Academic literature on the topic 'Leguma diversification'

Unexpectedly lower yield outcomes (downside risks) challenge farmers’ use of external inputs that can enhance crop productivity. Using household-level panel data collected from Ethiopia, we estimated the effects of crop diversification through maize-legume intercropping/rotation on maize yield distribution and downside risk. Results from endogenous switching regression models and quintile moment approaches show that plots with maize-legume intercropping/rotation have the highest average maize yield. Such crop diversification reduces the downside risk in maize yield more when applied to plots receiving external inputs. The results imply that, in addition to the technical support around external input use in smallholder maize production, Ethiopia’s agricultural extension may also need to give due emphasis to both spatial and temporal crop diversification practices. This could enhance crop productivity further and reduce the potential downside risks typically hampering smallholders’ external input use in maize production.

Legume species are uniquely suited to enhance soil productivity and provide nutrient-enriched grains and vegetables for limited-resource farmers. Yet substantial barriers to diversification with legumes exist, such as moderate yield potential and establishment costs, indicating the need for long-term engagement and farmer-centered research and extension. This review and in-depth analysis of a Malawian case study illustrates that farmer experimentation and adoption of legumes can be fostered among even the most resource-poor smallholders. Multi-educational activities and participatory research involving farmer research teams was carried out with 80 communities. Over five years more than 3000 farmers tested legumes and gained knowledge of legume contributions to child nutrition and soil productivity. The average area of expansion of legume systems was 862 m2 in 2005; 772 m2 for women and 956 m2 for men indicating a gender dimension to legume adoption. Farmers chose edible legume intercrops such as pigeonpea and groundnut over the mucuna green manure system, particularly women farmers. Interestingly, expansion in area of doubled-up edible legumes (854 m2 in 2005) was practiced by more farmers, but was a smaller area than that of mucuna green manure system (1429 m2). An information gap was discovered around the biological consequences of legume residue management. Education on the soil benefits of improved residue management and participatory methods of knowledge sharing were associated with enhanced labour investment; 72 % of farmers reported burying legume residues in 2005 compared to 15 % in 2000. Households reported feeding significantly more edible legumes to their children compared with control households. Participatory research that incorporated nutritional education fostered discussions within households and communities, the foundation for sustained adoption of legume-diversified systems.

AbstractSustainable intensification of smallholder farms in Africa is highly dependent on enhancing biological nitrogen fixation (BNF). Legume diversification of maize-based systems is a core example of sustainable intensification, with the food security of millions of farm families at stake. This study highlights the constraints and opportunities associated with the adoption of legumes by smallholder farmers in southern Africa. A two-part survey of households and farm fields (n=88) was conducted in the Ekwendeni watershed of northern Malawi. Participatory research and education activities have been underway for over a decade in this region, resulting in expanded uptake of a range of legume species as intercrops and in rotation with the staple maize crop. Farmer adoption has occurred to a varying extent for soybean (Glycine max), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) and fish bean (Tephrosia vogelii). Farmers, working with the project valued pigeon pea and other legumes for soil fertility purposes to a greater extent than farmers not working with the project. Legumes were valued for a wide range of purposes beyond soil cover and fertility enhancement, notably for infant nutrition (at least for soybean), insect control, and vegetable and grain production for both market and home consumption. Literature values for BNF in tropical legumes range up to 170 kg N ha−1for grain and 300 kg N ha−1for green manure species; however, our field interviews illustrated the extent of constraints imposed by soil properties on smallholder fields in Malawi. The key edaphic constraints observed were very deficient to moderate phosphorus levels (range 4–142, average 33 mg kg−1), and moderately acid soils (range pH 5.1–7.9, average 6.2). The per farm hectarage devoted to legume production relative to maize production was also low (0.15 versus 0.35 ha), a surprising find in an area with demonstrated interest in novel legume species. Further, farmers showed a strong preference for legumes that produced edible grain, regardless of the associated nutrient removal in the harvested grain, and did not sow large areas to legume crops. These farm-level decisions act as constraints to BNF inputs in maize-based smallholder cropping systems. Overall, we found that legume productivity could be enhanced. We documented the value of policies and educational efforts that support farmers gaining access to high-quality seeds, amendments for phosphorus-deficient soils, and promotion of multipurpose legumes that build soils through leafy residues and roots, as well as providing grain for food security and sales.

The southern African Miombo and Mopane ecoregions constitute a unique repository of plant diversity whose diversification and evolutionary history is still understudied. In this work, we assessed the diversity, distribution, and conservation status of Miombo and Mopane tree legumes within the Zambezian phytoregion. Data were retrieved from several plant and gene databases and phylogenetic analyses were performed based on genetic barcodes. Seventy-eight species (74 from Miombo and 23 from Mopane, 19 common to both ecoregions) have been scored. Species diversity was high within both ecoregions, but information about the actual conservation status is scarce and available only for ca. 15% of the species. Results of phylogenetic analyses were consistent with current legume classification but did not allow us to draw any conclusion regarding the evolutionary history of Miombo and Mopane tree legumes. Future studies are proposed to dissect the diversity and structure of key species in order to consolidate the network of conservation areas.

Understanding the striking diversity of the angiosperms is a paramount issue in biology and of interest to biologists. The Millettiod legumes is one of the most hyper-diverse groups of the legume family, containing many economically important medicine, furniture and craft species. In the present study, we explore how the interplay of past climate change, ecological opportunities and functional traits’ evolution may have triggered diversification of the Millettiod legumes. Using a comprehensive species-level phylogeny from three plastid markers, we estimate divergence times, infer habit shifts, test the phylogenetic and temporal diversification heterogeneity, and reconstruct ancestral biogeographical ranges. We found that three dramatic accumulations of the Millettiod legumes occurred during the Miocene. The rapid diversification of the Millettiod legumes in the Miocene was driven by ecological opportunities created by the emergence of new niches and range expansion. Additionally, habit shifts and the switch between biomes might have facilitated the rapid diversification of the Millettiod legumes. The Millettiod legumes provide an excellent case for supporting the idea that the interplay of functional traits, biomes, and climatic and geographic factors drives evolutionary success.

Author tries to evaluate two elements of implementation of agricultural sustainable development policy in the European Union. Those elements are: “greening” and European innovation partnership. Greening is carried out by: crop diversification, maintenance of permanent grassland (PG), maintenance of ecological focus areas (EFA). Diversification of crops was carried out for three fourth of areas of arable lands in the EU. Diversification prevents soil erosion. Share of PG in the overall area of agricultural land in the EU is 29 %. The highest indicator is at present in the United Kingdom (90%), and the lowest in Cyprus, Malta, Denmark and Finland. From the set of actions maintaining the pro-environmental areas (EFA), the most popular were: setting aside (27 member states), and the least popular – afforestation (only 11 countries). When it comes to EFA area, the biggest share was the area for legume plants. New pro-environmental instrument is European Innovation Partnership for productive and sustainable agriculture. There has already been some results of this action in the EU countries.

Investment in soil fertility over the past three decades in southern African maize based systems has brought many novel technologies on legume diversification but has seen minimal uptake by smallholder farmers. This thesis investigates the utilisation of maize-legume intensified systems among smallholder farmers in Malawi using a mixed methods approach across three study questions: (i) What is the role of land size and use orientation of legumes in maizelegume intensified systems?; (ii) What is farmers’ motivation for integrating legumes only to a part of their maize area?, and; (iii) What factors affect women farmers’ intentions to increase area under improved maize-legume integration? A conceptual framework on legume diversification is developed from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explain farmers’ motivation and intentions. The framework demonstrates how goal-related outcomes from legume diversification can be influenced by farmers’ attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control when they can make informed choices on legume diversification. Furthermore, a metric for benchmarking partial legume diversification is developed to estimate the degree of utilisation at farmer level. Both of these form the theoretical foundation of this thesis. Focus group discussions were then used to develop research questions on motivation and intentions. From this basis, structured questionnaires, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were used to explore the specific study questions. The quantitative data was subjected to regressions (zero-one beta and structural equation modeling), while the qualitative data was subjected to content analysis. The research finds that land size and use orientation for legumes are important factors affecting amount of legume diversification. Women farmers allocate more maize area to legume diversification than male farmers due to land limitations. Therefore, women farmers are less likely to increase maize area under legume diversification unless they trade off some of their cropping land to diversify more legumes. This is demonstrated in the strength of their intentions to increase legume diversification. A positive correlation between perceived behavioural control and their intentions to increase legume diversification is due to independence in decision making. A long history of utilisation of legumes by women in Malawi has made many women food security gate keepers. Therefore, they have received knowledge about agronomic and food security benefits from legumes through socialisation within their families and communities primarily. The research also finds that farmers are motivated to increase legume diversification by immediate expected cash income benefits from legumes and not by the benefit of combined yield gains from both maize and legumes arising from sustainable cropping environments. Furthermore, even though farmers generally hold positive attitudes towards legume diversification, their actual decisions on utilisation are influenced by obligations to extension services; expectation of incentives, and; social pressure within their communities. This study shows a strong correlation (r2 = - 0.6) between land size and the amount of legume diversification of maize systems, and recommends that extension messages be customised on the basis of a farm-size typology. It also shows that adoption decisions are more influenced by expected economic outcomes than the inherent value of soil fertility unless there is social pressure influencing the latter. Furthermore, in a bid to encourage farmers to host on-farm trials, extension workers influence diversion of subsidised farm inputs under national food security initiatives as incentives to farmers hosting on-farm trials. Generally some institutional rules in promotion of agricultural adoption are violated in such ways: overriding village nomination and endorsement of lead farmers; conferring preferential access to subsidised inputs given to on-farm trial hosts, and; by-passing deserving farmers in bulk marketing of legumes. Exclusion has discouraged participation of other farmers in on-farm trials and other extension modalities for legume diversification. The thesis recommends that both ecological and economic benefits from improved maizelegume integration should be emphasized to farmers in the promotion of legume diversification. This should be supported with attention to institutions within extension modalities facilitating the promotion. This thesis brings new insights into smallholder farmer decision making on legume diversification of maize systems. It demonstrates the importance of customising legume diversification technologies according to gender of the farmer as well as land size. In addition it reveals that adoption decisions on legume diversification of maize systems are influenced by the actions of organisations promoting these as well as farmers’ obligations to the organisations and their social networks.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Agriculture, Food & Wine, 2018

Abstract Climate change is any significant change in climatic conditions. Such changes may negatively affect productivity of the rain-fed agriculture practised by over 75% of the smallholder Kenyan farmers. The effect leads to failure to sustainably provide adequate food and revenue to famers. It is on this basis that an almost 8-year field study was conducted to evaluate and scale climate resilient agricultural technological options associated with Conservation Agriculture (CA) systems and practices (no-till; maintenance of permanent soil cover; and crop diversification - rotations and associations), complemented with good agricultural strategies. The activities involved were targeted to sustainably increase productivity of maize-legumes farming systems while reducing environmental risks. The results showed improved soil properties (physical, chemical and health) and consequently increased crop yields and human nutrition by over 30%. Such benefits were attributed to cost savings arising from NT and reduced labour requirement for weed control. This was further based on enhanced crop soil moisture and nutrients availability and use efficiency leading to over 25% yield increase advantage. Apart from the field trials, the study used the Agricultural Production Simulator (APSIM) computer model to simulate CA scenario with the aim of providing potential quick answers to adopting CA practices for farm system productivity. The results were inclusively shared, leading to over 21% increase in the number of farmers adopting the CA practices within and beyond the project sites. The study's overall recommendation affirmed the need to integrate the CA practices into Kenyan farming systems for sustainable agricultural livelihoods and economic opportunities.