Introduction

The impact of climate change is increasinglyand seriously affecting agricultural production systems in many parts of theworld including the Eastern and Central (ECA) regions of Africa. Unreliablerainfall patterns, droughts, floods, extreme temperatures resulting fromeffects of climate change are creating serious challenges to food production.Crop adaptation and resilience are key factors needed to mitigate theseeffects, and to obtain good crop yields. Rainfed agriculture remains thedominant source of staple food production for the rural poor in ECA.Development and use of well adapted and resilient crop varieties is thereforekey to a more sustainable solution for mitigating climate change effects.

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) isone of the most resilient crop species in terms of resisting drought and evenfloods. It can grow in the belt located between 40°N and 40°S and in a reliefof up to 2000 metres above sea level, e.g. in the highlands of Eritrea andEthiopia. Table 1.1 portrays the inherent adaptation of sorghum to the currentclimate being experienced in the dry and semi-arid lands of ECA.

Sorghum was ranked number two by theAssociation for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and CentralAfrica (ASARECA) among the major cereal crops in terms of resilience,nutrition, as well as opportunity to enter the commercial markets. The averageyield potential for sorghum has remained stagnant at between 0.5 to 2.5 tonsper hectare. Sorghum yields can be improved by enhancing the productivitypotential, as well as improving the crop’s adaptation and resilience to copewith adverse growing conditions caused by climate change.

Technologydescription

Improved sorghum varieties that areearly maturing and can escape terminal drought can provide sustainable optionsfor farmers in arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) in ECA to mitigate the effectsof climate change and variability.

Table 1.1:Inherent adaptation of sorghum to the current climate in the dry and semi-aridareas

At least more than 50 sorghum varietieshave been released across the 10 ASARECA countries in the ECA. Some of thesevarieties have multi-country release status. Sorghum varieties were promotedvigorously in the early 2000s, as part of a sorghum and millet improvementprogramme in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countriesincluding Tanzania which is also a member of SADC. Recently, because ofsorghum’s special niche in the brewing industry, white-seeded sorghum has beenwidely promoted, as there is a market pull for this type of grain which alsomeets industry specification. The specific sorghum beer varieties promotedwithin some ASARECA countries are: Tegemeo (in Tanzania); Epurpur (in Uganda);Gadam el Hamam (in South Sudan) and KARI Mtama 1 (in Kenya). Several others werein the pipeline for release. Sudan and Ethiopia have also released hybridsorghum. However, these countries have not had much success in promoting thehybrid because of the inadequacy of the seed system. There are opportunities torelease more varieties and hybrids that meet end-users and especiallyindustrial specification. It is anticipated that with a reliable market for thegrain, the seed industry will also put its act together as the industry willrequire grain by variety name. With the regional variety evaluation programmethat the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics(ICRISAT) has established and implemented over several years and complementedby geographic information systems (GIS), the adaptability and potential scalingof varieties across the region is well established and can be enhanced tofacilitate regional seed movement.

By 2010, there were over 75 sorghumcultivars, of which 3 are hybrids that had been released in ECA. More than 20have been released in Ethiopia, 18 in Kenya, 9 in Eritrea, 7 in Sudan. Tanzaniaand Rwanda have released 6 cultivars each, Uganda 5, while Madagascar andBurundi have released 3, and 2 respectively. Only countries where hybrids havebeen released are Ethiopia (2) and Sudan (1).

Scaling-upapproaches

Sorghum grain is used by farmers forconsumption at household level and, for sale or income generation. Its use infeed is limited, but there is great opportunity to use sorghum for fodder andforage, especially because crop–livestock integration is the predominantfarming system in the dry areas. Sorghum is also greatly used bynon-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in providing relief food toareas experiencing natural catastrophes like drought and floods. The use ofsweet sorghum in bioethanol production is being experimented on by severalindustries to determine feasibility to replace molasses in production ofethanol that can be used for blending with petroleum products. The bagasse haspotential for use as animal feed. There is an evolving opportunity of usingsorghum in the brewing industry and this is creating a great demand in thewhite-seeded sorghum grain across the ECA and the SADC regions. All thesedifferent uses for sorghum can provide the stimuli for scaling especially iffarmers are linked to markets and have access to improved seed. However,marketing of sorghum by the formal sector is at a relatively small scale. Insome cases farmers are linked to the market through collaborative efforts byresearch and extension to scale out the improved technologies.

On-farm demonstrations and field daysare approaches that have been used to popularise the varieties. Seed companies,which multiply and market seed of improved sorghum varieties, are also users ofthe technology. However there are challenges of availing quality sorghum seedin most countries.

Several alternative seed delivery modelswere tested in Tanzania and were very effective. The availability of qualitydeclared seed class allowed community-based seed production by involving farmergroups, schools, NGOs and farmer field schools. The success was due to theincreased adoption of improved varieties, from 5% to 35% in the targeteddistricts of Tanzania. Similar delivery models can be tested in other countriesto determine the most feasible approaches.

The critical and essential factors forsuccessful promotion and wider adoption of the technology or innovation includethe following:

§ Delineationof recommendation and adaptation domains to determine technology targeting andareas for scaling out the technology. This can be done using GIS and othermapping or spatial techniques.

§ Availabilityof basic and pre-basic seed for further multiplication.

§ Demandfor the grain, which becomes an incentive for farmers to demand quality seeds.

§ Seedsystems to meet the demanded grades of seed.

Scaling up the improved sorghumvarieties has not been easy. Some of the key challenges include:

1)   Lackof market to absorb the increased production. With the new market for sorghumin the brewing industry the strategy is to educate communities on availabilityof this market, on the crop management to meet quality standards and graincharacteristics; inform the public especially the urban areas where diets andeating habits are unhealthy) about the health and nutrition aspects of sorghumand also the facts that it can tolerate all the anticipate effects of climatechange.

2)   Poorpost-harvest handling resulting into poor grain quality. There are variouspost-harvest technologies that can be tested and promoted for use bycommunities to improve grain quality. These are community-based threshers thatare amenable to the rural farming conditions.

3)   Inadequacyof the seed system. Researchers have tested a number of alternatives seeddelivery models and these can be adapted to the communities and they range fromformal to informal seed system models, and combination of the two.

4)   Contaminationof seed especially if the farmers do not get fresh seed every season. A definedsource of quality seed especially the basic and pre-basic seed classes can beestablished because some of the output markets require a product by name;therefore farmers can have the incentive to purchase quality seed every season.

 A key lesson learned in scaling up thesevarieties is that farmers cannot adopt a technology based on only one criterionsuch as high yield. Other considerations can include quality attributesrequired by the market and consumers. Market linkages always create technologypull and this way the technology moves faster among large numbers of farmers.

There are specific gender roles inagricultural production. In some societies sorghum is considered either a poorman’s crop or a women’s crop; therefore, women are responsible for the farmingand crop husbandry activities because much of it is for household foodsecurity. The technologies therefore need to be sensitive to gender, and to thesocio-economic conditions of the farmers at every part of the production cycle.Threshing is a tedious activity and already there are technologies to minimisedrudgery among women who often have the responsibility of post-harvest handlingof the crop. The threshing equipment also improves the quality of the grain—nogrit and stones. There is also simple equipment for dehulling and millingsorghum, and these minimise the number of hours that women spend grinding,sometimes using rudimentary technology like grinding stones.

Nameand address of the organisation:

ICRISAT Regional Office for Eastern andSouthern Africa;

United Nations Avenue, WorldAgroforestry Centre, Gigiri;

P. O. Box 39063-00623;

Nairobi, Kenya.

Nameand address of the scientists involved in the generation of the technology:

Dr Mary A. Mgonja;

Principal Scientist and Programme Leader(Genetic Resources Enhancement and Management);

Nairobi, Kenya

Tel: +254-207224562;

Fax: +25420 7224001;

Mobile: +254 720 293 017;

Email: m.mgonja@cgiar.org