The potential of bundle innovation in closing gender yield gaps

Women in agriculture contribute significantly towards sustaining rural livelihoods and achieving food and nutrition security. According to FAO, women play an important role in ensuring world food security contributing to up 43% of agricultural labor force in developing countries. However, they are faced discriminatory gendered social norms which limit their access to and control over production resources (land, labor, seed, fertilizer, livestock and finance) and improved agricultural technologies. To address these challenges, women farmers in Lungo community of Upper East Region of Ghana are practicing bundle innovation of mechanized maize seed with basal NPK fertilizer at planting and leaf stripping for improved maize grain yield and quality feed for livestock production.

Lungo is a farming community and one of the intervention sites for the One CGIAR initiative on Mixed Farming Systems in Ghana. Led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the team conducted an on-farm experiment in Lungo community to validate a bundle innovation of mechanized maize seed with basal NPK fertilizer at planting and maize leaf stripping for livestock feed during 2023 cropping season. The objective of the study was to assess the effect of the bundle innovation on productivity of maize-small ruminant farming systems in northern Ghana.

Stripped maize leaves used as feed for goats in the raining season Photo by Dokurugu Fuseini/IITA

Measured data from Nma Atorega, a 26-year-old female farmer's field shows that the bundle innovation produced 7 bags (700 kg) per acre compared with the conventional practice (planting maize and applying NPK fertilizer at 10 or more days after planting) which produced 5 bags (500 kg) per acre.

Before Nma's encounter with the bundle innovation, she recounts that one of the challenges she faced with her maize production in addition to renting the farmland was hiring labor for planting and fertilizer application. She explains, "with our conventional practice I had to look for people to plant the maize, and in two weeks' time I look for people to apply fertilizer who I had to pay for their services but with the machine there is a substantial reduction in cost as it is done at the same time with one person".

The impact of the mechanized maize seed with basal NPK fertilizer application technology is evident from Nma's comparison between thetechnology and the conventional practice."The machine planted the maize seeds and applied the NPK fertilizer at the same time which saves time and money. It also gives adequate plant population per unit area and higher yield as compared with the conventional practice." she explains.

According to the study, machine ensures accurate plant population, reduced nutrient stress and enhanced nutrient use efficiency, compared with the conventional practice. Moreover, Nma noted that stripping of the maize leaves below the cob leaf provides leaves to prepare 'tobini' and feed for her livestock. Nma explains further that, "The mechanizing seed and basal NPK fertilizer application is one of the best ways to get more stover, this is because the fertilizer which is applied during planting helps the plant to produce bigger and healthy leaves which when been stripped, they are a good source of feed to livestock."

The income earned from the maize sales because of an increased yield for Nma has enabled her take care of some family needs including providing for the school needs of her two daughters a responsibility that she previously could not afford. With her increased income, Nma looks forward to the next farming season to rent more farmland to increase her maize production and aims to invite other farmers to her farm to learn how to use the hand push multi-purpose mechanized planter and strip the maize leaves as feed for their livestock.

Nma expresses her gratitude to Mixed Farming Initiative for providing especially women farmers like herself access to the simple hand push multi-purpose mechanized planter which has increased her maize yield and income as well as knowledge on maize leaf stripping which helps her get adequate feed for her livestock production at no extra cost.

Featured image:Nma operating the multi-purpose mechanized hand push planter on her maize farm. Photo by Ayisoba Awineseligo/Bongo Department of Agric

Authors: Rashida Ziblila, Nurudeen AbdulRahman and Gloriana Ndibalema

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