Programme". UZ hosted a stand at the fair, where dissemination outputs of CPP funded research in Zimbabwe over the past ten years was displayed.  A large demand for UZ-CPP and other RNNRS (R7473, R7474, R8191, R7362 and R7085) produced extension and training material could not be met during the workshop.  As a result CPP funded the production of a CD covering this material, which was produced by the University of Zimbabwe, Department of Crop Science for distribution to development agencies.

As a result individual validated practices described in this document have been included in extension programmes of various NGOs implementing the DFID funded Poverty Reduction Programme or on a local scale through the activities of local extension officers. Also practices are continuing to spread from farmer to farmer in areas where validation was undertaken, but no adoption survey has been made. Priming is used for seed that will be planted in vleis before the rains, and farmers with ploughs but without cultivators routinely "ridge the crop" as a way to remove weeds and to create a furrow for moisture conservation in cereal crops.  Although the improved rice lines selected by farmers during PVS trials were not formally released as cultivars, farmer to farmer spread from the focal point farmers that received seed for testing has been rapid.

Where the Outputs have been Used:

Within Zimbabwe outputs are being used in at least five districts of Masvingo province as listed in section 16.  Teaching at the University of Zimbabwe and Gweru also incorporates knowledge generated by the projects.  At UZ this includes a specific topic in the crop production degree on crop production in vleis and a section on wetland management in the Soil and Water Management course that is taught in the Soil Science Department using knowledge included in  the dissemination CD.  The Weed Management course in UZ's Crop Science Department draws on research experiences and use the extracts from the CD.  The CD has also been distributed to agricultural colleges and other training institutions. It has also been used as a training tool by UZ staff leading courses in Mupamalanga and Limpopo province in South Africa and  Mozambique.  UZ has also received requests through their website for information on sprayer calibration, herbicide for perennial weed control in vleis, combining herbicides with tillage in vleis, herbicide dissipation in wetlands, planting densities of rice from South Africa, Mozambique, Burundi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Togo etc These requests show that people in various countries have accessed training materials on water and weed management in vleis (as well as cotton systems) that is available on the UZ website.

Scale of current use:

During the period of on-farm validation there was a steady increase in the number of farmers adopting the technologies for vleis in the Mshagashe small scale commercial farming area (Table 2):

Table 2:  Farmers adopting technologies in Mshagashe (2002/3-2004/5)

Source:  Extension agent reports (Masvingo workshop 2005)

In addition CARE Zimbabwe reported that a number of technologies were being tested and promoted within their activities in five districts in Masvingo Province.

·               Production of rice including new varieties with 12 groups involved.

·               Seed priming with 10 lead farmers and farmer groups.

·               Weeding with a light cultivator with 10 lead farmers and farmer groups.

·               Tied ridges on topland fields with 10 lead farmers and farmer groups.

·               The use of water conservation pits on contours was reported as being widespread

Beds and ridges are still very popular, with AREX reporting that new farmer groups are being formed in Masvingo, Zimuto, Mshagashe, Chatsworth and Chivi to promote their  use to reduce the effects of waterlogging in wetland fields.  Farmers with ploughs but without cultivators routinely "ridge the crop" as a way to remove weeds and to create a furrow for moisture conservation in upland maize crops.  Estimates made by AREX staff suggest that one out of four farmers now use this technology in Zimuto, Chatsworth, and Gutu. The intensification of rice production through the use of higher plant densities and fertilizer, demonstrated by CPP projects, is said to be increasing in Chatsworth and Zimuto. 

Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success:

Outputs were developed and promoted giving attention to both institutional and community issues.  Of critical importance was involvement of stakeholders in a participatory process, where farmers were able to identify and prioritise the problems with which they were faced. They were then involved in the research process including identification of treatments, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.  This process required commitment from both research and extension organisations involving greater emphasis on facilitation and less on teaching and recognition of the key role that farmers must play in the research process.  The key partnerships for future promotion was that of farmers with extension agents (Government and NGO) whose staff participated and benefited from the training provided by the University of Zimbabwe and developed the capacity to continue to promote farmer testing and adoption of technologies. Anecdotal evidence suggests that in a number of villages where project activities were undertaken participating AREX extension officers continue to extend outputs despite little or no institutional support being available. The demonstration element of on-farm validation has also been critical to farmer learning and adoption decisions.

Other factors included

·         Building institutional and community capacity in participatory approaches.

·         Ensuring that institutional roles of stakeholders were well defined and agreed.

·         Ensuring close integration of research and development activities.

·         Ensuring feed back from research to local communities.

·         Ensuring farmers participating in the process were representative with the capacity to lead and communicate with other farmers and promote farmer-to-farmer extension.

·         Ensuring ready availability of training and extension material in a planned communication process.

·         Ensuring farmers have access to the required farm inputs, when required. 

Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways

Promotion of Outputs:

Apart from the ongoing promotion already described in sections 12-14, planting into ripper tine furrows or open plough furrows was promoted in the 2005-06 season by CIMMYT and a number of NGOs in Masvingo Province working with DFID's Poverty Reduction Programme [1] as part of efforts to promote conservation agriculture (Table 3).

Otherwise promotion is taking place on a sporadic and local level through the efforts of individual extension officers.

[1] DFID is providing £30 million over three years (2004-2007) for a relief programme to improve the food security of more than 1.5 million of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Zimbabwe by increasing their access to seeds and fertilisers, nutrition gardens and safe water.

Table 3: Current promotion of reduced tillage planting

Potential Barriers Preventing Adoption of Outputs:

In Zimbabwe, poverty is presently manifested by the inability of many households either to feed themselves and to procure essential goods and services for a productive and healthy life.   Given the present political and economic situation many extension agencies, especially Government are inadequately resourced with insufficient transport and a shortage of funds for the promotion of outputs described in this document.  NGO priorities are largely aimed at providing relief feeding to vulnerable households and individuals and working in support of programmes such as DFID-Zimbabwe's "Protracted Recovery Programme".  This aims to stabilise food security and protect the livelihoods of vulnerable households.  This includes both feeding schemes and assisting with nutrient or vegetable gardens and interventions aimed at stabilising food production through promoting crop diversification and resource efficient farming techniques. In the economic situation that has developed in Zimbabwe, extension programmes in the communal farming areas have largely survived with little or no funding from central government, and are largely sustained by the individual sacrifice and efforts of a cadre of extension workers that participated in the research and dissemination phase of the CPP projects.  Lack of foreign exchange has restricted imports of pesticides including herbicides.  Many herbicides registered in Zimbabwe are no longer available, and those that are still imported are difficult to find beyond the outskirts of Harare.  With inflation above 1000% per annum herbicides are not currently a viable option for smallholder farmers.

How to Overcome Barriers to Adoption of Outputs:

Given the limited human resource capacity at local level it will be essential to harness the university and NGO sectors to increase the pace of promotion and to reach a larger number of communities.  This can in part be achieved through i) maintaining and improving collaboration, networking and partnership between research, extension, ii) ensuring partners are adequately resourced, with clearly identifiable roles for which they are accountable and iii) most importantly ensuring that community level organisations are able to play an important role.    It also requires that input and output markets are effectively working.  Local level field staff can have greatest impact by working with farmer groups through lead farmers selected by each group to set up field demonstrations to provide the focus of field days and community learning.  This in turn requires training in the use of the extension material through an on-going partnership for training between research and extension staff.

Lessons Learned:

Processes and partnerships that result in the training of extension workers so they can facilitate farmer groups to undertake field demonstrations to stimulate farmer awareness of technology options and farmer learning in how to optimise best bet practices have been the key to farmer to farmer spread of outputs described in this document.

This requires planning of three phases all with realistic timescales:

·             an orientation and action planning phase, where i) communities are facilitated by extension agents to have a common understanding of their problems, set priorities, agree action plans with targets for problem resolution and productivity increases, together with appropriate indicators,  ii) a strategy for ensuring sustainability is developed by stakeholders that ensures resource availability for capacity building, communication, monitoring and evaluation, with role and cost sharing agreements within partnerships.

·             An implementation phase where the capacity of local institutions is improved through training, collaboration, networking and alliances where institutional roles are defined and undertaken.  During this stage it is crucial that priority community constraints are addressed using participatory extension approaches that test and demonstrate technology options appropriate for all poverty groupings.  Local monitoring and evaluation (M&E) reinforced by appropriate awareness raising and training are essential components.  In addition those institutions working at community level must be accountable to the communities with which they are working.

·             A sustainability phase that ensures long term sustainability.  This requires that communities agree from the outset a timeframe for achieving their goals.  In this case local District administrations will need to commit resources to improving local organisational capacity, and the private sector to ensuring farmer access to input and output markets and providing technical support.  Although these are essential for ensuring sustainability, they must be established in the implementation phase.

·             In addition, M&E and impact needs to be assessed using indicators developed at planning stage with mechanisms established to provide feedback on issues and problems as they arise to communities and district administrations.

Impacts On Poverty

Lessons Learned:

No formal poverty impact study or poverty mapping work has been undertaken related to the outputs of this document.  However a detailed cost benefit analysis was undertaken as part of the validation process and is reported in detail in FTR 7473.  Examples of participatory budgets and gross margin analysis are provided in papers presented at the final workshop of project R7473 and the final technical report for project R8191:

Barton A and Ellis-Jones J. (Eds.) 2002. Proceedings of the end of project workshop on vlei management. Report No. IDG/03/02 Silsoe, Bedfordshire: Silsoe Research Institute.

Chivinge O. 2005. Promoting improved crop establishment and weed management in semi-arid areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Final Technical Report Project R 8191. Harare, Zimbabwe: University of Zimbabwe.

How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups):

Crop establishment and subsequent weed control costs largely depend on farmers' resources, with the availability of draft power and labour being key determinants of the methods used.  Those without these resources, usually the poorest are reliant on others and are often late in planting and weeding and in wet years land is often abandoned due to weed problems.   In this situation the cost of poor weed control is the total loss of crop as well as the production resources already invested.  This inability to control weeds (especially in the wetland environment) declining labour availability, exacerbated by HIV/AIDS, declining draft animal availability, and the sheer drudgery of hand weeding suggested that integrated weed management combining crop establishment, subsequent tillage and herbicide use would become increasingly justified. Cost benefit analysis undertaken at the time confirmed this.   However herbicides have become largely non available due to lack of foreign exchange in Zimbabwe with prices along with other inputs escalating beyond the reach of most farmers, while maize prices have been controlled by Government.  At the same time, availability of wetlands in an otherwise low potential semi-arid area play a critical role for food security in most years, especially dry ones.  They also have potential for increasing household income from producing rice, a relatively high value crops.

In these circumstances promotion of low risk low cost technologies that can be implemented with existing household resources is critical.  This includes:

·               Seed priming (no cost with considerable potential benefit).

·               Reduced tillage (rip and OPFP planting systems) as part of conservation agriculture initiatives.

·               Promotion of improved rice varieties (no cost with large benefits).

·               Alternative tillage and cropping systems that give farmers options depending on the resources they have available. 

The economic cost-benefit analysis, reported in the final workshop of R7473 showed that highest productivity was achieved in vleis by planting maize on beds with rice sown in adjacent furrows, whether herbicides were used or not, providing a 60% increase in overall productivity and doubling the returns to labour over traditional method of planting maize and rice on the same row on the flat, even when these were clean weeded.   Interestingly during the promotion project, farmers themselves devised a better method of making ridges than researchers.  This included planting maize as the ridge was formed in still moist soil, to overcome germination problems associated with traditional pre-plant ridges.  Later rice was planted in the furrow.  These compared favourably with beds and required less draft power and labour.  Next best was a flat system with maize and rice in alternate rows more especially in a wet season.  The worst is a flat system with maize and rice in the same row, which has the highest labour requirement.  It was concluded that the large variation in soil types, rainfall conditions and farmer resources complicated a formal cost benefit analysis approach but rather an approach was needed whereby farmers are facilitated to identify those options suitable for their conditions (Figure 1) and expand from here.

Figure 1:  Crop systems and tillage options for vlei areas

Environmental Impacts

Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits:

The outputs of this document include an integrated crop establishment and weed management approach that incorporates many aspects of good land husbandry including improved soil and water management.  These give emphasis to environmental protection.  This is particularly important in the vleis where promotion programmes need to emphasise the maintenance of uncultivated areas adjacent to water courses. The construction of broad beds or ridge and furrow landforms, aligned along the contour, will reduce the risk of erosion and moisture loss during drought periods in the wetlands.  Much of the erosion that has been seen in vlei land has resulted from overgrazing.  Fencing is associated with the profitable cultivation of these areas and this will protect these fragile areas from grazing pressure.

Adverse Environmental Impacts:

Use of herbicides carries with it a degree of environmental risk.  However used at recommended doses herbicides registered for use on maize have favourable environmental toxicity profiles. It is essential that users are made aware of the potential hazards, such as water contamination from inadvertent spills.  The agro-chemical industry has a key role to play in disseminating information on safe use to the agriculture community.  Training of pesticide dealers who interact with farmers should be an integral part of promotion of herbicides for weed management in maize and rice. Posters and other training materials produced by CPP projects in Zimbabwe can contribute to this increased level of understanding.

Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters:

Farmers in the semi-arid maize growing areas of Zimbabwe are used to living with climatic variability, a situation that is predicted to worsen due to global climate change.  Current climate models for a range of atmospheric CO₂ estimates suggest an increase in mean annual temperature of 1.9 to 6.2 ⁰C in central Zimbabwe by 2080 with 5 to 18% less rainfall than the 1960-90 average [8] These effects are already reality for farmers.  Overall there has been a 5% reduction in rainfall across the country since 1900 with 15% less rainfall than average during the period 1986-1995, almost certainly due to an El Nino event.  With more variable and lower rainfall farmers need to manage land to conserve moisture more than ever before and closing the yield gap due to weeds will become an increasing priority to mitigate the effects of climate change. Herbicides provide a labour efficient opportunity for timely weed control to prevent competition for moisture while inter-row cultivation later in the season can reduce run-off from intense storms.

[8] Hulm and Sheard, 1999 Climate change scenarios for Zimbabwe. Climate Change Unit, University of East Anglia, UK.

Annex

Annex 1:  Training and extension materials available in support of outputs described in this document

A Guide for farmers on Good Land Husbandry¹

This included a series of 15 booklets concerning

i)                Introduction to Good Land Husbandry.

ii)               Soil and Water Management.

iii)             Soil Fertility.

iv)             Primary Tillage and Land Preparation.

v)              What is Important for Good Crop Establishment.

vi)             Planting Option 1 - Hand Planting.

vii)           Planting Option 2 - Traditional Third Furrow Planting.

viii)          Planting Option 3 - Open Plough Furrow Planting.

ix)             Planting Option 4 - Ripper Planting.

x)              Weed Management.

xi)             Conservation Tillage Option 1 - No Till Tied Ridging.

xii)           Conservation Tillage Option 2 - Low Input Tillage and Weeding.

xiii)          Alternative Soil and water Conservation Ideas.

xiv)         Draught Animal Harnessing.

xv)           Tillage Implements.

"Best Practice Guidelines" on

• Sustainable Cultivation of vleis
• Sustainable Soil, Water and Weed Management in Cotton-Maize production Systems
• Use and maintenance of draught animal ploughs

Group Extension Training Guides using Pictures, and Visual Aids for Training Modules

• Land Preparation, Crop Establishment, Soil Conservation and Weed Management
• Crop, Soil, Water and Weed Management for maize and rice in vleis

Leaflets for farmers for each training module

            These draw from material produced in the Guides

Five posters on the safe handling and use of pesticides

-        Poisonous nature of pesticides

-        Safeguards against pesticide poisoning

-        Precautions when mixing and spraying pesticides

-        First-aid measures in case of pesticide poisoning

-        Disposal of pesticide waste and personal hygiene

Relevant Research Projects, with links to the
Research for Development (R4D) web site
and Technical Reports:

R4D	Project Title	Technical Report
R5742	Management of Cynodon in animal draught tillage systems
R6291	High temperature and water-deficit tolerance in groundnuts.
R6655	Zimbabwe: Moisture conservation through improved weed management in Savannah cropping systems.
R7189	Cultivar competitiveness and interactions with on-farm seed priming for integrated weed management
R7352	Draught power performance and production management
R7473	De-centralisation of road administration
R8151	Improving the livelihood of resource-poor goat farmers in Southern Africa through strategic drug and nutritional interventions against gastro-intestinal nematode infections
	Goatkeepers Manual
	Goatkeepers Manual, 2nd edition
	Relative economic benefits of strategic anthelmintic treatment and urea-molasses block supplementation of Boer goats raised under extensive grazing conditions at Onderstepoort, Pretoria, South Africa
R8212	Integrated pest and soil management to combat Striga, stemborers and declining soil fertility in the Lake Victoria basin
R8215	Increasing food security and improving livelihoods through the promotion of integrated pest and soil management in lowland maize systems
R8234	Promotion of cost-effective weed management practices for lowland rice in Bangladesh
R8449	Promotion and dissemination of integrated pest and soil fertility management strategies to combat striga, stemborers and declining soil fertility in the Lake Victoria basin
R8452	Increasing food security and improving livelihoods through the promotion of integrated pest and soil management in lowland maize systems, Phase II

For relevant research projects, with links to further information

Geographical regions included:

Zimbabwe,

Target Audiences for this content:

Crop farmers,