Understanding Smallholder Farmer Grain Legume Technology Adaptation, Integration and Preference in Current Maize-Based Cropping Systems Using Participatory Action Research in Malawi.

Grain legume technology integration into maize-based cropping systems is an applicable pathway to achieving sustainable intensification for Malawian smallholder farmers. To ensure system sustainability, targeted technologies must be developed with an understanding of how farmers adapt, integrate and prefer such technologies in their current systems. Diverse edaphic qualities, varying livelihood and management strategies as well as low resource endowment, in increasingly unpredictable climatic conditions, inherently renders such an understanding challenging without active farmer experimentation. In this study, using the mother-baby farmer participatory action research approach, we aimed to understand farmer adaptation, integration and preference of annual (common bean, cowpea, groundnut and soyabean) and semi-perennial (pigeonpea) grain legume technologies in current maize-based systems. During the 2013 and 2014 growing seasons, a total of 317 farmers experimented with sole legume, mixed legume, mixed maize-legume intercropped systems, which included novel semi-perennial pigeonpea and mixed legume intercropped technologies, into their own individual on-farm plots (n=1344). Sole legume, mixed maize-legume intercropped and mixed legume intercropped systems were cultivated 87, 50 and 35 percent of farmers, respectively. Farmers compared all technologies grown to sole maize and preferred maize intercropped with one or more legume species, mixed legume and sole legume systems 62, 19 and 10 percent of the time, respectively. The novel pigeonpea and mixed legume technologies stood out among comparisons. Notably, mixed legume technologies were not intercropped with maize on demonstration trials, yet 7% of plots were cultivated in these systems and preferred 66% of the time; the addition of pigeonpea increased farmer preference over sole maize from 63 to 74 percent. These results indicate that farmers, through adaptation and experimentation, can further sustainably intensify their systems beyond that of demonstrated technologies. Development of future technologies should be targeted towards more intense maize-grain legume intercropped systems, which include both annual and semi-perennial grain legume species.