Final version of Tropical Legumes II Project Report for Phase 1 - icrisat

about half of area share of land allocated to common bean per farm was occupied by Mexican 142,
released in 1972, grown by 64% of the households. Similarly, Red Wolaita, a cooking type released
in 1974, occupied about 70% of the area under beans in SNNPR (Annex 6-1). The few dominating
varieties were also the longest grown in the communities. The average number of years a variety was
grown on a farm in Eastern Kenya ranged from 4 to 17 years, with few farmers maintaining the same
variety longer than 30 years. In Ethiopia, the average number of years a bean variety had been grown
ranged from 2 years to 12 years.
The adoption of the varieties released in early 1990s and 2000s in 2008 was still low, grown by 37.4%
in Eastern Kenya, 42.6% in the central rift valley and only 7.6% in SNNPR (Table 6-3). In terms of area
share, it was estimated at 11% in eastern Kenya, 44% in the central rift valley and about 12% in SNNPR
(Table 6-3). Impediments to adoption of the improved varieties were cited as lack of information about
the varieties and seed related problems already discussed in the previous sections.
Table 6-3: Use rates and area share of improved common bean varieties in the study area of Eastern
Kenya and Ethiopia, 2008
Description
Eastern Kenya
(N=123)
Central Rift Valley
(N=115)
SNNPR (N=105)
Percentage of farmers
Improved varieties released 1990s-2000s 37.4 42.6 7.6
All Improved varieties 82.1 92.2 83.8
Landraces 88.6 1.7 12.4
Percentage area share
Improved varieties released 1990s-2000s 10.7 43. 9 12.5
All improved varieties 39.3 96.2 94.0
Land races 60.8 3.8 6.1
Variety adoption during phase 1 (2007-2011)
Following interventions to improve seed accessibility through scaling up/out of the seed multiplication
and distribution activities under TL II (together with PABRA in 2007-2010 2 ), positive changes were
expected in terms of diffusion of information and variety uptake in both countries. In 2010, a structured
monitoring and evaluation activity was implemented to assess early adoption so as to provide a feedback
to researchers and policy makers. A total of 211 farmers randomly selected from the four production
zones (East Shewa, West Arsi, Sidama and Western Haraghe) of Ethiopia were surveyed. In Kenya, the
early adoption surveys were also conducted in five production regions (Nyanza, Western, and Lower
Rift Valley, Central and Eastern Provinces of Kenya), involving 266 randomly selected households.
In each country, villages in each district were selected with the help of the contact secondary partner
in the area to represent locations that were exposed to the project and those that had not been directly
exposed to the improved varieties by the project. To enable assessment of any changes in adoption of the
improved varieties, a randomly selected sub-sample of the baseline sample was re-interviewed. A brief
discussion of the key findings is presented in the next sections.
Ethiopia
Research findings revealed significant increases in information and seed diffusion among potential
adopters. Over 60% of farmers were aware of the existence and superiority of the varieties by 2010. The
overall analysis of the variety use across the whole sample in Ethiopia showed that four varieties (Awash
2 Note that, in both countries some of the varieties being promoted under TL II have been released for many years—but farmers just did
not know them. In Kenya, the early-maturing, marketable Katumani varieties were released by KARI in the mid-1990s but, until 2008,
were little known by farmers, except around the Katumani Research Center. In Ethiopia, some of the varieties which moved quickly
under TL II, Awash 1, Awash-Melka and Nasir, were released in the early to late 1990s.
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Engaging Smallholder Farmers | Tropical Legumes II Project