Impacts of fertilization management strategies on improved sorghums varieties in smallholder farming systems in Mali: Productivity and profitability differences.

Sorghum is an important cereal crop cultivated by smallholder farmers of Mali, contributing significantly to their food demand and security. The study evaluated different fertilization strategies that combined organic and inorganic fertilizer applications with three sorghum varieties. The experiments were conducted over three cropping seasons (2017-2019) in three sites (Bamako, Bougouni, and Koutiala respectively) within the Sudanian region of Mali. Our results showed a significant effect of season, variety, and fertilization strategies on grain and stalk yields. Grain yield increased by 8-40% in Koutiala, 11-53% in Bougouni, and 44-110% in Bamako while the average stalk yield was above 5000 kg ha-1 with fertilized treatment compared to unfertilized treatment in the three sites. Fadda performed the best variety, mean grain yield was 23% and 42% higher than that of Soumba and Tieble, respectively. Similarly, there was a progressive increase in grain yield with an increasing level of poultry manure (PM) from 0 to 150 g/hill and cattle manure (CM) from 0 to 100 g/hill. However, the application of 100 g/hill of CM and PM plus 3 g/hill of Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) increased yield by 8% and 12% respectively compared to only CM or PM treatments. The results further revealed higher yield gain by 51% (Bamako), 57% (Koutiala), and 42% (Bougouni) for T10-[PM (100 g/hill) + Micro-D_DAP (3 g/hill)] equivalent to 73 kgNha-1 than others (T2-T9), but not proportionate to the highest value-cost ratio (VCR). Radar charts used to visualize sustainable intensification (SI) performance in the three domains (productivity, profitability, and environment) showed that the environmental variable has a direct influence on productivity, meanwhile profitability across the strategies ranged from low to moderate value across sites and different fertilizer strategies. Our study, therefore, recommends the use of multiple-choice fertilizer strategies includingT2-CM (50 g/hill)+PM(50 g/hill), T5-DAP-Micro-D (3 g/hill), T6-DAP41:46:00 and T9-PM(50 g/hill) alongside with improved sorghum varieties tested, for higher productivity and profitability across the region.

How the Smart Food Concept Can Lead to the Transformation of Food Systems and Combat Malnutrition: Different Approaches in Africa, Globally, and a Case Study from Myanmar with Lessons Learnt for Creating Behavior Change in Diets.

Some of the biggest global issues are poor diets, environmental concerns, and poverty. To tackle malnutrition, fast-growing lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, environmental concerns like climate change, land and water scarcity, and poverty, we need to incorporate dietary and on-farm diversity. These issues should be treated in unison, but also with more holistic solutions. Mainstreaming "traditional" Smart Foods back as staples across Africa and Asia is part of the "Smart Food" approach. Smart Foods are food items that fulfill the criteria of being good for you, the planet, and the farmer. Sorghum and millet were selected as the first Smart Foods and a participatory fun-filled approach was adopted to create awareness, to develop culturally acceptable products, and to bring about behavior change to improve adoption, dietary diversity, and nutritional status. Smart Food piloted these activities in Myanmar to understand its potential on the consumer market. Smart Food was promoted in different countries through social media competitions in Mali, cooking shows in Kenya and India, recipe development by popular chefs in Paris and London, as well as school feeding programs in Tanzania and India, and an international millet festival in Niger. As a case study in Myanmar, we compared two approaches to introduce Smart Food - one which directly introduces new products and one which takes a culturally sensitive participatory and inclusive approach. The later approach resulted in the development of 27 recipes, in contrast with the former approach, which accepted only 3 of the 13 products tested. The 27 products developed locally exhibited superior nutrient values compared to usual rice porridge. The Smart Food initiative is demonstrating the potential to make a difference in society and for the environment, thus contributing to a major impact on leading global issues such as dietary diversity, improved nutritional status, and adapting to climate change.

Assessment of agro-morphological variability of dry-season sorghum cultivars in Chad as novel sources of drought tolerance.

Dry-season sorghum is a type of sorghum whose establishment ends at the end of the rainy season and its development takes place during the dry and cold harmattan period. Its root system is particularly well developed with deep penetration for water withdrawal. This study was conducted to assess the level of genetic diversity present among dry-season sorghum in Chad's Sudanese zone using phenotypic traits, and to identify new sources of drought tolerance that could be used in sorghum breeding programs. A high variability in qualitative traits was observed except for the botanical race which showed that all cultivars were of durra race. It was also observed that most cultivars had compact panicles (66.67%), mostly black glumes (66.67%), glume hairiness (58.33%) and did not have aristation (91.67%). Most qualitative traits showed a coefficient of variation of less than 30%, and the analysis of the variance showed that at 0.1% probability, there were significant differences between cultivars for all traits except botanical race. It was observed that the potential productivity of dry-season sorghum of this collection was strongly related to their staygreen characteristic; a trait of enormous importance in breeding for postflowering drought tolerance in sorghum. Plant height was highly heritable (91.9%), followed by the peduncle length (90.2%), panicle length (87.5%) and the internodes number (86.5%). Structuring of diversity separated the cultivars into four statistically distinct groups; with group 2 clustering cultivars with panicle productivity, early maturity and high staygreen, and other traits that contribute to the performance of cultivars. The findings will help to enhance the selection and production of dry-season sorghum in Chad and also provide alternative sources for staygreen introgression into the larger sorghum breeding community.