CIMMYT helps farmers till less, reap more in
Chiapas, Mexico

As part of global efforts to study and promote resource-conserving practices, CIMMYT has played a vital role in the study and adoption of conservation agriculture in southeastern Mexico through capacity-building and partnerships with key Mexican agricultural institutions over more than three decades.

“CIMMYT’s impact in southeastern Mexico has been felt by the producers, extension workers, and researchers,” says Walter López Báez, researcher for the Mexican National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture, and Livestock Research (INIFAP) in Chiapas and expert in sustainable integrated watershed management, referring to the center’s efforts to promote conservation tillage among researchers and farmers.

The long and winding road to better farm management
CIMMYT has been working to spread resource-conserving practices in Southeast Mexico since the 1970s, when the Center invited a group of researchers and technicians from FIRA (a financing and development institution of the Bank of Mexico) and INIFAP on a trip through regions that had adopted conservation agriculture in the USA. In Mexico the Center promoted conservation tillage for growing maize, whereby the farmer sows seed directly into the residues of the previous crop without burning or plowing. This protects the soil against erosion and can improve soil moisture, structure, and fertility.

In 1984 CIMMYT worked with INIFAP in an in-depth study aimed at improving maize farming in the area, resulting in recommendations for soil conservation and to reduce soil acidity. “The project was important because it used an adaptive research methodology where everything begins and ends with farmers,” says López, who has worked in southeastern Mexico with INIFAP for over 20 years. In the late 1980s, CIMMYT held training courses on conservation tillage for Mexican researchers and extension staff and developed a manual on the subject.

Joint INIFAP-CIMMYT research activities in Chiapas focused on the severe natural resource degradation in maize-based production systems in the region known as La Frailesca, working to identify resource conservation options and factors that influence their adoption. CIMMYT conducted three studies on the adoption of conservation tillage and restricted crop-residue burning in La Frailesca during 1992-1996. “The research drove and reoriented government research and promotion programs for conservation tillage,” says López. Researchers from the French agricultural science organization CIRAD also played a significant role.

From left to right; Engineer Tavín Hernandez Gómez, (President of the conservation tillage club of Villa Flores), Raquel Padilla (club member), CIMMYT soil scientist Mirjam Pulleman, and Antonio Castellanos.

Farmers put away plows, pick up yields

CIMMYT soil scientist Mirjam Pulleman visited La Frailesca, Chiapas in January 2008 to assess the adoption and impacts of conservation tillage. “Several farmers on severely degraded land said they increased their yields by 50-100% through conservation tillage,” says Pulleman. “Farmers are also experimenting with different legumes and sorghum as relay crops, thanks to increased residual moisture from eliminating tillage.”

Tavín Gómez Hernandez started using conservation tillage in 1999, and is president of a club of conservation tillage farmers that works to spread conservation agriculture in Villaflores, Chiapas. “Little by little, the soil’s structure has changed and improved and there are fewer weeds,” says Gómez. “I can sow earlier and I have also planted relay crops and other forms of crop diversification can cut fertilizer costs, furnish more diverse forage for animals, and help control pests and weeds.

“Based on data from field experiments in the region, the retention of residues on the surface, even at a level of 30 percent soil cover, can greatly reduce the severe soil erosion that occurs under the traditional systems,” says Pulleman. With the maize yields obtained in Chiapas this means that part of the residues can be used for animal fodder while part is conserved to protect and improve the soils.

A lasting legacy
CIMMYT partnerships and practical training programs with key Mexican agricultural institutions provided the tools and knowledge to spread resource-conserving practices. The University of Chiapas, for example, is still using farmer demonstration plots cultivated with practices from the 1984 INIFAP-CIMMYT project, according to López. The Center has also supported several Mexican researchers in their post-graduate work in agroforestry at CATIE in Costa Rica, as well as several others in studies on soil and water conservation at the Colegio de Posgraduados de México.

“CIMMYT still provides significant support, and Mirjam Pulleman and John Hellin [CIMMYT poverty specialist] are currently working on conservation tillage projects in Chiapas,” says López. The work in southeastern Mexico reflects CIMMYT’s global commitment to conservation agriculture principles and approaches that improve rural incomes and livelihoods. The center has contributed to use of conservation tillage for wheat and other resource-conserving practices by farmers on more than 2 million hectares in South Asia. CIMMYT and partners are also working to spread conservation tillage in smallholder maize systems of eastern and southern Africa, where soils are severely degraded and lack of moisture limits yields.

For more information please contact: Mirjam Pulleman (mirjam.pulleman@wur.nl) or Jonathan Hellin (j.hellin@cgiar.org)

Below are several success stories from CIMMYT’s involvement in the study and promotion of conservation agriculture in Mexico, Africa, and South Asia.

Stemming the loss of African soils’ life blood

Bringing Conservation Agriculture Home to Mexico

Study Promotes Resource-Conserving technologies for Under-Used Lands

Making the Plow Passé

Clarion Call to Conservation in Mexico