Development and Dissemination of 4R Nutrient Stewardship Knowledge to Support Crop Production Intensification

A proposal to Agrium by the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI)

Summary
Inappropriate fertilizer recommendations and lack of access to information on good nutrient crop and nutrient management practices is a key factor underlying low crop productivity in Morocco and other North Africa countries. The 4R Nutrient Stewardship Framework developed by the fertilizer industry worldwide aims to provide the context for efficient nutrient management focusing on four central components: applying the right fertilizer source, at the right rate, at the right time in the growing season, and in the right place. Despite the recognition of multiple nutrient deficiencies, including S, Mg, Zn, fertilizer recommendations in the region mostly cover N, P and K. As various countries in the region take steps to support agricultural growth, development approaches and tools to develop and effectively transfer 4R Nutrient Stewardship knowledge to the extension systems and smallholder farmers is essential to ensure sustainable crop production intensification. This project will be implemented in collaboration with the National Agronomic Research Institute (INRA-Morocco), the newly created office for agricultural advice (Office National du Conseil Agricole (ONCA)) and OCP through the OCP Foundation to demonstrate the impact of various 4R techniques, including site- and crop-specific fertilizer recommendations, on crop productivity and profits. The project will also develop various 4R knowledge products for farmers, extension agents and fertilizer dealers, and use various media and proposed ICT platforms to communicate 4R information to farmers. The main outputs of the project will include:

· Support the development of a series of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) where R&D activities in support of 4R practice development. These sites will also be used for farmer extension program delivery in partnership with local government and commercial collaborators.
· New agronomic and economic knowledge generated on the impact of 4R components on wheat and food legume production intensification.
· Extension agents and farmers in pilot sites trained on implementation of 4R components.
· A 4R extension-training manual for smallholder farming systems developed in Arabic and French.
· 4R extension pamphlets for smallholder farming systems developed in French and Arabic language.
· 4R knowledge and project outputs from the pilot sites disseminated through television, radio and print media.
· Videos of main project activities and impact developed in the pilot site.
· 4R Content developed in form of short messages ‘tips’ and disseminated to farmers. This information will be used to support the currently emerging plan to have a SMS message system for farmers in Morocco.

The project will initially operate in pilot sites covering the main cereal production regions (Sais, Tadla, Chaouia and Abda), and the 4R knowledge dissemination framework developed will be used as a model for scaling out to other regions in Morocco. The project will also identify challenges and opportunities for sustainable crop production intensification and recommend priority research and development activities that will be addressed by future projects.


Introduction
The North African IPNI program includes seven countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Senegal and Mauritania. In North Africa agriculture is largely subsistence farming with rainfed production; it is labor-intensive with relative low inputs and use of few new technologies. The farm holdings are small, only a few hectares, and frequently in fragmented parcels. Effective change in land management has been hampered by traditional inheritance laws, as well as access rights to tribal and common lands. Cereals (wheat and barley) are the main annual crops in the Maghreb countries (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), and mostly cultivated in rainfed zones in rotation with legumes, cereals or fallows. The average grain yield of cereals is still below the potential obtained in well managed trials in the region. Industrial crops (Sugar beet, fruit trees and vegetables) are cultivated in irrigated areas. Olive orchards are one of the major crops across North Africa and cover about 7% of the agricultural area in Morocco. One of the objectives of the green Morocco plan (GMP) is to extend the olive area to 1.2 million ha in 2020, or 14% of the agricultural area.
Even though agriculture is one of the most important sectors in the North Africa region, most of the main agricultural products are still imported. The future challenges are to increase the productivity responding to the increase of the demand and the high pressure on natural resources such water. Development programs launched in North Africa such the Green Morocco plan in Morocco and the National Agricultural development program in Algeria encourage the efficient use of inputs. Nutrient management in rainfed systems is dependent on rainfall distribution in time and space. Improving water-use efficiency (WUE) is one of the priorities in these regions. Previous research in low rainfed areas showed that the best management of nitrogen has a significant effect on WUE. Research showed that nitrogen leads to an improvement of wheat early growth and vigor. However, an increase of WUE by N application is not universal, because other factors related to crop management (sowing date, varieties, etc…) are also important for improving WUE. Hence, one of the objectives of North Africa IPNI program is to promote the best management practice of nutrients for improving WUE in rainfed areas using 4R Nutrient Stewardship.

IPNI is implementing research and development activities in collaboration with various institutions to apply science to produce outputs (scientific and extension publications and decision support tools) that contribute to improved understanding of the role of best fertilizer management practices in crop production intensification in North Africa. The main focus is to provide direction in plant nutrient management guided by the principles of 4R Nutrient Stewardship. 4R Nutrient Stewardship is defined as applying the right fertilizers, from the right source, at the correct rate, on time and on the right place.

Past projects in support of cereal production intensification in Morocco has demonstrated that farmers can economically increase wheat productivity from the current average of 1.5 to 2.5 t/ha (rainfed) by selecting the right source and rate of fertilizer and applying the fertilizer at the right time and place in addition to other good agronomic practices including the use of improved cereal varieties, timely planting and weeding. Despite the strong evidence for the potential to intensify wheat productivity demonstrated in Morocco, farmers and extension agents lack access to information on how they can apply 4R knowledge to increase crop productivity. The proposed project aims to fill the gap of limited access to information by farmers at pilot sites in Morocco through setting up of field-based learning centers facilitated through demonstrations of the importance of various nutrients (macro and micronutrients) in production of cereal crops. The project will also develop extension material and use radio programs and emerging ICT opportunities to communicate 4R information to farmers.

The project will be implemented over a 3-year period and the site will be located in the main cereal production regions of Morocco, regions with high potential for intensification, but characterized by large yield gaps. The project will directly collaborate with INRA-Morocco, ONCA and OCP in establishment and management of the trial sites. Availability of recent database on soil and soil maps generated by the soil fertility map project will assist in improving the nutrient management recommendations given to farmers. The project will provide feedback to ONCA and OCP to aid in the development of more appropriate fertilizer recommendations based on agro-ecological regions.

Objectives

· To initiate long-term on-farm field research and demonstration sites that will form learning centers for 4R knowledge for farmers, extension agents, fertilizer distributers and agricultural development programs.
· Develop and adapt the 4R training manual for smallholder farming systems and extension products in French and Arabic languages to disseminate 4R information to farmers.
· Develop 4R content for use by a proposed information and communication technology (ICT) mobile phone platform to disseminate 4R information to farming communities in Morocco.

Approach and outputs
Objective 1: To initiate long-term field research and demonstration sites that will form learning centers for 4R knowledge for farmers, extension agents, fertilizer distributers and agricultural development programs.

At least 40 field sites will be established to demonstrate the four components of the 4R Nutrient Stewardship (right source, rate, time and place), with the results assessed in agronomic and economic terms. The demonstrations will include durum and bread wheats, barley, food legumes (chickpea, lentil and fababean) crops depending on the experimental site. The main factors to be studied in the experimental sites will be:

· The effects of K, S and Zn on crop productivity in addition to current N+P recommendations.
· The effects of fertilizer application strategies (rate, time and placement) on crop productivity.

The R&D trials will be established on the main cereal production regions of Morocco under both rainfed and irrigated systems. The demonstration will be implemented over a period of three years to capture the effect of 4R practices under varying climatic conditions. Learning centers will be established based on the demonstration sites by organizing farmers into formal groups to participate in implementation and evaluation of the results.

The project will concurrently collect information of current practices by farmers and the yields that they are achieving, and will use this to explicitly determine the main shortcomings in farmers’ nutrient management practices and the impact that this has on yield reduction. The assessment of farmers’ management practices will also be used to highlight the impact of the project in influencing changes in nutrient management practices.

Activity	Output	Time
1. Demonstrations to disseminate 4R information	New agronomic and economic data as well as knowledge generated on the impact of 4R components on cereal and food legume production intensification. Reports produced.	Data and reports produced every 6 months.
2. Field days conducted	Dissemination of 4R information to various stakeholders including policy makers, local fertilizer companies, researchers etc. Television, radio and print media engaging to publicize project outputs.	Three field days conducted during the annual cropping season. At least one news publication/report in mainstream media every 6 months
3. Field-based training for extension agents and pilot farmers	Knowledge of farmers and extension agents on nutrient management based on 4R concept enhanced and reported.	Training workshops conducted every six months. Reports produced.
4. Surveys to assess farmer management practices and yields	Insights into challenges for effective implementation of the 4R practices by farmers gained and documented.	Included in the main report every 6 months.

Objective 2. Develop and adapt the 4R training manual for smallholder farming systems and extension products in French and Arabic languages to disseminate 4R information to farmers.

A 4R training manual will be developed to address the specific opportunities and challenges for smallholder farming systems in Morocco. The training manual will be developed by adapting and simplifying the 4R international manual developed by IPNI. The adapted training manual will include examples and case studies from North Africa. A series of concise extension material in pamphlet form will also be developed on each of the 4R components, based on knowledge from past research outputs and results from this project. The 4R training manual and extension material will be used to support training activities in Ob. 1, and will be made available for multiplication and wide distribution by project collaborators.

Results and knowledge generated from the project will be packaged into short radio messages for broadcasting on the local and national radio stations. Project activities will be captured on video, and a documentary to showcase the impact of implementing 4R nutrient management strategies on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers will be produced in the third year (2016-17) of the project.

Activity	Output	Time
1. Development of the 4R training manual for smallholder farming systems	4R training manual for smallholder farming systems developed	End of year 1
2. Development of the 4R extension material	4R extension and training material for smallholder farming systems developed.	End of year 1 and reviewed annually
3. Development of scripts for 4R radio messages	4R knowledge disseminated on local and agricultural programs on national radio	Messages aired on radio throughout the cropping season
4. Development of project documentaries	Videos of main project activities and impact for Agrium Documentary on project activities and impact	Every six months End of third year (2016-17)

Objective 3. Develop 4R content for use by a proposed ICT mobile phone platform to disseminate 4R information to farming communities in Morocco.

The IPNI Nutrient Expert for wheat has been developed to capture 4R knowledge and apply it to provide site-specific recommendations for the correct source of nutrients, rates of application, time of application as well as the where it is to be applied. This project intends to extract and disseminate simple 4R and agronomic knowledge generated from demonstrations and refined by Nutrient Expert to the farmers, agro-dealers and extension staff using a mobile phone ICT messaging platform proposed for Morocco. Through ONCA (Office National du Conseil Agricole) and the OCP, there is a proposal to develop such a messaging system in Morocco. In the first phase of the project (2 years) IPNI will work with ONCA and OCP in the development of the messaging systems. In the second phase IPNI will work to launch the broadcast timelines and messages for use in the system. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to integrate results from simulation runs of Nutrient Expert for wheat to aid in making fertilizer recommendations to farmers by agro-ecological region. The system will be evaluated using the farmer groups to assess its impact on their decision making process.

Activity	Output	Time
1. Develop 4R content for the dissemination using the proposed SMS messaging system	4R Content developed in form of short messages ‘tips’ and disseminated to farmers. Database of at least 50 farmers	SMS messages sent weekly during the cropping season and every two weeks at other periods.
2. Development of an application based on the simplified Nutrient Expert tool to provide farmers with recommendations based on agro-ecological region for nutrient management	4R centric ICT application developed and used to support site-specific adaptation by smallholder farmers	ICT application developed and use initiated by end of year 2 (2015-16)

Project Outcomes and Indicators

· Improved access to fertilizer management information, based on 4R Nutrient Stewardship, by extension services and farmers.
o Number of farmers accessing fertilizer management information from various dissemination channels including (i) demonstrations, (ii) extension pamphlets and (iii) mobile phone ICT system.
o Number of farmers adopting improved fertilizer management practices based on the 4R concept.
· Improved livelihoods of smallholder farmers through adoption of improved fertilizer management practices.
o Percentage increase in crop productivity.
o Percentage increase in farm income.

The project will also identify challenges and opportunities for sustainable crop production intensification and recommend priority research and development activities that will be addressed by future projects. The project will also strengthen the capacity of various partners, including the private sector, extension systems to communicate 4R information to farmers to ensure farmers will continue to benefit in the future.

Project Partners
The project will be implemented in partnership with OCP, the OCP Foundation, ONCA (Office National du Conseil Agricole), INRA-Morocco, Regional Directorate of Agriculture (DRA), agro-dealers and local fertilizer distributers. The project will collaborate directly with the recently developed Moroccan soil fertility map project, by applying soil information generated in the project site in adapting 4R strategies to site-specific soil fertility conditions.


Proposed duration of the project: 2014 to 2017