149 – Battling Millet Head Miners in Niger

David: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. I’m David Stern, a founding director of IDEMS, and I’m here today with Professor Baoua, a long-term collaborator from Niger. We are together in Burkina. Baoua, welcome to the podcast. 

Prof Baoua: Thank you very much. 

David: So. I’ve known you now for over 10 years, and when I first knew you, it was on a project called GIMEM, which, well, I’ll let you explain what that project started out as and what it became.

Prof Baoua: GIMEM project started 2006. At that time, I’m new entomologist, so coming at INRAN. And as you know, we are in Sahel zone and the millet is a very important crops for population alimentation. And this crop, systems crop, have problem, a big [00:01:00] problem is millet head miner, is a lepidoptera, which attacks the plant at the peak stage in the worm. She lay eggs in the peak and worm develop in the spike.

So you are using some resources, at the beginning, as pellet and after, so we can feed on Millet grain. And at the end of the season with worm, so go in the soil. And now we pick it. And for the next day we have a new emergency. 

David: Let me just check. I’m not an entomologist. What you’re saying is that this is an insect, which once a year has a cycle where the larva actually is in the head, where the seeds are and it sort of eats its way around the seeds. 

Prof Baoua: Yes. 

David: I’ve seen some of the cases of this, and it can have huge [00:02:00] amounts of damage, can’t it? What sort of loss can you have? 

Prof Baoua: Yeah, the damage, the worm feed in the millet peak and at the end of season. So if you have 20 larva inside, it can have hundred percent of losses. 

David: You can literally lose the whole set of the seed just because it’s all being eaten by these larva.

Prof Baoua: Yeah. 

David: Incredible. And so just in the region you are in, how much loss was happening more generally? How big of a problem was this? Was this something which a few farmers had? Most farmers? You know, how big of a problem was this? 

Prof Baoua: So the problem is very important because when the worm, you have the evidence of the losses. So at that time, we are at the end of the season and the farmer invest all his effort for sowing, fertilizer and for field work. So he is waiting for harvesting time. And now he lost everything. 

Big, big, big challenge, how to help them. And, you know, some can have [00:03:00] access to pesticides, chemical pesticide, but it’s very expensive. And, you know, millet, we grow millets just for feeding. So we don’t have enough resource to invest in pesticide. 

David: Yeah. It’s a subsistence crop. 

Prof Baoua: Yeah. Subsistence crops. Yeah, yeah. 

So we start and we write a project on biological control. Because we have the evidence, so we have some parasitoid who can work on it. And Mcknight Foundation and the initial round of funding. So we send a proposal. And they select us. And since 2006 we start working on biological control. 

So we develop a method. So, in the literature you can see Habrobracon hebetor is a good parasitoid. It can control. But the density of the parasitoid is very low. 

David: Can I check, I understand? This was a natural enemy in the environment already, but it was too low to control the problem. 

Prof Baoua: Exactly. It’s too [00:04:00] low because of some aspects, so the density is low, it’s very low, naturally. 

David: Natural density is very low. 

Prof Baoua: It’s very low. So, we start working on evaluating the problem, and also we work on laboratory testing, the parasitoids. And we decided to develop a method for parasitoid release. No, at the first term, how to rear the parasitoid in the laboratory.

So we need a host. So we have now a storage space we call Corcyra cephalonica. So this worm we can find in here. So we collect some population and we try to, rear it on, grow it on a local naturally available support, which is millet. And it worked very well. And also for the parasitoid, we try to grow it using the natural host, locally available, and it work.[00:05:00] 

And now we develop a device for release. So at the first time we develop a release bag. So it is a bag we take and we put small millets, we put a Corcyra worm and with two mated female of Habrobracon hebetor. And this help us for having around in 21 days, so we have around 80 bags of parasitoid which can be released in the field. 

David: Sorry, can I just get dates on this? How long did it take you to do all that? So you said you started in 2006? 

Prof Baoua: Yeah. 

David: So by 2010, did you have the mechanisms to be able to sort of… 

Prof Baoua: Yeah. Yeah. In two year we develop this device. 

David: Okay. 

Prof Baoua: And, we have success of it. So this device, we have to do what we call augmentative release. So at the beginning of season we can increase the population of [00:06:00] Habrobracon hebetor in infested zone, so he can start the work. And this parasitoids have a particularity in his biology, so he need just one week to complete one generation.

David: Wow. 

Prof Baoua: So if you release 80 in one week, we have the first generation and second generation, and in the third week, another population. 

So we have an exponential population and I think after four weeks, it can expand up to 15 kilometer radius from the village release. So this is a chance we have for the dynamic of the parasitoid is very, very interesting. And help us for covering large area. 

David: Yeah. And so this is just so that I understand in some sense, this is natural in the environment, but the rates naturally are too low to protect against this particular pest. But by having this release you are able to protect basically a whole village, that sort of 15 kilometer radius [00:07:00] that’s around about a village, the whole village, with just these very small number of initial parasitoids because of the exponential growth of the insects in the right environment. Very interesting. 

And so to keep going on the story, when I first met you, which was about 2014, I believe, you already had all this in place and you were already working at a huge scale across three countries, you know, actually protecting large amounts of the country, not just you doing this, but you’d actually had a whole infrastructure to do this. Can you tell us about the private partners within the farmer operations and how that came about?

Prof Baoua: Well, after 2012 the projects developed the technology, but we work after for improving it. So to find the best support for larva rearing, we [00:08:00] add some protein inside using the cowpea work, so we have many material on it. And how also to have more Habrobracon hebetor. So we explore many, many possibilities. Because at the beginning we start with the bag. 

David: Yeah.

Prof Baoua: So don’t see anything about what is in the bag. So they ask, what is this bag? 

David: Yeah. 

Prof Baoua: Many, many question and after the team develop now boxes, plastic boxes. Instead we have the parasitoid so they can see and they can release it themselves. So we work a lot around something because we exchange many, many times with farmer, and for testing we use farmer network also. 

David: Yeah. 

Prof Baoua: After that, we turned some people at the village level, okay, so we have boxes and now we work a lot, but we tell people for releasing the parasitoids. But one year later so we understand. So it don’t work because some village, we work a lot of people after one year, three year. So we [00:09:00] realize, also problem, because people don’t work out. I think we understand, we don’t have to work to rear the parasitoid, and to work for all. 

So we had many, many meeting and we decide just to say, okay, we are going to change our strategy and we create and we form organization, working with men and women, like 10 person in the village, but they’re in charge for rearing the parasitoid and selling it, a kind of agro-business. And we can have some order from projects or private person or farmer, they can send it. 

David: Yeah. 

Prof Baoua: And there’s a phone, they collect, so we work with that. So we use it for buying the local material, but they can buy millet, they can pay people working for this work. So we can have a smartphone for the [00:10:00] activity. And this works very well. And since that, we have now many, many, I think at the level of the three countries we have now up to 22 private units working and now we have a kind of concept where farmers themselves work for providing technology for other farmer. 

David: This part of the story I know better because , you know, I’ve seen how that’s evolved and it’s been wonderful to see the progress in terms of just from the outside watching this. You are becoming a social scientist. You are not just an entomologist now, you are understanding how to build structures in society to be able to sustainably maintain these services. 

You as the researcher watching you step back from the fact that you were needing to do it yourselves, to actually now how you are handing this knowledge over to these farmer organizations for them to be [00:11:00] the ones driving the technology forward while staying involved as researchers, observing, improving, iterating. It’s been wonderful to see that process. And your team has, it’s been very interesting to see as entomologists the different sets of things you’ve had to learn and get involved in.

Prof Baoua: Yeah. I think this occurred because we have the community, building a community. In this community we have many, many people from the work on farmer research network, so we have farmers with us. And we have some tools, statistic tool for good, good protocol. We have RMS here and we have agroecology, so how we can use this concepts also. So many, many knowledge we have acquired from the community of McKnight. And here we exchange, and after each meeting we have some knowledge we have to go back with and [00:12:00] work. So this helped very, very, very much. 

David: Well, you were exceptional at this in a number of different cases. I still remember when we first introduced ODK to the community. You were the one who immediately saw how this would be useful to you and how it would change the way your research worked. You personally, as, you know, the most senior person in the room, you were the one actually getting your hands dirty, creating the forms, doing it yourself because you knew this would help you with your work, with your students. 

And that ability to see as part of the community how new technologies, new ideas will help you to do more, that’s been exceptional to observe. 

Prof Baoua: Yeah. So, project’s committee, especially ODK, I saw it, I understand. So I doubt, and my doubt is can be helpful for survey type, for survey type, so we can use it. And I insist, yeah, I go behind you many, many times, understand you. [00:13:00] Now, after I contract at least 20, so we, my student or for myself, using this. It’s very, very interesting. 

David: I still remember when you started using ODK, there was an instance where you said a year or two later that some of your students didn’t like it because you know, the ones who weren’t collecting data properly, you would know immediately and you would get it. 

Prof Baoua: Yeah. I come with some student, but we don’t written anything but is myself. So I understand. And when I go back after, David, we have many, many more change for the first form. And you helped me for launching it and to collect the first data. And I realize it’s good, good, good, very good application. And we can collect good quality data.

But we have also some coordinates so we can make maps, so very, very interesting. And now we [00:14:00] improve it, we like this application and it help us very much for the cost of survey and help us bring more question. So very, very interesting. And I have this support from McKnight Foundation CCRP.

David: Yes. This is I think part of, well, part of the program success and your success is that they are intertwined. 

Prof Baoua: Yeah. 

David: That, you know, your results have benefited from the approach the program has, which is to not just give the grant, but also to give this additional support, be it methodological as well as sort of conceptual.

And the program has immensely benefited from you within the community and the role you’ve played, not just for your project, but almost all projects now come to your project for anything to do with pest and diseases. You’ve gone beyond this core insight of [00:15:00] saving the region’s millet from the head miner. And now your recent projects for the last, what is it, six years almost, have been on integrated pest management. 

Prof Baoua: Yes. 

David: For the Sahel. 

Prof Baoua: After working on the millet. So now we continue working to look at what we can do about the grow of the crops, grow in the millet system. You know, in Africa, in West Africa, people don’t grow millet alone. They have some crop associated, as cowpea, as ground nut, and sorghum. So what is, if you can resolve many, many problem with one technology. So we work on it. So we work on the problem and we are a kind of inventory of the main pests, because we need to know with each farmer group what is the problem with all those crops.

And we come now with another solution, which is a bio [00:16:00] pesticide, based on neem seed. And we test it, it’ll work. And now we come with a second product. But for millet we work together with people. We have two other parasitoids, Trichocgramma. And now we come also here with another product, which is, neem seed extracts.

So it’s very easy for everybody, you have to collect neem seed to peel it, to take just inside the seed, in the fruit sort of piece. 

David: Yeah. 

Prof Baoua: Inside the seed. And now make a powder and this powder mixed with water waiting 24 hours so we can have a kind of solution you can use in the spire. It’s a toxic really, but it’s a kind of anti feeders. So you can use it at early stage of development of the pests, early stage. So eggs, young larva. So you can have a good, like a preventive work. 

And now we are working, our unit can sell neem seed powder, you know, neem is growing, giving [00:17:00] flour and seed during April.

David: Yes.

Prof Baoua: And now we need it during August for cowpea. So our unit can work now to collect it, to prepare the powder and to sell it later when before needed. So this is really, really a good record set so we learn much from McKnight Foundation group, community. And now all centres are working and farmers who are working. So work together. 

We develop local knowledge and our work we develop is budgeted on local material. So we need to apply anything in the town or in our country. We use only local resources widely available close to the farmer.

David: And that’s been an incredibly important part of your success because that’s been as long as I’ve known you, this has been the case. And that’s part of the [00:18:00] scalability that you’ve been able to achieve. And we’ll come back to that in a minute. 

But it’s also part of the fact that actually when there were the problems, political, which meant that actually getting things from outside was hard in the region, it didn’t affect your work in the same way as it did many others because you were so already self-reliant on what was locally available. And that’s been so justified in recent years to be taking that approach, and many people are appreciating it now.

I’m conscious there’s a big part of your work we’ve not discussed, which I think we’ll have to do another episode on. You’ve said we a few times. Now I know a little bit about who the we is and it’s incredibly impressive how you’ve had this team and how you’ve built in some sense a whole infrastructure across three countries.

And we’ll [00:19:00] come back to that in another episode because we don’t have time now. But I don’t want that to get lost. It is one of my greatest admiration, the way you’ve managed your projects is the way you’ve built capacity through your projects. So that’s a whole nother discussion, and we’ll do that on another occasion.

So I think to finish this episode. I’d just like you to sort of, coming back to head miner, and we know where it was, which is farmers were having sometimes a hundred percent loss. My memory is that it could be as bad as 30% across the country, in some years. Is that right? Was that what it was before? You know, if you thought at the country level, the impact of head miner on millet production in Niger? I remember a statistic like 30% at one point. Is that right? For losses across the country. 

Prof Baoua: You can have 50%. 

David: 50%. [00:20:00] Wow. And so that’s what it was.

Prof Baoua: Yeah. You know the problem. So, we have climate change effect. When we have a big rain in April, we can sow because we want to save time to save opportunity. So we can sow the millet, just the early sowing plants, and also in sandy sowing. And now people are also fighting for early variety because they need it, the rainy season’s very short. 

So, you know, so millet became a big issue for people practice. They want to sow early to have a long enough rainfall. And also we use early variety. And millet head miner, the first millets, the millet who have early flowering stage. So, you know, this is a big challenge. So it’s a technology people really need because if you have early varieties, so we can harvest your [00:21:00] millet quickly. 

David: But now, how many hectares have you protected or have now been protected with your purchase or protected each year?

Prof Baoua: Now with the private unit we have, I think each year at the level of the three countries, we have 1 million and 500,000. 

David: I mean, this is just, this is huge. And the impact of this has been recognized at governmental levels. This has been taken up, but not national, but also regionals, you know, there’s certain, some of these private units are being charged by the local governments to protect the region. It is just, it’s incredible.

Prof Baoua: Yeah. 

David: So with this amazing scale, I mean 1.5 million hectares across the three countries covered with its approaches with the local government supporting it, with the national governments aware. And now this is just one of multiple interventions. Is there a sense that for head miner, this is no [00:22:00] longer the problem it was in the regions? Do you feel that this is something where now you’ve put the structures in place, your efforts are moving on to other problems because this problem is no longer the life changing problem it was for many farmers? 

Prof Baoua: Yes. Now people know the effects and we have the results. So we have the evidence. We have many, many farmers who come and buy this technology. So the evidence of our success. And now the problem, so we work also for the sustainability. So we increase the level, the density of the parasitoids went down during the rain season, but after, so we have some losses in the next year. It’s difficult to have this population because we have a big erosion of agro-biodiversity. So we now understand that each year we have to release continuously. 

David: [00:23:00] So let me just come onto this because it’s a wonderful point to end this episode. Actually, this problem is partly caused by the loss of biodiversity in your environment. Which means that this natural enemy, which is or was present to be able to sort of protect now cannot survive the dry season.

Prof Baoua: Yeah. 

David: And so, although the population levels get high enough in the rainy season because of the releases, they don’t just survive the dry season because there isn’t the cover, there isn’t the biodiversity that’s needed for them to continue to survive. And therefore the levels of it drop so that the next season, you need to have the new releases again to increase the population.

So what I want to just make sure I’m able to communicate is that although you’ve understood all of this, you’ve really understood the reason this problem exploded, the reason it became a big problem, you’ve put in place all [00:24:00] the structures to be able to reduce it on a yearly basis, but the structures you put in place in terms of the social enterprises within these farmer federations, they now have a sustainable role to play to maintain this natural enemy. 

So it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to share the story. It’s a story I’ve longed to tell it for a long time. 

Prof Baoua: Yeah. It’s a pleasure to do it. 20 years of my life as a scientist doing this work and this fantastic results. And now we have to continue. So we would like to change with you what is my perspective or the perspective of our team. So now we have to reinforce. 

David: Well, I want that, but I’m afraid we are out of time for this episode, so we will have to do another episode. I will contact you shortly and we will do another episode. Thank you so much for this story. We will continue. 

Thank [00:25:00] you.