Integrated Pest Management Reviews 7: 1727, 2002. 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

IPM and organic agriculture for smallholders in Africa

R.J. Hillocks Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4TB, UK Key words: integrated crop management, IPM, organic farming Abstract The markets for organic produce offer the opportunity for smallholders in Africa (and elsewhere) to increase their income through access to the price premiums paid in Europe and North America. Facing declining soil fertility, the high cost of off-farm inputs and the collapse of state or para-statal input credit schemes, organic farming offers a sustainable solution for resource-poor farming communities, quite apart from the lure of price premiums. The use of purchased inputs is already at a low level in the smallholder sector in Africa and this may allow farm produce to immediately meet organic standards. The principles of IPM can be applied to organic agriculture to achieve adequate pest and disease control with the restricted use of pesticides that is required for farm produce to meet organic standards. The paper describes some of the problems facing smallholders wishing to access organic markets and describes the IPM options available, which meet the standards of organic certication.

Introduction There are many denitions of IPM and it seems that one can be chosen to suit the particular point of view being expressed. Perhaps it is not possible to have a single denition when the motive creating the demand for IPM is not always the same. The principles of IPM were rst developed for advanced agriculture and primarily driven by the need to prolong the life of chemical insecticides for farming systems faced with resistance in the target insect population and pest resurgence due to destruction of natural enemies. Later, IPM offered a means of reducing dependence on conventional pesticides where there was public concern for the non-target effects of chemicals on the environment and on consumers of food crops exposed to toxic pesticides. The denition of IPM has evolved over time but the one developed by Kogan (1998) combines a biological and socio-economic perspective and seems to be most appropriate for the purposes of this paper: IPM is a decision support system for the selection and use of pest control tactics, singly or harmoniously co-ordinated into a management strategy that takes into account the interests of and impact upon producers, society and the environment.

Is there demand for IPM in the smallholder sector in Africa? The demand for IPM in smallholder agriculture in Africa is quite different from that in technologically advanced agriculture. The total amount of synthetic pesticides used by smallholders in Africa is very small by comparison with advanced agriculture (Table 1). This is especially true for food crops outside commercial vegetable production in peri-urban areas. In recent years in parts of Africa, pesticide use on cash crops such as coffee and cotton has declined in the

Table 1. Worldwide consumption of pesticides (as % of global sales in 1991) Region Western Europe North America Japan Rest of Asia Pacic Latin America Eastern Europe Africa Source: BAA (1992). Pesticide sales (%) 31 26 9 15 11 4 4

18 smallholder sector, as deregulation and restructuring in the agricultural sector has removed subsidies on inputs (e.g. Hillocks et al. 1999). Meanwhile, parastatal marketing organisations have been disbanded, depriving farmers of access to credit schemes. With the exception of some examples of cash crops for export, it is rarely the case that on the basis of pesticide resistance or environmental contamination due to overuse of pesticides, there will be demand for IPM systems in smallholder agriculture. The smallholder is characteristically risk-averse and his primary strategy is towards food security for his family. The more food insecure, the more risk-averse the farmer becomes and therefore even less likely to invest in off-farm inputs. Where there is demand for IPM in these farming systems it will be driven by the need for increased yields and/or quality with minimal expenditure on external inputs. To some extent, the concept of IPM has been enthusiastically endorsed by the green lobby on the basis that it is a pest management system, which does not involve the use of synthetic pesticides. This understanding of IPM seems to have been taken up by some donor organisations that discourage the use of pest management interventions involving chemical pesticides by projects they are supporting. This is to misunderstand what is driving the need for IPM by smallholders. In Europe environmental concerns came to prominence when the post war drive to maximise agricultural production was so successful that surplus production became the problem. It is generally accepted that inorganic fertilisers and pesticides played an important role in the dramatic increases in agricultural productivity achieved in Europe after the World War II. It would therefore seem logical to argue that the productivity of agriculture in developing countries cannot be substantially increased without the use of pesticides and inorganic fertilisers. Nevertheless, a exible approach is required towards the design of IPM systems for smallholders, where the aim should be to increase food security, improve the sustainability of livelihoods, and improve quality of life. This is not promoted by applying logic, which is relevant to advanced agriculture, where there has been heavy pesticide dependence. IPM systems which do not use synthetic pesticide but rely on altered cultivation practice and perhaps use of botanicals which are available locally, may be appropriate to increase yields for those farmers who cannot afford to purchase external inputs, or, who do not wish to use pesticides. However, IPM systems that combine rational pesticide use with other measures to reduce losses caused by

R.J. Hillocks pests, diseases, and weeds should be made accessible to those farmers who wish to use them. Rational pesticide use means not only applying pesticides that are IPM-compatible, but also applying them in a manner which protects the operator, the environment and the consumer from non-target effects. IPM in organic farming In Africa, organic farming has emerged almost by default as pesticide and fertiliser use has decreased in the smallholder sector following the removal of subsidies on external inputs under deregulation and trade liberalisation policies (e.g. Carr 1997). The absence of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers in these cropping systems presented the opportunity for the produce to be marketed as organic. NGOs or other donor-supported projects have usually facilitated certication and access to markets for organic produce. Not all farming systems which apply the principles of IPM to manage pest problems can be described as organic, but all organic farming systems practice a form of IPM, as non-chemical pest control measures rarely provide adequate reduction in pest damage unless several measures are used together. IPM therefore, has much to contribute to organic agriculture and IPM specialists who may not have worked in organic agriculture in the past, have much to offer the movement by adapting their knowledge to systems which must usually be free of synthetic pesticides to meet the requirements of certication. Why Go Organic? The motivation for turning to organic farming systems may differ between developed and developing countries but it should be possible to have a consistent denition of what we mean by organic agriculture. The simplest denition is that organic farming is a production system, which excludes as far as possible synthetic inputs and resorts to external inputs only where the system cannot be sustained by internal recycling (Woodward & Lampkin 1990). The key principles of organic agriculture are expressed in the standards document of the Federation of Organic Movements (IFOAM 1998). The motive for conversion to an organic farming system may be a concern for environmental protection, a desire to move to more ecologically sustainable production, or, a belief in the health benets of consuming

IPM and organic agriculture for smallholders products grown organically. In some cases the motive may be an economic one, where the farmer takes a commercial decision that the best way to remain protable is to access the premiums that are available for organic produce. Often in developing countries, production may be organic by default, either because the farmer has never used pesticides and fertiliser, or, has ceased to use those off-farm inputs due to increasing costs. A survey of smallholders in Pondicherry, south India, where organic practices were being promoted by an NGO-backed extension service, revealed that increasing cost of inputs was the most common reason (63%) given by farmers for wishing to convert to organic farming. The second most common reason (53%) was fear over declining soil fertility (Anandkumar 1998). These results are in marked contrast to a similar survey conducted in Poland where the three most often cited motives for conversion were; health concerns, desire to live in harmony with their environment, and concerns about food quality (Zakowska-Biemans 1998). Organic agriculture may not be the complete solution to low productivity in African agriculture but it has a lot to offer resource-poor farmers faced with declining soil fertility and periods of drought. Organic farming addresses those very constraints, with its emphasis on biological nitrogen supply, maintenance and enhancement of organic matter content of the soil and on soil and water conservation.

19 for the export market in peri-urban agriculture around the major cities such as Nairobi and Kampala. Several African countries now produce organic cotton and there are smallholder schemes in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, among others (Ratter et al. 1999).

Off-farm Inputs Against a background of declining soil fertility in the tropics (Meerman et al. 1996) and the inter-relationship between yield responses to fertiliser and responses to pest management interventions, it has been recognised that Integrated Crop Management (ICM) may be more appropriate to the needs of smallholders in developing countries than the IPM model. As with IPM, ICM has many denitions but for the purpose of this review the broad denition of the British Agrochemicals Association is appropriate: ICM is a management system which employs controlled inputs to achieve sustained protability with minimum environmental impact, but with sufcient exibility to meet natural and market challenges economically (BAA, 1995). The key to both ICM and organic farming systems is their emphasis on sustainable practices. Both philosophies emphasise protection of the primary resource base as the essential component of sustainable agriculture; the most important primary resource being the soil. Organic farming and ICM differ somewhat in the extent to which the use of certain inputs is proscribed. In ICM decisions on appropriate inputs will depend more on what makes economic sense and is sustainable, whereas input use by organic farmers is determined by the requirements of certication to meet the demands of this relatively small niche market. The inputs of most concern to the organic trade are fertilisers and pesticides. With the exception of certain compounds on certain crops, all inorganic fertilisers, and synthetic commercial pesticides are proscribed.

The Organic Movement in Africa The market for both fair trade products and organic products in the developed world has created an opportunity for farmers in developing countries. Many NGOs and self-help groups have organic projects and several African countries have organic agriculture research and support organisations, such as the Kenya Institute of Organic Farming (KIOF). The 1998 Directory of member organisations of the IFOAM contains entries from 18 African countries south of the Sahara. There are 24 entries for Kenya alone. Many farmers have abandoned the use of pesticides and inorganic fertiliser on their crops due to their spiralling cost and absence of credit schemes. This has encouraged farmers to participate in organic schemes in the hope of being able to offset the losses caused by not applying fertiliser and pesticide, by the premium prices paid for organic produce. This trend has occurred for instance with coffee in Malawi and cotton in Tanzania. Organic production systems are seen most often in vegetable production

Standards and Certication A constraining factor in the development of organic farming in developing countries has been certication. It is often difcult for small farmers to know where to make the right contacts and to afford the certication inspections necessary to market their crops as organic in Europe and North America. This is made much easier where donors become involved, such as the

20 GTZ Protrade programme and the Organic Products from Africa (EPOPA) Programme, supported by the Swedish Development Agency. At the end of the 1990s there was a movement towards the development of accredited certication organisations in countries outside Europe and the USA. Even with certication locally available, the costs of inspection may still be prohibitive for smallholders. According to European regulation 2092/91, farmers and farmers groups wishing to sell their organic produce to EU member states, must be inspected at least once a year. In future it may be acceptable for a sample (1030%) of smallholdings to be inspected each year and where large numbers of farms over a wide area are involved, farmers representatives may be trained to carry out the inspections and they would then report to the EU inspector. The alternative may be some form of self-certication scheme together with random inspections. Exactly which agrochemicals are permitted for organic systems and which are not, depends on the standards that are being followed. While there will be fundamental agreement between the different standards on many compounds, the standards for certication developed by the Soil Association in the UK for instance, differ to some extent from standards developed in other countries, from standards used by other organisations in the UK, such as Organic Farmers and Growers Ltd and the somewhat more rigorous standards of the Bio-dynamic Agriculture Association. Standards are internationally co-ordinated by IFOAM and most of the national systems are based on the Standards Document drawn up by the Technical Committee of IFOAM. Farmers wishing to seek organic certication must conform to standards operated by a national organisation in their own country. IFOAM is not an inspection or regulatory authority, although it can evaluate national certication schemes in member countries. Each EU country has its own national organic certication authority with its own logo. In the UK, the UK Register of Organic Food Standards is the government authority responsible for the approval and supervision of other certication bodies of which there are six. The certication standards of all of these bodies conform to the European Community directive on organic production which in turn is subject to the minimum standards laid down by IFOAM. Individual certication bodies can impose additional requirements in specic areas, such as the way livestock may be treated. In the USA, most of the states operate their own certication schemes that follow

R.J. Hillocks the IFOAM guidelines. Countries that wish to export organic produce into the EU must be recognised as applying equivalent standards. Where national standards do not exist the importer may apply to one of the EU recognised bodies for inspection and certication. The Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) has developed The Normative Document for Certication in consultation with representatives from all stages of the fruit and vegetable sector with support from producer organisations outside the EU. This document known as EUREPGAP is the basis for providing international verication frameworks across a wide range of agricultural production sectors. Pest Management Pest management in organic agriculture primarily relies on enhancement of natural regulatory mechanisms through the judicious use of crop rotations, protection of natural enemies, use of resistant varieties, and increasing soil organic matter. If necessary, limited and targeted intervention may be used by thermal, biological, and chemical means. Weeds Weeding can be one of the most time and labourconsuming activities on the farm. This is particularly true in the tropics where, warm temperatures encourage rapid weed colonisation during wet periods. The use of herbicides greatly decreases the labour required to control weeds and there is no doubt that there is scope for their increased use in the tropics. This may be so, not just in the estate sector, but even for the larger smallholders, for whom shortage of labour is often a major crop production constraint. Whether it is cotton in Tanzania or maize in Kenya, yields per hectare in Africa are often greatest for the intermediate sized holdings. They are large enough for economies of scale but small enough to meet the labour requirements. The smallest farms do not generate sufcient capital to afford inputs and are too small to maximise their output. The largest farms have to sacrice yield per unit area to overall production, because they cannot meet their labour requirements from the extended family. The effects of this are often most conspicuous with respect to weeding frequency (Carr 1993). While the use of herbicides is acceptable within an IPM system and might be so under an ICM system,

IPM and organic agriculture for smallholders they are prohibited under most organic standards. One objection to herbicides is their destructive effect on plant biodiversity. Furthermore, there have been cases where certain more hardy species became more dominant as the less hardy species were killed by prolonged herbicide use. The main objection to herbicides from an IPM perspective, is that they are incompatible with sustainable agriculture because the destruction of non-crop vegetation eliminates reservoirs of benecial insects and pest predators. Some herbicides are believed to disrupt the soil ecosystem which may have long-term effects on soil fertility, or, increase the incidence of some soil-borne pests such as the beet cyst nematode (Heterodera schachtii) (Lampkin 1990) and Rhizoctonia (Katan & Eshel 1974). Whatever the case for and against herbicides, alternative forms of weed management will be required for full compliance with organic standards. For most smallholders in Africa, this condition has already been met, as hand hoeing is still the most widely used method of weeding. For the larger holdings, animal draught may be used for inter-row cultivation. These methods can be integrated with manipulation of crop combinations in mixed cropping systems, with the aim of quickly establishing a full canopy to facilitate weed suppression. Other practices which are encouraged in organic farming and which may have weed suppression benets are; rotation, green manures, mulching, and mechanical seedbed preparation. The parasitic plant, witchweed (Striga spp.) is most troublesome on degraded soils low in nitrogen. Any practice that increases soil fertility will help to decrease the impact of Striga. The use of legumes, application of farmyard manure or composted wastes, green manures, and alley cropping are all ways of improving soil fertility that are compatible with organic systems. The weed ora may in some circumstances be regarded as a resource, contributing to food requirements (e.g. Johns & Kokwaro 1991) and medicines (e.g. Johns et al. 1990), while also providing habitat for benecial insects (Altieri & Whitcomb 1979). Insect pests and diseases In organic systems, the requirements of certication are that pest and disease control should be achieved, as far as possible, through correct and balanced husbandry practices, particularly with respect to nutrient supply. It has been shown that pest and disease incidence is less in organic than in conventional agriculture (Eigenbrode & Pimentel 1988; Patriquin 1988) and

21 severe disease problems might be regarded as evidence of poor husbandry. Insect pest management in organic farming is handled from an agro-ecological perspective and the creation of a diverse ecosystem within and around the crop to encourage predators is advocated. This can be achieved by companion planting and mixed cropping and by leaving uncultivated areas. In Africa, cultivation tends to be less intensive than in the developed world and, with the exception of perennial crops grown on large estates, there are usually large uncultivated patches within the farmed areas. Also, in smallholder agriculture, the practice of mixed cropping is widespread. Most of the International Agricultural Research Centres such as IITA and ICRAF promote intercropping. However, there is scope for African smallholders to receive more support for inter-cropping from policy makers, the extension services and national and international organisations involved in breeding improved crop varieties. If husbandry practices are insufcient to control pest or disease outbreaks, then the use of pest control compounds may be allowed. However, there are very few compounds that can be used in pest management for organic systems without restriction (Table 2) and a number which may be permitted if their use can be justied and is acceptable to the certifying authority (Table 3). In general, most biological control agents and plant products such as derris and pyrethrum fall into the latter category. In addition to the well known plants with insecticidal and antimicrobial properties such as Derris elliptica, Chrysanthemum cineraefolium (pyrethrum) and Allium sativum (garlic), there are many other insecticidal plants commonly found among the ora in and around cultivated land in Africa (Table 4). The use of plant products with insect repellent properties is permitted in organic agriculture and much wider use could be made of these plants, especially against storage pests. Epiphytotics caused by new diseases or new strains of pathogens may be difcult to control in organic systems until breeding programmes deliver resistant
Table 2. Permitted products for plant pest and disease control (IFOAM 1998) Clay (bentonite, perlite, vermiculite, zeolite) Pheromones in traps and dispensers only Plant-based repellents Silicates Soft soap

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Table 3. Restricted products that may be used if necessary under conditions set by the certication scheme (IFOAM 1998) Chloride of lime Copper salts Derris Diatomaceous earth Fungal and bacterial biological control agents (including Bt) Granulosis virus preparations Light mineral oils Nuclear polyhedral virus preparations Potassium permanganate Pyrethrum Quassia Parasites and predators of insect pests Sodium bicarbonate Male sterile insects Sulphur Tobacco tea

R.J. Hillocks
Table 4. Common plants in African agro-ecosystems with pest control properties Plant species Ageratum conyzoides Plant parts and activity Oil can protect grain legumes from bruchids (Morallo-Rejesus et al. 1990) From some storage pests Seeds have insecticidal properties Leaves used to protect cowpeas against some storage Pests (Lambert et al. 1985) Oil used as traditional protectant of stores legumes seed (Peterson et al. 1989) Crushed leaves as insect repellent. Whole plants or fruits can be used against some storage pets (Secoy & Smith 1983) Nematicidal when incorporated into soil (Siddiqi & Alam 1989) Contains umuhengen which is antimicrobial (Sharma & Sharma 1990) Whole plants effective against some storage pests (Secoy & Smith 1983) Contains nicandrenone which has insect repellent Properties (Secoy & Smith 1983) Whole plant or leaf infusion as mosquito repellent and O. canem and O. suare have been used against some storage pests (Secoy & Smith 1983; Weaver et al. 1991) Produce root exudates that are nematicidal. Floral and root extracts from T. minuta have insecticidal properties (Morallo-Rejesus & Decena 1982; Weaver et al. 1994) Powdered leaf active against some storage pests (Delobel & Malonga 1987)

Argemone mexicana Cassia nigricans

Chenopodium ambrosioides Datura stramonium

Eichornia crassipes

cultivars. The current epidemic of grey leaf spot in Africa is a good example of this. For endemic diseases or those caused by opportunist pathogens, the aim is to buffer the farming system against such disease through increased biodiversity in the vegetation canopy and in the soil. Cultural practices can be used to assist disease management. Planting on ridges, for example, to avoid damping-off diseases caused by Pythium spp. and Rhizoctonia, or by ensuring deep coverage of crop residues during land tillage to reduce infection by Sclerotium rolfsii. Well chosen rotational crops provide one of the best ways to prevent soil-borne pathogens and nematodes from increasing to damaging population levels. Smallholders in Africa often do not use rotation because of land shortage and, in such cases, inter-cropping with a mixture of cereals, root crops, and legumes can help to prevent the build-up of pathogens. Nematodes Nematodes often present an intractable problem to smallholders in the tropics. They are the hidden enemy and the damage they do often goes unrecognised because the symptoms above ground are not specic to nematodes and the pests are not visible to the naked eye. Root feeding nematodes are almost always present to some extent in agricultural soils in the tropics and their populations increase to damaging levels when susceptible hosts are grown on the same land for many years. Crops also become much more susceptible to the effects of nematodes under adverse conditions of poor soil fertility or moisture stress. The most widespread plant parasitic nematodes in the tropics are

Lantana camara

Leonotis africana

Nicandra physaloides

Ocimum spp.

Tagetes spp.

Tephrosia vogelii

the root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.), which have a wide host range but prefer soils with a high sand content. Root-knot and other nematodes can be managed by rotation and mixed cropping with poor hosts and with organic soil amendments. Soils with high content of organic matter can be suppressive to nematodes due to the presence of a benecial micro-ora and the crop is better able to tolerate nematode attack because of improved nutrient status and better water holding capacity of the soil (Page & Bridge 1993). Populations of nematode-trapping fungi

IPM and organic agriculture for smallholders (e.g. Arthrobotrys oligospora) and other fungi that parasitise nematodes (e.g. Verticillium chlamydosporium) occur naturally in some soils and their activity may be enhanced by the addition of organic matter to the soil (Rodriguez-Kabana et al. 1987). Some plants exhibit nematicidal activity. Tagetes spp., for instance, produce nematicidal root exudates (Daulton & Curtis 1963) and incorporation into the soil of water hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes) has been reported to suppress nematodes (Siddiqi & Alam 1989). Husbandry Practices with Pest Management Benets that are Compatible with Organic Farming Husbandry practices recommended for organic agriculture are directed at general crop health and maintenance or improvement of the resource base. Rarely are measures included in ICM systems for organic farming directed specically at pest control. The theory is that pest management interventions are a last resort. Nevertheless, pest and disease management must be incorporated into the farm management plan and some of the practices that might directly or indirectly contribute to pest management are listed in Table 5. Crop protection benets of composted materials The maintenance of soil health is at the heart of organic farming and sustainable agriculture. Sufcient quantities of organic matter should be returned to the soil to increase or at least maintain its fertility and biological activity. Carbon-based material produced on organic farms should form the basis of the fertilisation programme (IFOAM 1998). If plants are growing vigorously they are better able to withstand pest attack. However, plants with a high nitrogen content can be more attractive to insects such as aphids (Patriquin 1988) but the plants attractiveness to insect pests is related to the type of nitrogen source. Plants fertilised with nitrate nitrogen are more susceptible to pests and diseases than those fertilised with ammonium nitrogen (Huber & Watson 1974). Nitrogen supplied from composted organic matter is preferred and has a proven capacity to decrease the incidence of soil-borne diseases, especially those caused by common damping-off and root rot pathogens; Rhizoctonia solani, Pythium spp. and Fusarium spp. (Sch ler et al. u 1989). The composting process must be well controlled

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Table 5. Non-chemical crop husbandry practices which can contribute to pest and disease management (modied from Lampkin 1990) Optimal site conditions Burial or removal for composting of crop residues Organic manuring Soil moisture regulation irrigation/drainage Vegetation diversity (over time) Discontinuity of monocultures Crop rotations Use of early maturing cultivars Use of crop-free or preferred host-free periods Manipulation of sowing and harvesting dates Vegetation diversity (in space) Cultivar mixtures Resistant cultivars Multilines or mixed cultivars Mixed cropping Cover crops Management of natural vegetation Altering pest behaviour Trap crops Green manures Crop size or canopy shape (e.g. pruning in coffee) Planting density Pheromones Biological control Creating a favourable environment for natural enemies and benecials Augmenation with benecials Release of biological control agents

so that the correct nitrogen : carbon ratio is achieved, or disease problems can be made worse. Declining soil fertility is perhaps the single most signicant constraint to increased crop production in subSaharan Africa. Leaving aside economic constraints, inorganic fertiliser alone cannot solve this problem due to the low organic matter content in most degraded soils. While there is considerable potential for better utilisation of organic materials in small farms in Africa, there are also many obstacles to the adoption of composting and organic manuring. The most obvious of these is the labour required to collect, compost, and apply organic matter to the soil. Furthermore, organic manures are bulky and difcult, or, costly to transport. Cattle dung may have a higher value as an energy source for cooking than as a fertiliser. Inorganic fertilisers are much more convenient and less labour intensive to use, but are often unavailable in much of rural Africa. Organic fertilisation is sometimes regarded as old fashioned by farmers in Africa and they may even believe their use to be against government policy (Harris 1997). Certainly, inorganic fertilisers are more

24 often advocated by extension ofcers than are organic alternatives. In areas where the extension service has actively promoted organic practices, this has been a major factor inuencing farmers to convert to organic farming (Anandkumar 1998). Feeding of crop residues to livestock is one way of utilising them and at the same time, processing them into a form that can be applied as fertiliser. Fresh manure usually requires at least a short period of decomposition before it can be added to the soil and inadequately decomposed animal manure can be damaging to crops. Decotions prepared from composted material have been demonstrated to reduce the severity of some foliar diseases (Weltzein 1990). Green manures offer an alternative or supplement to composting and provide the added benet of weed suppression and protection of the soil from erosion. Green manuring is the basis of the soil fertility management system implemented on a large scale in Cuba (Rosset & Medea 1995). Host-plant resistance Host-plant resistance (HPR) to pests and diseases is an important component of IPM systems in general and especially appropriate for organic agriculture. HPR is particularly suitable for smallholder agriculture in developing countries as a low cost technology for the end user. As the technology is built-in to the seed, no further inputs or labour are required from the farmer. Crop varieties resistant to a wide range of diseases are available but widespread use of single varieties carrying the same single gene for disease resistance should be discouraged because of the risk that new strains of the pathogen will rapidly appear. Multiple-gene or horizontal resistance is therefore preferred in organic systems. Genetic diversity can also be achieved with multilines. Although international centres have produced high-yielding varieties of food crops with resistance to widespread and important diseases such as maize streak, these attributes have not yet been incorporated by national programmes into varieties that meet the culinary and other requirements of smallholders. Seed of improved varieties of food crops other than maize, is often unavailable in developing countries because it is not protable for seed companies to market seed of open-pollinated crops. Access to high quality seed of improved cultivars remains a fundamental problem for smallholder agriculture in Africa and there is much need for local seed production schemes. Cultural practice

R.J. Hillocks

Smallholder farming systems have evolved over many generations to cope with environmental and socioeconomic constraints. Changes to the system should only be made where there are clear long-term benets to the farmer and/or to the environment. There is often little room for modifying cultural practices without needing to increase labour or other input costs. If a particular pest or disease is perceived by the farmer as an important problem, there may be some scope for changing rotations, crop mixture components, land preparation methods, residue disposal methods or planting depths and densities. Avoiding planting seed too deep will help to reduce the incidence of damping-off diseases caused by R. solani, Pythium, and Fusarium spp. Diseases caused by pathogens that are splash dispersed may be controlled by increasing the spacing within the crop. Disposal of crop residues is an important phytosanitary practice to prevent the carry-over of some pests such as the pink bollworm on cotton (Pectinophora gossypii) and numerous foliar diseases. Residue management is a central component of organic farming and it can be collected as cattle feed, composted or incorporated into the soil. In parts of Malawi, the new seed bed is made by piling soil from the old bed over crop residues in the previous seasons furrow. Residue incorporation is a reasonable method of returning organic mater to the soil and of reducing carry-over of pathogens, provided this is done soon after harvest, so that there is sufcient time for decomposition before the next crop is planted. Planting dates can be altered provided the farmer does not have other more pressing labour demands that prevent him form planting a particular crop earlier (or later). Ear rots are a major problem on maize in western Kenya and there is a wide range of planting dates although it is clear that the highest disease incidences occur in late-planted crops. One of the main factors causing late planting is delay in obtaining hybrid seed from the seed companies or local traders. Crop-free periods Crop-free periods are often essential to prevent insect pests and pathogens gaining year-round access to their preferred hosts. In the semi-arid tropics, there is no choice but to have a crop-free period during the dry season. But even in these areas, legislation is sometimes required to ensure that stalk destruction in cotton

IPM and organic agriculture for smallholders elds for instance, is carried soon after the end of the harvest. Inter-cropping Biotechnology and the Organic Movement Inter-cropping is widely practised by smallholders all over the world and Africa is no exception. Mixed cropping is a coping strategy to provide a buffer against adverse conditions, pest and disease attack, and land shortage. Usually the total crop production from a given area will be greater with mixed cropping than with mono-cropping, although yield from any one component of the mixture may be less than when it is grown alone. Despite the popularity of inter-cropping and its obvious benets for smallholders, crop varieties are rarely selected for performance under inter-cropping systems. Inter-cropping by increasing vegetation diversity may help to decrease the impact of pests and diseases (Coaker 1990). Bean diseases for example, are usually less severe when beans are grown with maize (Rheenen van et al. 1981; Moreno & Mora 1984). Non-crop vegetation diversity Non-crop vegetation provides a refuge for benecial insects from pesticides applied to the crop. The pest species may escape pesticide spray when feeding on alternative hosts outside the crop. The natural vegetation then holds a reservoir of insects that have not been exposed to selection pressure for insecticide resistance. Indirectly, the natural vegetation may assist pest control by providing nesting sites for birds that feed on insect pest species (Hillocks 1998). The benecial effects on insect pest management of natural vegetation surrounding cropped areas has been reported in Europe (Van Emden 1965; Thomas et al. 1991; Chiverton & Southerton 1991) but there are few studies from Africa. In addition to the crop husbandry measures described above, there are other practises that are directed more specically at pest management. The use of trap crops for instance to lure insect pests away from the crop species. Removal of large pests such as bollworm larvae by hand is feasible in small plots. Sometimes pests or diseases problems may become too severe to manage without recourse to control chemicals. Certain chemicals such as pheromones and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)-based products for insect management and other bio-control agents or copper and sulphur compounds for disease management, are

25 permitted in organic farming under the restrictions of the certifying authority.

The use of genetically modied (GM) crops is prohibited under all certication schemes for organic produce. The main justications for this seems to be rstly, the concern that alien genes may escape into the environment. The second concern is that several of the GM crops already being grown were engineered for herbicide resistance and that this would lead to increased use of pesticides. For crops modied to produce toxin from Bt that confers resistance to a wide range of insect pests, the fear is that their widespread use will lead to resistance to Bt toxin in pest populations and it would no longer be possible to use Bt-based insecticides in organic agriculture. It would not be appropriate to argue the case for or against GMOs herein, but there is no doubt that the technology offers tremendous potential to develop crop varieties with resistance to pests and diseases and in this way GM crops could actually decrease the use of pesticides.

Constraints to Adoption of Organic Farming in African Smallholder Agriculture 1. The most important constraint to wider adoption of organic farming methods in SSA is the lack of research and extension support and the policy framework to encourage such support. 2. Difculties and expense of obtaining certication. Even if there is a certication organisation within the country, it may still be difcult to reach farmers in remote areas who are also isolated from information on certication schemes. 3. Lack of facilities and nancial support for training farmers and extension ofcers in organic farming methods. 4. Additional labour required to prepare and use organic inputs compared to commercial synthetic pesticides and inorganic fertilisers. 5. Pest and disease problems are greater in the tropics than in temperate zones and might not always be sufciently controlled with organic methods. 6. Shortage of livestock in some areas due to scarcity of grazing land so that organic fertilisation must rely on green manures or on composted organic residues.

26 7. Failure of policy makers and researchers to promote the benets of organic practice as a sustainable approach to smallholder agriculture, independent of real or perceived price incentives for organic produce.

R.J. Hillocks
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