Adoption of improved GLDC crop varieties: A synthesis of evidence

Abstract

There have been several interventions by CGIAR research programs to provide improved technologies of grain legumes and dryland cereals of high productivity, profitability, resilience, and marketability. Understanding the extent of use of these technologies is a key step to estimate its impact on the welfare of smallholder households. The objective of this review was to map adoption evidence of improved Grain legume and Dryland Cereal (GLDC) crop varieties based on the latest adoption data available from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia countries. The mapping was done for 9 GLDC mandate crops and 13 target countries resulting in 35 country crop combinations. The synthesis result highlighted some of the following key findings. Adoption evidence is scarce as the number of surveys conducted over the last decade is quite limited. As a result, data is lacking for some crops in the target countries (e.g., Sorghum in Ethiopia and Groundnut in Tanzania) and are old for some crop and country combinations. Overall, an estimated 43% of GLDC crop area is grown to improved varieties, 20.5M hectares are under improved GLDC crop varieties and an estimated 21.9M smallholder farmers have adopted improved GLDC crops in the target countries. The estimated number of farm households that have adopted improved GLDC varieties exceeds the target households to be reached by 2022 by about 13M households. There are some methodological issues related to adoption measurement that impede an accurate estimation of adoption extent.