Designing low-input upland rice-based cropping systems with conservation agriculture for climate change adaptation: A six-year experiment in M’bé, Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire

Towards sustainable productivity enhancement of rice-based farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa

“…Two chapters only in the seminal rice book "Realizing Africa's Rice Promise" described previous R&D efforts on soil and nutrient management practices in SSA (Haefele et al, 2013;Tollens et al, 2013). In contrast, 11 out of 19 papers in this Special Issue deal with soil and nutrient management practices (Asai et al, 2021;Chivenge et al, 2022;Grotelüschen et al, 2022;Haefele et al, 2022;Husson et al, 2022;Ibrahim et al, 2021;Johnson et al, 2021;Rakotoson et al, 2022;Rodenburg et al, 2022a;Senthilkumar, 2022). Such large number of papers in this Special Issue reflect the major focus of research on (inorganic) fertilizer management practices in the past decades in terms of agronomic practices.…”

“…Grotelüschen et al ( 2022) used a crop simulation model to assess interaction between fertilizer application and water on rice yield response to fertilizer. Husson et al (2022) investigated effect of fertilizer on upland rice yield in different cropping systems. Rodenburg et al (2022a) quantified impact of fertilizer following different agroforestry practices on rice yield.…”

“…Two studies of this Special Issue focused explicitly on agroecological solutions to rice-based cropping systems. Husson et al (2022) investigated whether conservation agriculture practices in a rice-maize rotation could help farmers in Cote d ′ Ivoire adapt to climate change, whereas Rodenburg et al (2022a) conducted a global meta-analysis on rice yields following different agroforestry practices, and reviewed suitable and adapted agroforestry solutions and tree species for rice farms in SSA.…”

“…Growing upland rice under a conservation agriculture practice combining no-till, crop residue mulching and cover crops (e.g., stylo, pigeon pea, crotalaria) seem to provide yield benefits in dryer years over mono-crop rice systems with conventional tillage. While these findings would need to be confirmed over a longer time frame, such systems would increase crop yield stability in areas with a high climatic risk (Husson et al, 2022). Cropping systems in such areas would need to be based on minimal inputs, in order to minimize risks of low or negative returns.…”

“…Based on findings presented in individual papers of this Special Issue, we arrive at six main recommendations. First, there is a need to focus more on rainfed rice-based systems, which dominate SSA in terms of area but where rice yields remain low (Chivenge et al, 2022;Husson et al, 2022;Ibrahim and Saito, 2022;Rodenburg et al, 2022b;Senthilkumar, 2022;van Oort and Dingkuhn, 2021). Second, more attention also needs to be paid to research beyond plot-level agronomy, i.e., on the farming system or landscape level (Dossou-Yovo et al, 2022;Rodenburg et al, 2022a) and for developing integrated cropping and farming systems and integrated agronomic solutions to important biophysical production constraints (Husson et al, 2022;Rodenburg et al, 2022a;Rodenburg et al, 2022b\;Senthilkumar, 2022).…”