Foot Soldiers in the African Green Revolution - Problem Solving and Adaptive Research in the Field.

Small holder farmers develop, over long years of intergenerational experience, knowledge about their farming systems and about the soils, germplasm and climate in their native land. However problems may arise as population growth or migrations change the relationship of people to land, soils become degraded, new crops and cultivars are introduced, new fertilizers and tools become available, economic aspirations modernize and climatic patterns change. The Millennium Villages project is facilitating integrated development of all sectors -- from business to education to health to agriculture - in 14 village clusters involving some half million rural Africans. In the face of such rapid development in a changing world, traditional African research and extension services are stretched thin and often struggle simply to disseminate standard recommendations that may not be optimized for a particular situation. For integrated development to succeed, on-the-ground troubleshooters that see the villages through a science lens are needed to identify and then help overcome limitations in the agricultural production sector.

Troubleshooters need to talk to farmers out in their fields – again and again – until a clear picture of the situation emerges. They need to observe young crops growing in the field and dig up crop root systems to reveal such problems as compaction, water-logging, or aluminum toxicity. A powerful tool is to compare best and worst soils and plants by bringing them side by side. Modern portable instruments allow key measurements – pH, EC, nitrate, phosphate, soil strength, active C- to be made in the field, thus allowing mid-course changes in the direction of investigation. Using these tools, “foot soldiers” of the African Green Revolution should be prepared to address three categories of problems: Those the farmers know they have and for which they are seeking help. Those the project personnel believe the farmers have. Those that haven’t yet been recognized by either sets of players…often because they are new issues that spring from unfamiliar production systems.