The Bentley Cropping Systems Fellowship: International Development Research Centre

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The Bentley Cropping Systems Fellowship

This Fellowship (a bequest from Helen S. Bentley and C. Fred Bentley) provides assistance to Canadian and developing-country graduate students with a university degree in agriculture, forestry or biology, who wish to undertake postgraduate, applied, on-farm research with cooperating farmers in a developing country.

In principle, IDRC supports research on all parts of the developing regions of the world. At this time, Fellowships and Awards is not supporting awards which involve research in Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Eastern Europe or Central Asia.

Projects should evaluate and/or promote the use of fertility enhancing plants, such as leguminous forages, shrubs, cover crops, and grain legumes in small farms. The intent is to seek ways to increase the yield of food crops, improve farmers’ livelihoods, and improve soil fertility.

The research should seek cropping system changes that will lead to: sustainable and increased crop yields; production of more and improved animal feed; improved soil and water conservation; improved weed control, and/or biological fixation of nitrogen. Projects should be planned and executed in cooperation with an international agricultural research centre, or with a developing-country institution involved in agricultural research that has an applied on-farm orientation.

The proposal must present plans for on-farm experiments on small-holder farms that have potential to improve the lives of farming households, and to preserve or improve crops yields.

Eligibility

1. Applicants

Applicants must be Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada, or citizens of a developing country who are currently enrolled full-time in a graduate program (Master’s, doctoral, post-doctoral) at a recognized university in Canada or in a developing country for the duration of the award period.

2. Key Selection Criteria

a) Focus of the Research:

Proposals must focus on very simple cropping systems research that can benefit smallholder farmers in developing countries, especially rural women farmers.

b) Participatory Research:

Applicants must use simple experiments executed by cooperating farmers under guidance by the researchers (see details about the location of individual on-farm experiments), and conduct their research with the active participation of the farmers, including women farmers. This requires that farmers be involved in all stages of the experiment on their land, including all the stages of land preparation, seeding, and harvesting.

Research proposals must include details of the comparisons envisioned between the traditional cropping practice of cooperating farmers and the side-by-side alternative cropping practice, which must include some type of leguminous crop or plant. Please consult the attached diagram that shows how a simple on-farm experiment might be compared to either one or two alternative cropping systems. Thus, experiments must compare crop yields from traditional unicrop practice with yields of the same crop combined with some kind of leguminous plant grown either simultaneously with the traditional crop, or perhaps in some cases, grown before the traditional crop is planted.

Similar experiments executed in rural school gardens, conducted with the help and advice of the Fellowship holder, and with the participation of both students and teachers, are also encouraged.

The research procedures must include extensive dissemination of the research results. Smallholder farmers, including rural women farmers, should be the major focus of such publicity:

a) The results should be presented in formats that can reach the various stakeholders, such as field days, farmer visits, briefs for policy-makers;

b) Dissemination will actively involve farmers, extension workers, local development initiatives, and agricultural organizations by addressing other smallholder farmers, especially rural women farmers;

c) The publicity should include farmers’ visits and farmer-to-farmer teaching and learning.

The applicant must:

Provide evidence that a large part, or all of the research, will be carried out on the farms of resource poor or smallholder farmers. The award will not support research carried out on the farms of large land holders or on research stations;
Provide evidence that farmers will actively participate in the experiments. Thus, the development of simple on-farm experimental designs with appropriate controls to determine the practicality and profitability of introducing a leguminous crop in their cropping system is essential;
Scholarship applicants must provide explanations of how they will make the frequent trips from the "home base" to the villages of the cooperating farmers. This is essential for successful execution of on-farm tests;
Explain how the research data was collected and how the introduction of leguminous plants in their cropping systems is expected to improve the economic benefits to farmers;
Applicants should suggest anticipated benefits/improvements and sustainability of their proposal.

c) Sustainability:

The applicant must:

Provide evidence that he/she is or will be supported by local institutions that have a good working relationship with target communities, farmers and/or extension agencies;
Indicate that he/she will seek cooperation, help and support from the local "extension officers" and/or NGOs in the identification of individual farmers who are likely to be suitable and cooperative.

Duration

Award tenure corresponds with the period of field research. In general, this will be between eighteen months and twenty-four months.

Value

The value of the award is up to CA $30,000. If there is strong evidence of significant potential benefits, the award may be extended upon re-application.

Progress Reports

Fellowship holders will commit to provide IDRC with three brief progress reports per year.

Deadlines

October 1, 2010 (awards will be announced by mid-December 2010).

Tenure must be undertaken by December of the following year.

Applications

A letter of support must be included in the application package from a legally recognized institution in the country of research with whom the applicant will be affiliated. This letter must endorse the proposal, confirm the locale of work, and outline the types of institutional support they will provide to the student. The letter must specifically include details of transportation arrangements to experimental plots. The applicant’s host research institution will be expected to certify that the research protocol has been reviewed by a qualified statistician and that it meets an internationally high standard, in terms of experimental and survey designs.

Applicants are encouraged to contact member institutions of The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org) to explore the possibility of conducting their research in conjunction with one of the member institutions.

Applications will be evaluated according to IDRC priorities and criteria, such as relevance to sustainable and equitable development, as well as quality of the research proposal and suitability of the candidate.

Re-applicants, whose research proposal was reviewed and was unsuccessful, must explain, in a covering letter, what changes have been made since the last application and specify where to find the changes in the proposal. Please note that Centre policy stipulates that an individual cannot apply more than twice, if unsuccessful, for the same IDRC award. However, this policy does not apply for Internship Awards.

If there are ethical questions connected with the research, the applicant may, at IDRC's discretion, be required to submit the appropriate approval from the Ethic's Committee of the university.

Please submit all documents listed in the List of Supporting Documents to be Submitted. Complete applications must be received at the Centre by the deadline. Incomplete applications will NOT be considered for the competition. Applications must be sent to the following address:

By regular mail, Canada Post Priority Post or XPRESSPOST:

The Bentley Fellowship

Fellowships and Awards

International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

PO Box 8500

Ottawa, Ontario

K1G 3H9 - Canada

By courier services:

The Bentley Fellowship

Fellowships and Awards

International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

150 Kent Street, Mailroom Suite 990

Ottawa, Ontario

K1P 0B2 - Canada

Fax: (1 613) 236-4026
Telephone: (1 613) 236-6163 ext.: 2098 E-mail: cta@idrc.ca

We thank all applicants for their interest and will contact those candidates whose academic background, quality of the research proposal and skills best match the criteria of the Award. Names of successful candidates will be posted on the Internet.

The Fellowship

A bequest from Helen S. Bentley and C. Fred Bentley provided the initial capital for this Fellowship program. During his travels in developing countries, Dr. Bentley became convinced that ordinary farmers should greatly increase their use of forage crops or grain legumes in the cropping systems on their cultivated lands. In most cases the major benefits would be: increased profitable grain yields; production of more and better livestock feed; and improved soil conservation by reduction of soil erosion and/or the benefits of biological fixation of nitrogen by leguminous crops.

Members of the public who wish to support the Bentleys’ vision may send contributions to the Fellowship program at the address above; such donations will be tax deductible. As its contribution, IDRC provides the administration of the Fellowship at no cost to the program. IDRC will also add to the program fund when necessary.

C. Fred Bentley, OC, PhD, DSc, P. Ag.

A Canadian, C. Fred Bentley was a graduate of the University of Alberta and the University of Minnesota. He enjoyed a distinguished career of teaching and research in soil science. He was among the first generation of Canadian scientists to offer their scientific knowledge and skills to the developing regions of the world. Dr. Bentley undertook assignments in Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, India, and more than a dozen African countries. He was an advisor to the External Aid Office (later to become the Canadian International Development Agency) and was a member of the founding Board of the IDRC.

Recognitions of his contributions to scientific citizenship included Chair of the Board of Trustees of the International Board of Soil Research and Management and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics. His many honours include receipt of the Order of Canada and induction into the Alberta Order of Excellence.

Dr. Bentley believed the systematic inclusion of planted forage or other leguminous crops in cropping sequences on cultivated lands can be increased by conducting simple, well designed, experiments on lands of farmers who, in cooperation with researchers, execute the cropping work themselves, thereby determining the practicality of the cropping systems being evaluated.

Dr. Bentley passed away April 12, 2008. Read more

Location of the individual on-farm experiments, as suggested by Dr. Bentley

Great flexibility for location of the individual on-farm experiments is desirable and their location is important to consider.

Dr. Bentley was of the opinion that there would be enormous advantages if a school or schools would get involved in some on-farm experiments.

The students could learn things that whould be useful in the years ahead;
The whole community would hear about what is going on, and learn by seeing the experiment(s) or by hearing about them;
In any case, an experiment should never be called a demonstration because that implies something good will result; if the demonstration fails, the researchers lose credibility in the community;
The nature of an experiment needs careful explanation: ‘we are going to try something that we hope might make a difference or find a way to increase crop yields;
Student and parent interest would be increased greatly if the students actually participated by: helping to measure and lay out the experiment; weeding as the crops grow; assisting in sample collection by holding the bags; helping to carry samples for weighing; weighing samples, etc;
Perhaps students would enjoy competition: girls against boys; Grade X against Y; a competition between two nearby schools. Small prizes could be offered to those who do the best job of the task at hand;
Another possibility would be to have students assist in experiments on two near-by farms with distinctly different kinds of soil.

After the plots have been cultivated and are ready for seeding, there is a need for a push-type mechanical seeder that can be adjusted for the size of seeds to be used and for the depth at which the seeds are to be placed. There are seeders for gardeners that have those capabilities and they are of a size that makes it easy to transport them.

There are other potential benefits from use of such a seeder:

It makes weeding (when it is needed) much easier to do; and
Some groups of local farmers might adopt use of such a seeder, possibly leading to an important advance in farm practice.

Dr. Bentley did not impose his ideas on Fellowship holders – he sought to assist them to do effective on-farm experiments. He learned from experience in many developing countries that once improved practices are found they are usually adopted rather quickly by farmers – to the benefit of their families and communities.

Presentation of Research Projects Undertaken by two Fellowship Recipients and the ACIAR Project

Three research projects carried out by two Bentley Fellowship Recipients and the ACIAR show how inclusion of legumes in cropping systems has benefited the status of soils and farmers’ livelihoods.

1) Ms. Jayne Mugwe, recipient of the Bentley Fellowship in 2001, carried out field research on “ Participatory Evaluation and Promotion of Integrated Soil Fertility Management Practices within the Smallholder Farms of Central Kenya” as part of her Ph.D. degree in Environmental Studies at Kenyatta University, Kenya, between March 2002 and April 2005. The research work was carried out in Chuka division of Meru South district, which lies in the central highlands of Kenya. Farmers in the region face problems of low crop yields attributed to soil fertility decline, especially soil nitrogen (N). The objective of the study was to identify ways and means of building levels of N in the soil in the smallholder farms with farmers participating as partners. The overall goal was to increase and sustain crop productivity that would ultimately improve food security.

Some specific objectives were outlined in the study and several research activities were carried out to meet these objectives. One of the research activities was to evaluate the effectiveness of ‘best bet’ leguminous plants and other organic residues in improving crop productivity. This was carried out under on-station and on-farm environment. Farmers were involved during the study through joint field days, organized at the grain filling stages of maize, during the long and the short rainy seasons. During these field days, farmers toured the experimental plots and evaluated performance of the different treatments. After this, they were then encouraged to select their preferred soil fertility enhancement technologies to try them out in their farms. Participation during field days by both males and females was encouraging, although males outnumbered females. To assess level of adoption of the technologies and factors that could be influencing adoption of the technologies an adoption study was carried out in 2004.

Results indicated that there were feasible low-cash soil fertility improvement inputs that could be used by farmers to improve their crop yields. Farmers who adopted the new technologies benefited in terms of increased crop production, but some faced constraint of lack of adequate biomass for applying into the soil. Farmers tried to address this by planting bulking plots on their farms and also modified the technologies by mixing different inputs, such as Mucuna pruriens and cattle manure. It was interesting to note that modifications by farmers yielded the highest crop yields. Household interviews conducted during the growing seasons showed that participating farmers were willing to continue practicing the new technologies, and more farmers were willing to adopt these same technologies. It is estimated that more than 200 farmers are working with these new technologies.

The adoption survey showed that the hiring of labour to other farms, the ability to hire labour on a seasonal basis, the distance from Kirege demonstration site, the perception of soil fertility as a current problem, and the purchase of food for more than 4 months in a year had a significant association with the adoption at 5 % probability level. Farmers were likely to adopt soil fertility replenishment technologies if they were near the demonstration plot, were able to hire labour and perceived soil fertility as a problem. The Logit model developed with farm and household variables hypothesized to influence the adoption of technologies explained more than 60%. It showed that young and literate farmers had a higher probability of adopting the technologies than old and illiterate farmers. Other factors, such as farm size, gender of household head, availability of off-farm cash income, were not significant in explaining adoption.

The on-station experiment that was established in a primary school also served as a teaching ground during agriculture lessons. In addition students from neighbouring schools (both primary and secondary) participated during field days and facilitated to disseminate information about the new inputs to their parents and this could have enhanced adoption. It was observed that their participation in this work allowed them to learn and develop interest in agriculture, which consequently could have enhanced their capacity as “future farmers”.

Among the achievements recorded within the study period was enhanced Researcher-Extension-Farmer collaboration that could have contributed positively to the good adoption of technologies by farmers. In addition, two scientific papers emanating from this work were presented at two conferences. One of these papers won three (3) awards. This study also contributed positively towards improvement of food security within the smallholder farmers of Chuka division, and continuation of this work is recommended to benefit more farmers. For example, assessment of impact of technologies in 49 households indicated reduction of the number of months in a year households bought food to meet family needs by more than 40 %. Among the priority future research and development activities recommended are: setting up of more validation on-farm trials so that more farmers could benefit (scaling-up), studies to improve and optimize N2 fixation on farmers fields; and way of availing quality germplasm of legumes to farmers.

2) Ms. Amy Spriggs, recipient of the Bentley Fellowship in 2001, carried out field research on “The Production and Field Evaluation of Rhizobial Inoculants to Improve Biological Nitrogen Fixation and Yields of Honeybush Tea (Cyclopia Spp.) on Small-Scale Farms in the Western Cape, South Africa”, as part of her Ph.D. degree in Botany at University of Cape Town.

The Cape of South Africa is known for it’s sandy, acidic and infertile soils, which compels farming in the region to depend on the use of expensive chemical fertilizers, to the exclusion of low-capital farmers. A solution to this problem has come in the form of a cash crop known as honeybush (Cyclopia spp.), which is endemic to the region and is able to grow on poor soils without the application of chemical fertilizers. Honeybush has also been found to be highly dependent on symbiotic nitrogen fixation for its nitrogen nutrition and agricultural yields can therefore be increased in an inexpensive and environmentally sustainable way through the use of rhizobial inoculant technology. The aim of this project was to develop a rhizobial inoculant for use by small-scale farmers to sustainably and cheaply increase the quality and quantity of honeybush yields. The project conducted nursery and field trials to assess the importance of inoculation and the performance of four test inoculants under field conditions. An interesting and important finding was that the test inoculants were poorly competitive and were outcompeted by native soil rhizobia. Further work needs to investigate why inoculants acquire reduced competitive ability and how this can be avoided. Inoculation proved successful in the nursery environment and in fields with no native rhizobia, such as old vine or potato fields. Inoculation doubled seedling biomass in the nursery and led to a ten-fold increase in crop yield at one farm. One inoculant performed particularly well and can be used by small-scale farmers to sustainably and cheaply improve their honeybush yields, increase their incomes and uplift their livelihoods.

3) ACIAR Project No. 1996/149 Tropical forage and ley-legume technology for sustainable grazing and cropping systems in Southern Africa.

In much of southern Africa there is a widespread deficiency in soil nitrogen. Communally-grazed areas have often lost their better grass species and instead have annuals, while grazing lands have been invaded by thorny trees and shrubs. In addition, both poor quality and low quantity of forages restrict animal production. The economic impact of the protein and nitrogen deficiency for both livestock and cropping is considerable.

In 1999, ACIAR commissioned a project involving Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO), the Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI), and research institutions in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The project team identified legumes that can be used in rotation with crops or inter-sown with them, so as to improve the nitrogen status of soils. Germplasm originating from CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems has been introduced to South Africa and Zimbabwe. There has also been an evaluation of management strategies for cropping systems, dairy farming and degraded grasslands in particular, to enable the team to select forage plants suitable for degraded grasslands of northern South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Three years into the project it has been found that lablab (Lablab purpureus) and velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) grow extremely well on the acidic, sandy soils in the southern African region. Both these legumes improve the maize crop by up to 3 tonnes per hectare, compared with control plots in which the land has been left as ‘weed fallow’ before sowing the maize. The velvet bean can be grazed while still in the ground, fed as hay, or milled and then fed as chaff. Lablab is also suitable for human consumption.

Farmers supplementing low quality forage with lablab hay are recording increases in liveweight and milk yields. (Milk production can shoot up from 4B6 to 6B17 litres per day.) The news has already spread beyond the experimental site, with many farmers sowing lablab or velvet bean in their fallow land on their own initiative and at their own expense.

By gaining farmer participation and seeing how smallholders perceive forages, the project team has managed to rekindle an enthusiasm for legume forages that is now spreading through southern Africa.

Unfortunately the project can no longer continue in Zimbabwe, as Australian foreign policy has led to a suspension of aid to that country.

This project was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and commissioned by the CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia.

Bentley Fellowship - List of Research Projects Undertaken by Recipients

Nyongesa, Dave Wanzama (2008) A Participatory and Socio-Economic Analysis of Soybean Commodity Value Chain in Kenya: A Case of Smallholder Enterprises in Western Kenya, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PhD, Economics with specialization in Agricultural Production)

Kaggwa, Ruth (2006) Participatory On-farm Development of a Sweetpotato/Pigeon Pea Intercropping System for Sustainable and Improved Production on Small-holder Farms of Northern Uganda, Makerere University, Uganda (Master’s, Crop Science)

Isaac, Wendy (2004) Assessment of the Impact of Selected Cover Crops on Soil Fertility and Suppression of Commelina diffusa through Farmer Participatory Research by Fair Trade Banana Growers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, University of West Indies (Ph.D., Crop Science).

Baggie, Idriss (2002) Legume-rice Based Cropping Systems for Improving Soil Fertility in Southern Sierra Leone, University of Reading (Ph.D., Soil Science).

Mugwe, Jayne Njeri (2001) Participatory On-farm Evaluation and Promotion of Integrated Soil Fertility Management Practices within the Smallholder Farms of Central Kenya, Kenyatta University (Ph.D., Environmental Studies).

Spriggs, Amy Clare (2001) The Production and Field Evaluation of Rhizobial Inoculants to Improve Biological Nitrogen Fixation and Yields of Honeybush Tea (Cyclopia Spp.) on Small-Scale Farms in the Western Cape, South Africa, University of Cape Town (Ph.D., Botany).

Gentile, Roberta (1999) Forages for Soil-Improvement in Uruguayan Cropping Systems, Uruguay, University of Manitoba (Master's, Plant Science).

Document(s)

Checklist of Documents to be Submitted by Candidates@ F&A 2009-03-16
(For all competitions except the Internship Awards) Open file

Application Form@ F&A 2008-12-08
(For all competitions except the Internship Awards) Open file

Template of letter of approval by research supervisor@ F&A 2008
Open file

Example of the Type of Very Simple Plan for On-Farm Experiments 2006-04-19
Open file

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