PAST AND POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF MAIZE RESEARCH IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - A CRITICAL-ASSESSMENT

Over the past twenty years, research progress in maize, the single mos t important food staple in sub-saharan Africa, has been comparable to progress in other primarily smallholder maize systems in the developin g world, Both the number of varietal releases per million hectares of maize and the adoption of improved maize varieties and hybrids are sim ilar to the rates achieved in other regions, This has occurred despite fewer maize breeders per million tons of maize, greater reliance on t he public sector, and somewhat more diverse production environments in sub-Saharan Africa, Nonetheless, adoption of improved maize materials has remained patchy, constrained in some cases by failure to incorpor ate smallholder preferences adequately, and in others by insufficient supporting infrastructure, particularly in development of seed systems , Furthermore, despite an apparently greater investment in crop manage ment research in the region relative to other developing areas, approp riate technology for maintenance of soil fertility in the face of incr easing population pressure requires much more attention, This technolo gy will require a combination of both external and internal sources of nutrients, Crop management technology must also be evaluated in terms of effects on seasonal labor demand, Because of the relative diversit y in African environments and infrastructural constraints, high-payoff maize technology in sub-Saharan Africa will require particularly care ful attention to areas outside maize research itself-policy design, in stitution building, and human capital development. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.