Four Seasons of Learning and Engaging Smallholder Farmers - icrisat

Figure 11-1: World soybean areas
In the last four decades the global annual growth in area cultivated was about 3%. Although Africa’s
growth was higher at 5% per annum, its share of global area cultivated has remained about 1% in the
last four decades. It however has been increasing slowly from .7% in the 1970s to 1.3% in the 2000s.
The region which recorded the highest growth in area cultivated was Oceania at 21% average annual
growth rate while North America recorded the least growth of 2%. The highest growth rate in Africa
was in Central Africa with 15%. Nigeria and West Africa as a whole recorded a growth rate of 5% while
South Africa and Uganda recorded area growths of 12% and 13% respectively.
In the 2000s average soybean yield was 2.3 MT per ha, which is an improvement on the 1.6 MT per
hectare achieved in the 1970s. In the last 4 decades, yield has been increasing at 1.3% per annum.
Figure 11-2 below indicates that there are clear variations across the world in terms of yield. In the
2000s, North Africa had the highest yield at 2.9 MT per ha while Central Africa had the lowest yield of
0.5 MT per ha. South America, North America and Asia, which collectively account for 96% of global
area cultivated had yields of 2.5, 2.7 and 1.4 MT per ha, respectively. Nigeria and West Africa as a
whole had a yield of 0.9 MT per ha. South Africa and Southern Africa as a whole had a yield of 1.7 MT
per ha while Uganda and East Africa as a whole had yields of 1.1 MT per ha.
The inter-country yield disparities are reflective of farming systems and technology differentials that
exist among the regions. The larger and well mechanized farms of North and South America are
often planted to very high yielding varieties and operated by resource rich farmers often supported
by deliberate government policy whereas Indian, Chinese and African farms are mainly smallholder
operated, planted to relatively low yielding varieties which are prone to pests and diseases.
Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda which account for 77% of area cultivated in Africa experienced
increased yields in the last 4 decades as other regions of the world did. Although South Africa, Uganda
and Asia had about the same yield in the 1970s, South Africa improved on its yields more so that by the
2000s there was a clear difference in their yields. The most impressive increase was recorded by North
Africa which started as the third highest in the 1970s but grew to clearly overtake other regions by the
1980s and maintained its position up to the 2000s.
Progress of Phase 1
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