Crop Diversification

Needs Address

• Stabilised and/or increased productivity
• Food security

Adaptation effects

• Food and nutritional security and poverty alleviation
• Natural resource management for sustainable agricultural development

Overview and Features

A shift from traditionally grown less remunerative crops to more remunerative crops that are more resilient and stable in production

Cost

Costs for alternative seed types

Energy source

Manual labour

Ease of maintenance

• Maintenance dependent on crops chosen, but will require knowledge of new harvesting methods for new crop types
• With appropriate crop selection and combination with conservation agriculture techniques such as poly cropping, diversification should enhance the sustainability of crop agriculture

Technology performance

Can increase yields and provide a more reliable harvest

Considerations

Must have appropriate space, knowledge and equipment

Co-benefit, suitability for developing countries

• There may be weak agro-based industry in the area of use, accentuated by decreased investments in the agricultural sector over the years
• Many cropped areas in developing countries are completely dependent on rainfall, which must be considered when selecting new crops
• There may be an inadequate supply of seeds and plants of improved cultivars in the region of proposed application
• There are often weak research – extension – farmer linkages, which are necessary to transfer the technology and ensure new seed types reach farmers
• Inadequately trained human resources together with persistent and large scale illiteracy amongst farmers represent barriers
• Host of diseases and pests affecting most crop plants and extra attention and inputs my be needed to address this
• There is poor database availability for suitable and available horticultural crops

Information Resources

Papademetriou, M.K. and Dent, F.J. 2001. Crop Diversification in the Asia-Pacific Region. FAO. Available from: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/003/x6906e/x6906e00.pdf [14 November 2014]