Back to Search Start Over

Promoting sustainable smallholder farming via multistakeholder collaboration.

Authors :
Zhichao An
Yi Yang
Xue Yang
Wenqi Ma
Wei Jiang
Yajuan Li
Guangfeng Chen
Weifeng Zhang
Minghao Zhuang
Chong Wang
Fusuo Zhang
Source :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; 5/21/2024, Vol. 121 Issue 21, p1-10, 25p
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

Transforming smallholder farms is critical to global food security and environmental sustainability. The science and technology backyard (STB) platform has proved to be a viable approach in China. However, STB has traditionally focused on empowering smallholder farmers by transferring knowledge, and wide-scale adoption of more sustainable practices and technologies remains a challenge. Here, we report on a long-term project focused on technology scale-up for smallholder farmers by expanding and upgrading the original STB platform (STB 2.0). We created a formalized and standardized process by which to engage and collaborate with farmers, including integrating their feedback via equal dialogues in the process of designing and promoting technologies. Based on 288 site-year of field trials in three regions in the North China Plain over 5 y, we find that technologies cocreated through this process were more easily accepted by farmers and increased their crop yields and nitrogen factor productivity by 7.2% and 28.1% in wheat production and by 11.4% and 27.0% in maize production, respectively. In promoting these technologies more broadly, we created a "one-stop" multistakeholder program involving local government agencies, enterprises, universities, and farmers. The program was shown to be much more effective than the traditional extension methods applied at the STB, yielding substantial environmental and economic benefits. Our study contributes an important case study for technology scale-up for smallholder agriculture. The STB 2.0 platform being explored emphasizes equal dialogue with farmers, multistakeholder collaboration, and long-term investment. These lessons may provide value for the global smallholder research and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00278424
Volume :
121
Issue :
21
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
177590452
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2319519121