Zimbabwe is currently suffering through one of the worst droughts in its history. Nearly two-thirds of that nation’s maize crop has reportedly been wiped out. Maize production in Zimbabwe is dominated by smallholder farmers, and this year’s ultra-tough growing conditions are a testament to the dangers that climate change poses to small-scale farmers.
Meanwhile in Ethiopia, the government is scrambling to get ahead of global warming by expanding irrigation to grow wheat year-round, but the new dry-season wheat production isn’t optimized, meaning low yields with high water usage.
This is where we’re stepping in.
Grow Further is proud to announce that we’ve identified new partners and will be funding their research and development work to help Zimbabwe beat this drought and nourish its population, and enable Ethiopia to expand its wheat harvest, making it possible to cultivate wheat there year-round.
We’re now launching our second round of grants after a successful first round last year. Grow Further formally announced two new grants on October 23 ahead of the Borlaug Dialogue, the premier annual conference on global food security going on this week where we have 5 representatives. The conference features multiple heads of state and other leaders who come to Des Moines, Iowa each year for the awarding of the World Food Prize.
It’s our largest grant disbursement to date. Grow Further is donating nearly $300,000 to support R&D that will improve the lives of thousands of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. And just like last year, it’s all been made possible by the support of individual donations, a point that our founder and CEO Peter Kelly is stressing.
“We’re looking to not only prevent famine in Ethiopia and keep schoolchildren nourished in Zimbabwe here but also to set an example of how individuals can support and engage with innovation in creating a food-secure future just as they do with food banks or science more generally,” he said.
Biofortification for the masses
In our largest single grant since we began this work, Grow Further is giving $211,000 to fund a project that will make smallholder farms in Zimbabwe more climate-resilient, an imperative given the drought conditions that exist there now, and improve nutrition in the country.
The project will be implemented by ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, with the support of HarvestPlus. Zimbabwe’s government is also lending a hand.
Both ICRISAT and HarvestPlus are larger than Grow Further and they’ve been around longer than us. Our partnership with these two well-established organizations goes to show the critical importance of their work. The individual donations Grow Further collected from our generous donors and members will be harnessed to help carry this nutrition and climate resilience project across the finish line, a project led by ICRISAT and HarvestPlus that would otherwise go unfunded.
HarvestPlus develops biofortified versions of crops that pack more nutrition than the standard varieties. They’ve teamed up with ICRISAT to make the ultimate variety of pearl millet, a hearty staple crop that can be grown in arid climates.
Through its long experience with arid climate agricultural R&D, ICRISAT’s scientists have developed pearl millet that can withstand even the harsh drought conditions Zimbabwe is now suffering under. HarvestPlus has stepped in to give this pearl millet variety a higher iron content. The “iron pearl millet” delivers a one-two punch: better adaptation to climate change for farmers and better nutrition for consumers. This means that children in Zimbabwe can get the iron they need to develop and learn even during a drought.
Grow Further’s generous donors are making it all possible.
“We’ll be solving the two problems we have of food scarcity and malnutrition,” said Dr. Henry Fred Ojulong, an ICRISAT senior scientist.
Wheat for the whole year
Beginning in 2019, the government of Ethiopia launched an ambitious project to develop and promote cultivation of wheat during the dry season–not only building irrigation systems but also introducing farmers to what was then essentially a new concept. Ethiopia’s annual wheat harvest is made possible by smallholder farmers, but the vast majority rely on the rain to irrigate their crops.
Off-season irrigated wheat production holds huge potential in Ethiopia, where much of the country has plenty of water during the rainy season. The government recognizes that off-season wheat production is new and has a lot of room for improvement in both productivity and water use efficiency, and has encouraged researchers like those at Madda Walabu University to help improve it.
A team of researchers at the university came to Grow Further with an innovative plan, and we’re funding it at $68,000, which goes a long way in rural Ethiopia. The production system they’re developing and testing, developed in collaboration with researchers working on better wheat varieties, promises to greatly expand wheat production and help Ethiopia become self-sufficient in wheat and even export the crop.
"We're looking to not only prevent famine in Ethiopia and keep schoolchildren nourished in Zimbabwe here but also to set an example of how individuals can support and engage with innovation.”
According to a widely used model to predict the adoption of agricultural technologies, this project will eventually help 5 million smallholder farmers in Ethiopia grow wheat in the off-season months.
Jemal Abdulkerim Ute, Assistant Professor of Agronomy at Madda Walabu University, calls this partnership with Grow Further “a game-changer for our research team.”
“It will allow us to delve deeper into the complex interactions between climate, irrigation, and wheat varieties,” he said, “ultimately leading to the development of strategies that can help farmers adapt to the changing environmental conditions and ensure more reliable and resilient wheat production during the off-season.”
Just the beginning
Last year, our grant-giving kicked off in earnest with funds donated to developing a breakthrough commercial variety of Bambara groundnut and a disease and pest-detecting smartphone application. Now our supporters are supporting iron-rich, drought-resistant pearl millet and better varieties of wheat coupled with an optimal irrigation strategy.
Grow Further was launched because Peter Kelly, our founder, recognized that there are far too many good agricultural R&D ideas falling through the cracks. Last year we caught two of them. This year, we’ve saved two more. With a little time and patience, these four innovative solutions to the problems smallholder farmers face will make their mark. We’re confident of this.
It’s a small beginning to a much larger and longer journey. We’re inviting everyone interested in developing world smallholder agriculture to join us in supporting worthy R&D initiatives like these. Step by step, we will build a more food-security future.
— Grow Further
Photo credit: Pearl millet at an ICRISAT research facility. Joseph Opoku.
