Lawra District has a research station, located in Babile. This is separate from any demo plot or field school, and is strictly for research purposes. It is run by Mr. Dangana, DAO Crops, who is one of the most enthusiastic and energetic individuals I have met in Ghana thus far.
In talking with him about what makes a good innovation or technology, he emphasized that it needs to be sustainable, flexible and easy to adopt, and not radically different from the way current things are done, but different enough to make impact.
There are currently four experiments in progress at the research station.
1 – Early Crop Selection
In partnership with the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, they are testing 18 varieties of “Very Early” and “Early” maize for suitability in Northern Ghana. “Very Early” varieties will yield mature produce in about 2 months, while “Early” in 3 months. This would give the farmers an opportunity to get food on the table and/or produce to market earlier to get the cash flowing, while waiting for their “regular”, high-yield/quality crops to mature.
Each experiment is divided into 4 plots, with 4 replicates each. They are planted in a randomized block to try and spread each variety over the entire land area, incase there are specific areas in soil imbalances or infertility.
From these results, they will take the best performing varieties, and then give them to farmers throughout the district to test. Even within Lawra district, the soil and climate conditions vary greatly, so testing in multiple regions is required.
2 – Fertilizer Application Regimens
This set of experiments is to assess the economic value of using different fertilizer applications. In essence, the question is: Does the increase in yield received with one, two, or three fertilizer applications in the growing season result in enough profit to offset the increased cost of fertilizer application?
Next year, the experiment will be expanded to include additional factors such as compost, and tillage.
3 – Crop Rotation for Soil Fertility
It is well known that crop rotation is necessary to ensure continued soil fertility. This experiment was focused on trying to chose crops which compliment each to the extent reliance on fertilizer can be dropped while maintaining yield/profit levels. Specifically, this experiment was looking at using legumes (soybeans), alternated with maize. This experiment will be continued over the course of a couple of years to realize the full impact.
4 – Sesame for Income Generation
Sesame is being grown to assess growth, yield and market potential in Northern Ghana, with the interest of introducing this to farmers as an additional income generating crop.
Not Quite an Experiment …
In his visits to the Research Farm, Mr. Dangana observed that the neighboring farmer is struggling with his cowpeas. Cowpeas are very sensitive to the timing of their planting. They must be planted such that when they go to flower, it is not during the heaviest rains of late August and early September. The flowers only open during mid-morning, and will be easily damaged by rains, or insects that come with the rains. Furthermore, if the plant is left in flooded fields, the flower formation will be stunted. In his conversations, it was realized that the farmer just plants when he thinks is “right”, which, given the condition of his crop, was wrong. Mr. Dangana would like to convince the farmer to allow him to help him next year. His proposed experiment would be to plant one-third of the field early enough to flower before mid-August, plant one-third to flower after mid-September, and then allow the farmer to plant the remaining third when he feels is appropriate.
Graduate School
Mr. Dangana really wants to go back to school and complete his M.Sc. in Agricultural Science (the specifics were over my head). However, he does not want to do it in Ghana. He explained that while you can do a Master’s in 2 years in most countries, it can take up to 6 years in Ghana. Why? The professors delay your experiments and try to control too many things. So, while I complained about the couple extra months and hoops to jump through while finishing my M.Sc., I guess it wasn’t that bad after all. While he wants to go abroad to complete his degree, Mr. Dangana’s intent is to return to Ghana with new research methodologies, new ideas for experimental design, new crop technology and even more passion for what he does (if that is possible). Ideally, he’d love a Ph.D. as well. But, given the financial realities of going abroad, he may just end up staying in Ghana for his M.Sc.. After potentially 6 years, he says he’ll be too broke to even consider a Ph.D.
More Things to Come
This week, Mr. Dangana approached me and Mariko about helping him design his next round of experiments, both for the research farm, and for another project he has found land / willing farmers to use. I suggested the idea of comparing some of the natural fertilizers and pesticides identified in the Farmer Innovation Challenge against commercial products. He liked the idea! He presented his other project to me very quickly: introducing new vegetable varieties for irrigated dry-season farming. I quickly noticed a gap in appropriate experimental controls, and talked to him briefly about it. I loved his response: “This is why I wanted to use more brains!” He is going to write up a more detailed approach and plan, and then the three of us will work on making sure the objectives and experimental design are appropriate. A little bit of scope creep for my placement, but I’m actually kind of excited about it.
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