Promoting sustainable smallholder farming via multistakeholder collaboration

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: An, Zhichao; Yang, Yi; Yang, Xue; Ma, Wenqi; Jiang, Wei; Li, Yajuan; Chen, Guangfeng; Zhang, Weifeng; Zhuang, Minghao; Wang, Chong; Zhang, Fusuo
• 署名单位: China Agricultural University; China Agricultural University; Chongqing University; Henan Agricultural University; Hebei Agricultural University
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-11375
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2319519121
• 发表日期: 2024-05-21
• 关键词: closing yield gaps; maize production; rice production; PRODUCTIVITY; agriculture; nutrient; SYSTEM

摘要

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.