Mike Morris, Brighton Mvumi, William Riwa, Tanya Stathers

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Post-harvest innovation to improve food security
in Tanzania and Zimbabwe Learning alliance
lessons

• Mike Morris, Brighton Mvumi, William Riwa, Tanya
  Stathers

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Underlying Problems

• Farmers throughout SSA suffer serious
  post-harvest losses due to insect damage
• Losses threaten household food security
• Undermine market returns
• Problems with conventional pesticides gt need for
  alternatives
• Private nature of grain storage issues
• Quantities and qualities of produce stored or
  sold not readily disclosed
• Failure of service providers (RE) to recognise
  farmer diversity
• Service provision focussed on crops livestock

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Emergence of Diatomaceous Earths (DEs)

• What are DEs?
• soft whitish powders formed from the fossils of
  tiny planktons which live in aquatic systems
• Fossils mined, ground to a powder, dried and
  admixed with grain to kill insects that infest
  and attack it
• DEs have physical vs chemical mode of action
• DEs have extremely low toxicity to mammals and
  therefore very safe to mix with food
• Apart from imported commercial DE products,
  deposits occur in sub-Saharan Africa

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The DE Case Study

• Original Project Hypotheses
• DEs are effective and acceptable grain
  protectants for use by small-scale producers
  during on-farm storage in areas where LGB is
  endemic
• gt Hence DEs would provide an alternative to the
  use of organophosphate pesticides
• Use of local sources of DEs might be an even more
  cost-effective method of grain protection for
  small-scale producers.

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The DE Case Study (cont.)

• The DE Technology Evolution in sub-Saharan Africa
• Following diagram shows the long lead-in time
  involved in RD.
• The diagram also indicates the complexity of
  organisations and networks associated with
  technology development
• LA approaches, rather than project approaches, on
  both counts are better suited to optimising the
  scaling-up and scaling-out of PH technologies.

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Rachel Carson Silent Spring 1962
Inert dusts used by various Indigenous Peoples
e.g. Chinese, Aztecs
Post-Harvest Learning Alliance
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The DE Case Study (cont.)

• Identification selection of farmers for
  farmer-managed trials gt blend technology
  (efficacy) and farmer-centred (dissemination)
  approaches.
• Process revealed that some farmers were excluded
  because they had insufficient grain.
• Inadequacies of PH service provision gt
  one-size-fits-all approach.
• Revision of one of the outputs development and
  use of enquiry tool enabling extension staff to
  hear and learn from diverse farming households.

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• Some challenges to switch in focus
• In-house reluctance to making explicit
  shortcomings in current extension systems.
• Introducing social development concepts/practices
  to predominantly technical team.
• Frustrations associated with moving from measured
  certainty of natural to social science (efficacy
  vs learning to listen and listening to learn from
  farmers).
• Development of the enquiry framework and working
  protocol was time-consuming..
• Involved application of participatory approaches,
  formal informal learning, cycles of
  role-playing and pre-testing.

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Innovation systems approach

• Key challenge to realising impact is not in
  devising new technologies but in bringing about
  appropriate institutional change within the
  relevant innovation system - doing things
  differently as opposed to doing different things.
  
• By institutions we refer to the the
  mechanisms, rules and customs by which people and
  organisations interact with each other (i.e. the
  rules of the game).

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Three basic approaches to institutional analysis
have been identified (Jüttings, 2003)

• degrees of formality
• areas of analysis
• different levels of hierarchy

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Table 1. A hierarchy-based classification scheme
for institutions
Adapted from Williamson (2000)
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Process and triggers for institutional learning
and change
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Level 2 Overall political, economic and legal
environment (Zimbabwe)

• Macro-economic problems and the
  hyper-inflationary economic environment led to
• difficulties and losses associated with
  introducing funds into the country, partly
  mitigated by the opening of a foreign currency
  account at UZ
• brain-drain leading to loss of project staff
• critical fuel shortages making field work
  extremely difficult.
• Operating environment not only impeded project
  processes directly, but also probably inhibited
  the promotion of the learning alliance and/or the
  involvement of key public sector players

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Level 3 The play of the game funding and DE
registration rules

• Stop-go nature of funding
• The DE alliance - now newly evolved Post-Harvest
  LA - is actively looking for other sources of
  funding.
• Registration of DEs in both countries has proved
  slower and more complex than originally
  anticipated
• Team explored ministry linkages established
  working alliance with registration authority,
  TPRI (Tz)
• Understanding of registration process prompted
  engagement with private sector
• Advocacy strategy has since been formalised (e.g.
  farmers union (ZFU) to lobby government).
• Power issues overcoming organisational
  reluctance
• LA provided space for contestation of ideas on
  the quality of service provision/research
  overcame denial etc.

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Level 4 - allocation mechanisms, staffing
arrangements, communications etc.

• Differentials in communication, language
  technical skills
• Budgets for e-mail accounts, mobile phones,
  computer training.
• Strategic activities included learning together,
  action and reflection, seeking consensus through
  negotiation, and less emphasis this paper aside
  on written outputs for remote audiences
• Staff (individuals) changes/losses were an
  initial bane
• problem waned with alliances increased status
  and momentum
• throughput of staff served to help the alliance
  establish contacts in other sections of the
  ministry, and reinforced the process of alliance
  building to extend and diversify capabilities and
  capacity.

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Level 1 ?

• Informal institutions embedded in the social
  structure of society
• Innovation primarily about changing social
  relationships
• Not really addressed up till now. In the sphere
  of extension this is related to establishing
  demand or client-led services (research
  provision).

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Importance of the individual

• Key drivers vision and leadership
• Contacts and commitment
• Attitude behaviour (tacit knowledge?)
• Key to building trust
• Personal growth
• Diagonal learning Do individuals link
  horizontal vertical learning?

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Learning alliance lessons

• RD may have long lead-in periods
• Even where there is a strong technical focus,
  opportunities exist for early engagement and
  trust building
• Need for recognition of diversity and that
  farmers are experts
• LA can provide safe space for contestation
• LAs require longer time frame than projects an
  interested, well endowed funding agent is fine,
  but a funding strategy is better.

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• THANK YOU

This presentation is an output from a research
project funded by the United Kingdom Department
for International Development (DFID) for the
benefit of developing countries. The views
expressed are not necessarily those of DFID.
R8460. Crop Post Harvest Programme
Visit the DE project website www.nri.org/de/