Overview

Abstract

Root, tuber, and banana (RT&B) crops play a critical role in food and nutrition security in developing countries, increasingly so in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). They have great potential to contribute to alleviate poverty, improve health and nutrition, and enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate change. However, RT&Bs are characterized by unique challenges including vegetative propagation, genetic complexity, and postharvest constraints with bulkiness and perishability, compared to cereals. They are also characterized by a high yield potential and the ability to deliver micronutrients at large scale. However, until recently they have suffered from neglect in both investment and research. The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas, which operated from 2012 to 2021, represented a novel and successful innovation model within the agricultural research for development domain not only in scientific terms but also from an organizational perspective. This program built upon the uniqueness of the RT&B crops and contributed to much of the progress reported in the book. This chapter provides an overview of challenges and opportunities facing RT&B crops in processing, marketing and distribution, enhancing productivity, and improving livelihoods. It presents underlying concepts for gender and scaling that feature prominently throughout the book, as well as an updated stance on innovation, touching base on the topic of the jobs to be done. The chapter concludes with an overview and highlights of the different sections and chapters in the remainder of the book.

1 Introduction

Root, tuber, and banana (RT&B) crops play a critical role in food and nutrition security in developing countries, increasingly so in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). They have great potential to contribute to alleviate poverty, improve health and nutrition, and enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate change. However, RT&Bs are characterized by unique challenges and, until recently, have suffered from neglect in both investment and research (Fig. 1.1). The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB hereafter), which operated from 2012 to 2021, represents a novel and successful innovation model within the agricultural research for development domain. This program built upon the uniqueness of RT&B crops, including vegetative propagation, genetic complexity, and postharvest constraints with bulkiness and perishability, compared to cereals, and also their high yield potential and the ability to deliver micronutrients at large scale.

Fig. 1.1

Value chains for bulky and perishable RT&B crops need upgrading. Market in Kampala, Uganda. (Photo credit: M. Friedmann (RTB))

Historically, RT&B crops have suffered from lower investment, and thus, this field of research features fewer researchers than other crops. In this context, RTB raised the profile of this important crop group for global food and nutrition security and served as an effective advocate for more investment. As different chapters in the book will make clear, RTB has not only focused on developing and implementing particular innovations but has also addressed broader constraints for scaling innovations, since innovation only creates value when embraced and adopted by its users and beneficiaries at scale.

This book delivers an updated stance on innovations in RT&B crops, within and outside of the CGIAR program. We will touch on how to design innovations with a high likelihood of success and impact and provide several successful examples of innovations in RT&B crops while examining the scaling readiness of the innovations.

2 Importance of RT&B Crops

The importance of RT&B crops in developing countries has grown rapidly in the past 60 years: total production has quadrupled, and in this group, potato, cassava, and yam have experienced the highest growth. Sweetpotato declined a bit as producers in Asia who relied on sweetpotatoes as a food security crop and for animal feed switched to other crops (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Production and area harvested of RT&B crops and value of production in developing countries

Rapidly increasing populations in Africa, growing conditions in the humid tropics, and a strong preference for RT&B crops mean that, with the exception of plantain, an increasing share of the area under these crops is grown in this continent (Table 1.2).

Table 1.2 Changing share of total cropped area in developing countries in Africa

The contribution of foods derived from RT&B crops to calorific needs ranges from 25% in Nigeria to 57% in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Populations are growing rapidly in SSA, particularly in urban centers. By 2050, just these six countries (Table 1.3) are projected to have a combined population of 0.81 billion (UNDP 2019). The number of people involved in RT&B-dominated agri-food systems could more than double by the end of the twenty-first century—most of it in SSA.

Table 1.3 Contribution of RT&B crops to food intake in selected African countries in kilocalories (kcal) per capita (2017)

Globally, RT&B crops are of particular importance to the poorest households in developing countries (Wiebe et al. 2020). They enhance the resilience of food systems and increase food availability and diversity, especially during hunger periods or in the event of crop failure or damage to cereals during extreme weather events. Through biofortification, RT&B crops can contribute to reducing widespread micronutrient deficiencies of vitamin A (VA), iron (Fe), and zinc (Zn), particularly in young children and women of reproductive age.

In Asia, yields of RT&B crops mostly showed large increases, doubling or tripling (Table 1.4; Fig. 1.2). In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), we see general increases but more modest. However, with the partial exception of potatoes and bananas, productivity of RT&B crops in SSA remains low. Hence, production does not satisfy basic food security needs in rural areas and does not compete well with imported staples for urban consumers, resulting in missed smallholder income opportunities. As people move to cities in SSA, value chains for RT&B crops need to be reconfigured to improve efficiency and convenience and reduce postharvest losses to compete with imports.

Table 1.4 Change in yield for RT&B crops in developing countries

Fig. 1.2

Harvesting improved cassava varieties in Dong Nai province, Vietnam. (Photo credit: G. Smith (Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT))

Outside of the humid tropics in Africa and in most of Asia and LAC, RT&B crops are generally important in rotations with cereals (Fig. 1.3) or legumes, as part of agroforestry systems, such as bananas and coffee, or as secondary crops (Fig. 1.4). In this way, they contribute resilience, increase efficiency of cropping systems, provide key micronutrients in the diet, and generate off-season income.

Fig. 1.3

The Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART) project in Assam State, India, introduced potato farmers to climate resilient zero tillage with paddy straw mulch potato production. (Photo credit: CIP)

Fig. 1.4

Mr. John Ndamira in his coffee/banana plantation, with I. Arinaitwe of Mbarara District, Bushenyi, Uganda. (Photo credit: M. Friedmann (RTB))

Using the global partial equilibrium model IMPACT, future agricultural demand and supply for RT&B crops were projected, considering future climate and socioeconomic changes. These forecasts (Fig. 1.5) predicted RT&B crop production reaching 1400 million tons (of fresh produce) by 2050—a global increase of almost 50% from 2010—with Africa emerging as the world’s largest producing and consuming region (Petsakos et al. 2019).

Fig. 1.5

Changes in RT&B agriculture from 2010 to 2050 under a baseline foresight scenario. (Source: Authors’ calculations based on Rosegrant et al. 2017)

3 Challenges and Opportunities for RT&B Crops

Significant technological change will be needed to cope with climate change, especially in SSA, where RT&B crops are of the highest importance (Thiele et al. 2017). Therefore, a key dynamic will be crop substitution, especially in areas where RT&B crops can replace more climate-sensitive cereals and legumes. Maize is vulnerable to higher frequencies of periodic drought, whereas production of cassava and sweetpotato can be much more reliable under these conditions. In addition, there are specific traits that make RT&B crops tolerant or resistant to abiotic stresses like heat, drought, soil salinity, and waterlogging and shocks like typhoons/cyclones (Fig. 1.6). For this reason, roots and tubers are important contributors to post-disaster recovery and mitigation for their capacity for piecemeal harvesting, underground protection, and short growing cycles (Prain and Naziri 2020). Sweetpotato has played an especially important role in humanitarian relief operations combining rusticity, short crop cycles and—particularly with orange-fleshed varieties—high levels of micronutrients (Fig. 1.7).

Fig. 1.6

A field affected by typhoon with broken trees and barely damaged sweetpotato plants, Luzon, Philippines. (Photo credit: CIP)

Fig. 1.7

High β-carotene (pro-vit A) OFSP. (Photo credit: D. Gemenet (EiB, CIP))

3.1 Processing, Marketing, and Distribution

Because RT&B crops are more perishable and bulkier than cereals, they create opportunities for value addition and employment in postharvest and processing in rural areas, especially for women. Providing growing urban populations with RT&B crop-based food will require extensive transformation of current technology to capture these benefits. But unless gender roles and needs are systematically considered, innovation can exacerbate gender inequality (Sarapura 2012). Increasing opportunities for women can have a powerful impact on productivity and agriculture-led development and help to reduce gender gaps in access to inputs, assets, opportunities, information, and other resources (Margolies and Buckingham 2013; FAO 2014).

RT&B crops and their residues are finding increasing use in animal feed. High-quality cassava peels (HQCP; Fig. 1.8) are being taken to scale in Nigeria (with interest elsewhere in SSA), while sweetpotato silage is now widely used in Asia and finding greater popularity in Uganda (Asindu et al. 2020).

Fig. 1.8

A mechanical sieve—coarse mash retained in the wooden box and fine mash captured in the basin after separation. (Photo credit: I. Okike (IITA))

Since cassava starch is particularly important for its specific functional properties and constitutes the largest source of starch in tropical regions, improving small- and medium-scale processing technologies is key to expanding the market in SSA (Chapuis et al. 2016).

3.2 Enhancing Productivity

Investment in RT&B crops compared to cereals has lagged, slowing yield growth. RT&B crops offer high potential yields, but farmers often realize less than half the potential due to poor quality planting material of limited genetic potential, biotic and abiotic constraints, and poor management practices. Seed systems may not work well because of inappropriate policies for RT&B crops or where famine and disaster-relief undermine the development of healthy seed market systems by providing large volumes of free propagation materials. These bottlenecks in markets and policy further restrain the willingness to invest in yield-increasing input intensification. Where market conditions are favorable and appropriate new technology available, yield gains have been considerable, as in Southeast Asia for cassava (Malik et al. 2020). In Africa, potato is grown increasingly as a cash crop for urban markets, showing consistent growth with the second highest rate (after banana) of yield increase of any crop over the last decade.

Recent adoption studies in SSA provide optimism that yield gaps can be closed. For instance, in Nigeria, modern varieties of cassava are grown on 39.9% of cultivated area with a yield increase of at least 60%, bringing an estimated 1.6 million people out of poverty each year (Wossen et al. 2018). However, in general, adoption rates of modern varieties of RT&B crops are below 40%; therefore, more investment in breeding and seed systems is required (Thiele et al. 2020). Seed systems for RT&B crops can be a particular challenge, as farmers can more easily share and retain planting material that discourages the interest of private seed companies. Hence, some public sector seed system investment is usually required.

Women’s farm yields and incomes are typically much lower than men’s, reflecting specific gender-related barriers that affect women’s productivity: competing priorities (e.g., childcare), exclusion from farming decisions by men, and limited access to land, markets, and information technology (FAO 2014; Mudege et al. 2015). COVID-19 may be undoing recent progress on reducing gender gaps and compromising food and nutrition security (Doss et al. 2020).

RTB has paid explicit attention to gender in its program, and gender is a specific focus of this book, which uses the following definitions of key terms for these important discussions (Box 1.1).

Box 1.1 Key Terms for Discussing Gender

Gender is not the same as sexuality. Gender is socially constructed and refers to roles and behaviors of men and women that are the intended or unintended products of social practice.

Gender analysis is a critical examination of how differences in gender roles, activities, needs, opportunities, and rights affect women, men, girls, and boys in a given situation or context.

Gender gap is the difference between women and men in terms of their levels of participation, access, rights, remuneration, or benefits.

Gender inequality is reflected in unequal access to or enjoyment of rights, remuneration, or benefits, as well as the assumption of stereotypical social and cultural roles.

Gender roles and norms are standards or expectations of the behavior of women and men, just because they are male or female. These expectations are particular for each society, culture, and community at a given point in time.

Gender relations are social relations that unite women and men as social groups in a given context, including how power and access to and/or control over resources are distributed between the sexes.

Gender power relations are how gender shapes the distribution of power at all levels of society.

Gender responsive describes the quality of a specific tool, approach, or intervention in terms of actively examining and addressing gender norms, roles, and inequalities. This type of approach often involves actions to create an environment that promotes gender equality.

Gender transformative describes the quality of a specific tool, approach, or intervention in terms of creating opportunities for individuals to actively challenge and/or transform gender norms to address power inequalities between people of different genders.

Gender intentional describes the quality of a specific program, project, or intervention in terms of purposefully addressing gender considerations in the design and/or operation. It seeks to target and benefit a specific gendered group to achieve specific goals.

Intersectionality is an analytical tool for studying, understanding, and responding to the ways that sex and gender intersect with other personal characteristics or identities and how these intersections contribute to unique experiences of discrimination.

Empowerment is the process by which individuals gain power and control over their own lives and acquire the ability to make strategic choices.

Sex-disaggregated data is data collected and tabulated separately for women and men allowing the measurement of differences between women and men in terms of various social and economic dimensions.

Source: European Institute for Gender Equality: Glossary & Thesaurus. https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus

3.3 Improving Livelihoods

With an average production of approximately 820 million tons on 64 million hectares (ha) in 2016–2018 (FAOSTAT 2020), RT&B crops represent the second most important set of crops in developing countries after cereals. The yield potential of RT&B crops is very high, providing one of the cheapest and more affordable sources of dietary energy (Lebot 2020). In 2017, RT&B crops alone provided around 10% of the daily per capita calorie intake for the 864 million people living in least developed countries (Kennedy et al. 2019).

RT&B crops can also play an important role in nutrition security. In SSA, vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is widespread, contributing to increased risks of blindness, illness, and premature death, particularly in young children and pregnant/postpartum women. Globally, 163 million children under 5 years of age are vitamin A deficient, and prevalence rates of Fe and Zn deficiencies are even higher. Orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) is a proven biofortified crop: 100 g/day can meet the vitamin A requirements of a young child (Fig. 1.9), and 6.2 million households (HH) have been reached with improved sweetpotato varieties—mostly OFSP—across 15 African countries (Low and Thiele 2020). HarvestPlus and its partners delivered cassava varieties enriched with vitamin A to more than one million farming households in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Ilona et al. 2017). Banana cultivars are also a significant source of vitamin A (Amah et al. 2018) and are being promoted in East Africa. Meanwhile, potato breeding has achieved significantly enhanced levels of Fe and Zn (Amoros et al. 2020). Where consumed as a staple, biofortified potatoes can contribute up to 50% of women’s requirements for these micronutrients (Burgos et al. 2019). Jongstra et al. (2020) have recently found that Fe from biofortified potatoes is more bioavailable to humans than any other Fe biofortified crop developed to date.

Fig. 1.9

Mothers and caregivers learning how to prepare dishes including orange-fleshed sweetpotato safely while retaining vitamins to improve their young children’s nutrition (Photo credit: H. Rutherford, CIP)

Much current work on RT&B crops in SSA and Asia is demonstrating the power and effectiveness of these crops in alleviating poverty, fighting hunger and nutrition insecurity, especially within the current content of climate change and COVID-19 (Heck et al. 2020). RT&B crops are mostly produced, processed, and traded locally, making them less vulnerable to abrupt price fluctuations in international markets and interruptions due to epidemics. RT&B-based products (such as orange-fleshed sweetpotato puree used in baked goods) have been developed and promoted and are currently going to scale in African markets. There is growing global demand for innovative ingredients to meet growing consumer tastes and nutrition needs. Their potential is often limited, however, by the lack of preferred nutritious varieties, instability of micronutrients particularly when processed, unfavorable value chains, and weak institutional arrangements.

4 A Primer on Innovation and the Jobs to Be Done

It is clear that for RT&B crops to contribute more extensively, innovation is required in all the domains so far described. The RTB program put innovation and the scaling of innovations at center stage.

As part of its program design, RTB invested in a subprogram—known as a “flagship project” in CGIAR—dedicated to improving livelihoods by scaling RT&B solutions in agri-food systems. The flagship provided support to next and end users for scaling of RTB innovations from the farm to the community, the region, and beyond. We guided scientists in the program on how to better target research, design strategic youth and gender research, select partners, and develop capacity for improving livelihoods at scale. This results-oriented approach included the following:

• 1. Forward-looking analysis of trends

• 2. Decision support for the tailoring, integration, and scaling of RT&B technologies based on farmer typologies and practical investment steps

• 3. Identifying best possible RT&B (and other crops and livestock) technology options that contribute to sustainable livelihoods

• 4. Addressing constraints for RT&B technology adoption with gender and intergenerational transformations

• 5. Evidence base to improve scaling of RT&B agri-food system innovations with enhanced equity

The flagship developed an approach to innovation and scaling that was widely applied within the program through a dedicated fund for scaling (see Chap. 2) and is featured in several chapters of this book as a key crosscutting topic. Key definitions for innovation and scaling are provided in Box 1.2.

Box 1.2 Key Definitions for Innovation and Scaling

Innovations are the new ideas, products, services, and solutions capable of facilitating impact through innovation systems involving multiple partners and enablers.

Innovation systems are the interlinked sets of people, processes, assets, and social institutions that enable the introduction and scaling of new ideas, products, services, and solutions capable of facilitating impact.

Scaling of innovations is a deliberate and planned effort to enable the use of innovations to have positive impact for many people across broad geographies.

Impact is a durable change in the condition of people and their environment brought about by a chain of events to which research, innovations, and related activities have contributed.

Scaling strategy is a set of coherent activities, stakeholders, and stakeholder engagement models to enable scaling.

Innovation package is the combination of innovations that are needed for scaling in a specific location or context.

Scaling approach is an integrated set of scaling tools and procedures that can be used to design and implement scaling activities in different contexts.

Innovation readiness refers to the demonstrated capacity of an innovation to fulfill its contribution to development outcomes in specific locations. This is presented in nine stages showing progress from an untested idea to a fully mature proven innovation.

Innovation use indicates the level of use of the innovation or innovation package by the project members, partners, and society. This shows progressively broader levels of use beginning with the intervention team who develops the innovation to its widespread use by users who are completely unconnected with the team or their partners.

Scaling Readiness of an innovation is a function of innovation readiness and innovation use. Table 1.5 provides summary definitions for each level of readiness and use adapted from Sartas et al. (2020), which have been used throughout the book. Scaling Readiness also is the name of the approach to scaling described in Chap. 3.

Table 1.5 Definition of levels of innovation readiness and use (Sartas et al. 2020)

Responsible scaling requires ethics of co-responsibility for ensuring that the impacts from the innovation are well captured by the intended beneficiaries and minimize negative social consequences, whether these impacts are intentional or not, and whether they can be fully foreseen or not. One crucial dimension of responsible scaling is gender equity, which can be achieved through gender-responsive research. This idea was explicitly included in much RTB research and is featured in several chapters of this book as a crosscutting topic (see Box 1.1 for definitions used in the RTB program and this book).

Source: CGIAR 2020. Scaling Brief #4: Scaling glossary. Bonn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/110632

Several chapters in this book use the concept of Scaling Readiness to characterize different innovation packages (Fig. 1.10). “Innovation readiness” refers to the demonstrated capacity of an innovation to fulfill its contribution to development outcomes in specific locations. This concept is presented in nine stages showing progress from an untested idea to a fully mature and proven innovation. “Innovation use” indicates the level of use of an innovation or innovation package by the project members, partners, and society. This concept captures progressively broader levels of use beginning with the intervention team who develops the innovation to its widespread implementation by users who are completely unconnected with the team or their partners. “Scaling Readiness” of an innovation is a function of innovation readiness and innovation use. Table 1.5 provides summary definitions for each level of readiness and use adapted from Sartas et al. (2020).

Fig. 1.10

Scaling Readiness barrel to illustrate how innovation(s) with the lowest readiness limits an innovation package’s capacity to achieve impact at scale. (Adapted from “von Liebig’s barrel,” after Whitson and Walster, 1912; published in Sartas et al. 2020)

Many innovations fall short in adoption and value creation because they lack understanding about what drives a user/beneficiary/customer to choose one good or service over another. The “jobs to be done” (JTBD hereafter) theory, developed by the late Clayton M. Christensen and colleagues at Harvard University, provides a compelling perspective about why people buy or decline what companies try to sell them, or why beneficiaries from organizations involved in international development sometimes refuse to adopt what is offered or delivered. The JTBD theory significantly increases the ability to predict the likelihood of innovation success, which is a welcome addition to the toolbox of innovators. Its main tenet is that users do not purchase goods or services. Instead, people bring things into their lives to do a specific job or to achieve progress toward a particular goal under specific circumstances. Therefore, the goods and services that users acquire are unconscious means for filling satisfaction gaps. Unless we understand the “jobs” that people want to fill, the likelihood of innovation success is severely undermined, regardless of budget size or innovator skill. Every “job” exists within a given context—the where, when, who, or what of a situation. As just one example, a female smallholder in SSA tries to provide healthy, affordable food to her family. How can RT&B crops meet that need for her?

JTBDs can be quite different from solutions, and it helps to understand why well-funded innovation efforts run by very talented people oftentimes fall short of expectations and adoption, or why their scaling up stalls. For instance, many providers of MP3 reproducers focused on the presumed solution, namely, providing music. In contrast, Apple aimed the iPod at helping customers listen to music through a seamless experience. They reconsidered the whole business around personal music management, enabling customers to acquire, organize, listen to, and share music. In addition, Apple considered social and emotional factors involved in why people want to listen to music on the go and share the experience with others. Despite being a late entrant, Apple took over the market, beating formidable competitors such as Sony and Windows, both of which had more resources, larger teams, and much more cash available.

By far, the most valuable insight from the JTBD theory is that any job has not one but rather three components:

• Functional, which addresses practical, technical aspects

• Social, which addresses behavioral aspects of users, as well as how the users take into account the effects that the action will have on those around them

• Emotional, which relates to deep, personal aspects of users such as feelings, sentiments, aspirations, and desires

Regrettably, since most innovation efforts are driven by their functional components from their onsets, their likelihood of success is in jeopardy since the social and emotional components are the ones that represent a strong, if not the strongest, driver of user preferences and subsequent adoption. Within the agricultural domain, innovations solely focused on productivity or technological progress but which fail to account for cultural and social aspects are equally in jeopardy. More detailed accounts about the JTBD theory and its use in agricultural contexts can be found in Christensen et al. (2016) and Campos (2021).

5 Layout of the Book and Key Lessons to Enable Effective Innovation in RT&B Seed Systems

The body of this book is organized by four broad topics:

• 1. Institutional change and scaling

• 2. Processing and marketing

• 3. Productivity

• 4. Improving livelihoods

In each of these sections, we identify key lessons for designing and enabling effective innovation efforts in RT&B crops.

5.1 Institutional Change and Scaling

In the first section on institutional change and scaling, Chap. 2 looks at the constituent institutional innovations that underpinned the RTB program and how they added value to the combined achievements of the participating centers and their partners in science and research for development outcomes (which are described in more detail in the consequent chapters). The 10-year RTB program raised the profile of RT&B crops with investors within the research and development community. Dedicated funding expanded the frontier of knowledge around several of the key constraints to expanded utilization intrinsic to vegetatively propagated crops, particularly in the areas of breeding, seed systems, pests and diseases, and postharvest utilization. Within the domain of breeding, RTB excelled at providing tools and knowledge for breeders to acquire the skills necessary to develop product profiles (a set of traits and specifications to inform breeding efforts) in such a way that improved varieties are released with a greater likelihood of adoption by smallholder farmers.

Progress by RTB was facilitated by an array of institutional innovations for collaborative governance and management, including stakeholder consultations and priority setting, a portfolio organized by aggregated innovations (i.e., clusters of activities), articulated flagship projects, incentive funds, a dynamic interactive communication capacity, programmatic embedding of strategic and integrated gender research, and purposive engagement of national partners. Overall, RTB’s design, governance, and management innovations added value to the combined achievements of the participating centers in science and research for development outcomes that are described in many of the book chapters.

Another key learning evident from the book is that there were limitations in the degree to which these institutional innovations could be “scaled down,” from the program level to the implementation of projects and activities. This limitation was, in part, a reflection of the predominance of bilateral funding with multiple donors under center management, which made “scaling down” outside of earmarked funding/scaling projects challenging.

RTB also pioneered support and investment in the development and implementation of scaling strategies and partnerships to catalyze the scaling of its innovations. This body of work and linked research supported the development of the Scaling Readiness approach, which is widely relevant beyond RT&B crops. Chapter 3 covers the principles and practices of Scaling Readiness, which assesses the readiness of innovations to be scaled and supports the development, implementation, and monitoring of scaling strategies at project and organizational levels. The chapter explores how the approach enabled different RT&B innovations to move to scale. The innovations described in Chaps. 4, 5, 6, 10, and 12 are described in relation to Scaling Readiness and benefited directly from RTB investments in a Scaling Fund and the application of the Scaling Readiness approach. Chapter 17, meanwhile, used the Scaling Readiness framework to assess progress in scaling biofortification across multiple RT&B crops. A key lesson from this work is that a focused scaling approach adds value particularly when dedicated funding is available. However, these investments are effective only if tested guidelines and capacity development with specialized roles for scaling in the team are also available.

5.2 Processing, Marketing, and Distribution

The second section addresses innovations in processing, marketing, and distribution of RT&B crop products. The RTB program had a dedicated flagship for adding value to the processing of RT&B crops and enhancing value chains, with targeted investments through earmarked funding and scaling fund grants (as described in Chap. 2). This idea was built on the insight that RT&B value chains could make more nutritious food more cheaply and widely available in cities and rural markets by improving fresh supply, by developing new RT&B food products, and by supporting different typologies of small- and medium-scale processors.

Chapter 4 examines the scaling of innovations to improve the overall efficiency of small-scale cassava industries for rural small-scale processors to access more distant and higher-value markets (Fig. 1.11). Chapter 5 investigates sweetpotato puree as a novel ingredient in the food industry, developed as an innovative value chain product to address many constraints of sweetpotato adoption and use, while delivering a highly nutritional ingredient for processed bakery goods for rural and urban populations. Together, these chapters show how investments in cassava and sweetpotato processing addressed the challenges of limited shelf life for these two crops and how they overcame bottlenecks in their conversion to value-added products.

Fig. 1.11

Toasting grated and fermented cassava is the final step in creating gari and is a task mainly done by women. (Photo credit: H. Holmes (RTB))

In the first case, improving the energy efficiency of drying cassava into flour and starch through the development and scaling out of flash dryers led to 10–15% gains in productivity and incomes for small- and medium-scale processors. In the second case, development of orange-fleshed sweetpotato puree and developments in the value chains from field to market enabled bakeries in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Rwanda to substitute puree for 20–50% of the wheat flour used in cookies, donuts, and bread by some commercial bakeries. By reaching urban markets, demand for OFSP was created and nutritional outcomes improved as a result. Between the two cases, we note that cassava processors could use locally manufactured equipment while OFSP puree required imported equipment. This difference has implications for the scaling strategies and long-term sustainability—two topics that merit further analysis.

Chapter 6 looks at the conversion of waste cassava peels into a valuable animal feed ingredient while also addressing serious environmental issues created by the millions of tons of waste cassava peels generated during processing. This chapter shows how it is possible to build on existing technologies and capacities to add value by processing waste cassava peels into animal feed. However, various “soft” components of scaling needed attention here as they formed the main bottlenecks to expanding the processing of high-quality cassava peels (HQCP).

Chapters 7 and 8 look beyond the innovations in cassava of the RTB program by focusing on cassava-related technology transfer between Brazil and Africa. Chapter 7 shows that for existing and well-developed processing technologies to be transferred to potential new users, the capacity, motivation, and training of the targeted users will determine the uptake and success. Chapter 8 notes the need for renewed attention on food safety needs as processing acquires greater importance in developing countries, especially countries in Africa. While this group of chapters record technological progress, they also emphasize the need for research on processing innovations to focus on women and men operators and entrepreneurs and to avoid getting lost in the details of machinery, products, and processes. In other words, RT&B crops require more study along this theme with attention to gender in the design, adaptation, and scaling of processing technologies.

5.3 Enhancing Productivity

The third section addresses innovations to enhance productivity, especially around pest and disease management and the challenges of seed systems for vegetatively propagated crops.

Pests and diseases are major production constraints in vegetatively propagated crops such as RT&Bs. Chapter 9 documents how digital technologies have been developed to identify and monitor emerging pests and diseases, looking at their future potential but also the challenges, limitations, and innovative approaches taken to reach end users, particularly smallholder farmers. This work illustrates that cohesive engagement between digital tool developers, researchers, extension and advisory services, and farmers is required to define specific problems and opportunities for developing suitable digital solutions. Moreover, the use of digital tools is still in its infancy with RT&B cropping systems; thus, opportunities are available for innovation for RT&B farming systems.

Chapter 10 looks at the process, practices, challenges, lessons learned, and future policy implications associated with scaling banana Xanthomonas bacterial wilt (BXW) management practices—an endeavor that has enabled the recovery of substantial banana production areas. This work provides evidence of the effectiveness of single diseased stem removal (SDSR) to manage and control BXW (Fig. 1.12). Nevertheless, the efforts to reduce the labor intensity of the SDSR package are equally important. Action plans for training and information dissemination related to SDSR must consider gender aspects at the onset of interventions if maximum participation is to be reached with women and youths. In particular, the SDSR case in Rwanda suggests the importance of engaging policy makers at all stages of technology innovation to secure their buy-in for subsequent scaling to the intended users.

Fig. 1.12

Application of the novel SDSR technique to control BXW: a woman in eastern DR Congo cuts a diseased stem at soil level. (Photo Credit: B. Van Schagen (Alliance Bioversity-CIAT))

Chapters 11,12, 13, 14, and 15 expand on the work to strengthen and enable seed systems for increased access to improved varieties and for encouraging improved quality in places where informal seed systems still predominate. As seed multiplication and dissemination for RT&B crops face common and difficult constraints, RTB developed a toolkit to understand, assess, and support the design of VPC seed system interventions to improve their effectiveness. Chapter 11 reviews researcher experiences in using these tools among different crops and in different regions. Their reflections provide insights on how the toolbox has influenced our understanding of seed system performance. Work with the RTB toolbox also shows how its success depended on attracting and retaining the interest of public and private sector actors to diagnose and improve VPC seed systems. Assembling the tools in one toolbox has made them more accessible, provided an intuitive structure for uninitiated users, and helped to clarify which tools and combinations of tools are most useful for addressing different types of challenges.

Chapter 12 looks at the Triple S (Storage in Sand and Sprouting) strategy to conserve and multiply sweetpotato planting material during long dry seasons, exploring evidence from Ethiopia and Ghana regarding the various communication channels used to influence the uptake of Triple S among male and female farmers. Chapter 13 examines the development and implementation of new early generation potato seed technologies, such as aeroponics and apical cuttings in East Africa, and their contribution to the dissemination of improved potato varieties. The transformation of yam seed systems is covered in Chap. 14, where the scaling of high-quality seed production technologies in seed companies in partnership with national regulatory agencies is delivering basic and certified seed yam tubers to seed entrepreneurs—a chain of activity that has resulted in localized, scalable deployment centers. The development of commercially sustainable cassava seed systems in the vast informal seed systems of Nigeria and Tanzania is explored in Chap. 15, with key lessons drawn for the further development of commercial cassava seed systems in Africa (Fig. 1.13).

Fig. 1.13

A village seed entrepreneur sells bundles of cassava stems as part of a market promotion by the BASICS program in Benue State, Nigeria (CRS)

Across the different seed system innovations, it became evident that partners have different capacities and capabilities that determine their role in contributing to the scaling process. In addition, several enabling factors related to policy, infrastructure, mindsets and behavior change, and marketing and value chains are critical for scaling innovation packages. Availability of quality seed and opportunities for commercialization were shown to have important gender implications. Continued work to understand and design gender-responsive communication channels in different sociocultural contexts is required.

Chapter 16 closes the section by exploring how to build demand-led and gender-responsive breeding programs and looks at the piloting of practical tools that enable plant breeders to examine gender differences in the targeted population of users and with regard to trait prioritization (Fig. 1.14). This chapter underscores the importance of having a good foundation for gender-responsive breeding, created by cultivating gender awareness though cross-disciplinary dialogue, gender training targeted to breeding programs, and the incorporation of a gender specialist into breeding teams.

Fig. 1.14

Poundability is an important trait for West African women who pound boiled yam for traditional dishes. Portioning pounded yam, Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire. (Photo credit: D. Dufour (CIRAD))

5.4 Improving Livelihoods

The fourth and final section looks at improving livelihoods with biofortified RT&B crops playing a major role as an affordable source of key micronutrients in an emerging and more resilient food system in SSA. Chapter 17 examines the scaling and impacts of biofortified RT&B crops and how the lessons learned from these efforts can help illuminate pathways for having biofortified RT&B crops contribute to building back a better, climate-smart, and more nutritious food system in the post-pandemic world. RT&B crops are well-positioned to move forward in the context of emergency recovery as well as gender-responsive food system transformation. As scaling efforts expand, managing the perishability and the seasonality of RT&B crops at larger scales will require greater investment in physical market chain infrastructure, storage, information systems, and enterprise development. Moreover, given the poor families’ heavy dependence on staple foods, increased commitment to breeding for enhanced micronutrient and protein content is warranted (Fig. 1.15). Advocacy by the Scaling Up Nutrition movement and the recognition of biofortification by different African governments are two examples of the kind of policy engagement needed to keep biofortification and nutrition at the forefront of food policy and investment planning.

Fig. 1.15

Potatoes that are rich in iron can help alleviate the suffering of women and children who suffer from anemia. Bertha Azursa Clemente and her son with biofortified potatoes in Huancavelica, Peru. (Photo credit: S. Fajardo (CIP))

6 What Next for RT&B Crops and the Smallholder Farmers Relying on Them

We are writing this book during unprecedented change in the CGIAR at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is deeply, and quickly, changing the way communications and work are done. The RTB program that generated much of the research reported here will be transitioning into a new set of collaborative arrangements under the One CGIAR. So the book is both a reflection of what the program achieved and also a contribution to future research endeavors. We are optimistic that the increased attention, research investment, and innovations achieved bode well for the future, ultimately enhancing the livelihoods of the many millions of women and men involved in their production, processing, and consumption in RT&B food systems in developing countries.