Critical Mass: ICARDA's
Technology Takes Off

is to be kept for lean seasons. Seed supply was a particular bottleneck. Hand harvesting is possible, but is uneconomic in the area. Farmers wanted a way of harvesting mechanically. So ICARDA brought in a cutterbar mower. It worked, and the idea caught on.
       Farmer Mr Abou Hassan bought three of the imported mowers. One has been sold on to a farmer in Idleb Governorate, where it will be used for faba bean (foul) as well as vetch. The other two have been used to harvest Mr Hassan's vetch and are now being rented out for the equivalent of  US$37-47 per hectare. According to Mr Amin Yagen, who has rented Mr Hassan's machines, hand-harvesting costs could be up to US$150-200 per hectare. Both win. "If I had the funds, I would have bought 20 of them," says Mr Hassan. "I will get the cost back in a year or two. And I will use it for other crops, such as coriander. I will buy my own next year," he says.
       The machines are not depriving local people of jobs. There is not enough labor available in the area to harvest vetch economically.
       Mr Yagen says that mechanical harvesting is better than grazing. The feed is avail

How do you know when a
technology has been successfully transferred to farmers?

hen they start investing in    it themselves. ICARDA's  cereal/vetch rotation tech-nology in the El-Bab area of northwest Syria has proved it.
       Rotation of cereal with vetch--Vicia sativa--has enormous potential for raising cereal yields and better sheep-feeding. It also ensures long-term sustainability of the land, and there is even evidence that it may reduce fertilizer and herbicide use.
       The technology trials started in 1986 with a core group of eight farmers. Now 200 farmers are using it in the area. But the farmers wanted mechanical harvesting, as this can significantly increase the profitability of the

legume. It not only feeds sheep; it also "feeds" the land, raising nitrogen content. This leads to better barley and wheat yields and reduces the need for fertilizer.
      Although vetch is good for grazing and harvested feed and can replace barley as a source of nutrition for sheep, it has to be harvested if seeds are to be available and fodder

technology. So ICARDA brought a cutterbar mower to the area and demonstrated it. This spring, a farmer has invested in three similar mowing machines to harvest the vetch. Besides using the machines himself, he rents them out to neighbors. A mower costs about US$2,600.
      The rotations were introduced partly for environmental reasons. Technologies devised for this reason will not be taken up by farmers if they can't afford them. But this one pays from year one.
     Use of feed legumes also helps increase soil organic matter, and thus soil carbon. There is a need to increase carbon sequestration globally to combat the 'greenhouse effect.'
     ICARDA started to develop the rotation technology because continuous wheat and, especially, barley cropping was exhausting the land, and causing an unbroken cycle of pests and diseases. Both were hitting yields. Vetch is a feed

able all year, including winter. This means that besides better weight gain, earlier lambing and higher twinning rates, he has healthy lambs for sale in the spring, when there are few available and the price is at its highest.  Moreover, mechanical harvesting leaves the field clear of weeds; this, plus the better soil-nutrient content, means he uses 30% less nitrogen on the wheat that follows vetch. In some fields, he would have been growing less profitable barley instead of wheat had there not been vetch before. Best of all, there is a plentiful supply of seed for further vetch production.
       The machinery has clearly helped, and the local farmers' cooperative is planning to buy three cutterbar mowers itself next year. It has been an encouraging experience in two respects: first of all, the vetch rotations were developed at least partly for environmental reasons--but have also proved
profitable. Second, it has reached

critical mass.
        The farmers are investing themselves.
During a field visit to the El-Bab site by senior officials of ICARDA and the government of Syria, Mr Ghassan Emish, Director of Agriculture, Aleppo Province, thanked ICARDA for introducing this technology. "The rotation of cereal with vetch has enormous potential for raising cereal yields and better sheep-feeding. But it also ensures long-term sustainability of the land," he said. "I fully support on-going efforts to expand this technology. I will urge the Agricultural Bank of Syria to provide farmers with medium-term loans to acquire mowers. The Directorate of Agriculture in Aleppo will join hands with ICARDA to expand this successful experience to new districts such as Menbedg and Jrablous," he added. Mr Khalaf Essalloum, Head of the Farmers' Union at El-Bab, ensured that he would fully support the proposals for purchasing  mowers.





Akram Semaan, Faik Bahhady, and
Dr Mustapha Bounejmate are Consultants in the Natural Resource Management Program at ICARDA.