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 Background
Information on Maize
Maize
was introduced in Africa by Portuguese explorers in the beginning of the
16th century. It
has since become Africa’s second most important food crop, behind
cassava, and is grown in a wide range of environments ranging from
Niger’s northern Sahel to Ethiopia’s highlands to converted forest
lands of Sierra Leone.
The
popularity of maize among African farmers grew slowly until the early part
of the 20th century. During
World War I, the colonial government in Kenya encouraged (and provided
seed for) farmers to plant maize as part of the war effort.
Maize cultivation in southern Africa was initially linked to the
spread of commercial mining, as maize required less labor to grow and
process than the traditional grain crops, millet and sorghum.
 Although
its palatability is often cited as a reason for maize’s continued
popularity among rural populations of eastern and southern Africa, higher
productivity and lower labor demands can probably be assumed to be at
least as important. Sorghum
and millet yields in eastern and southern Africa since 1980 have averaged
765 and 729 kg/ha, respectively, compared with yields of maize over the
same period of 1.19 MT/ha. While
a portion of these differences can be attributed to the different
environments in which the crops are grown, even when grown under identical
conditions in semi-arid southern Africa, maize was shown to yield higher.
Comparatively low labor requirements appear to be a second factor
in the popularity of maize among small-scale farmers in Africa.
Increased school attendance among children who formerly performed
bird-scaring chores is cited as an important factor in the shift of land
out of sorghum and millet toward maize in semi-arid regions of southern
Africa.
Per
capita consumption of maize in Africa is highest in eastern and southern
Africa. Maize consumption in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe,
Zambia and Swaziland averages over 100 kg per year, giving maize a similar
position in terms of dietary importance in those countries to rice in
Asia.
Maize
is mainly consumed in African households as a thick porridge, produced by
hand pounding (usually preceeded by soaking) or grinding in a hammer mill,
followed by boiling. Households
that depend on hand pounding generally prefer harder, flint-type varieties
whose endosperm and embryo can be milled as an integral, whole grain.
Households that mill their grain generally prefer dent varieties.
Eastern and southern Africa almost exclusively grow white maize,
with small pockets of yellow land races in coastal regions and southern
Sudan. West and central
African households use both white and yellow maize.
Seasonally throughout Africa, a considerable amount of maize is
consumed fresh, both on and off the cob, either roasted or boiled, as a
snack food.
Ninety-five
percent of maize produced in Africa is grown by small and medium-scale
farmers who cultivate 10 ha or less.
Yields on these farms are usually low, averaging 1.2 MT/ha.
Meanwhile, the productivity range of maize farmers in Africa is
perhaps wider than for any other crop.
While subsistence farmers of coastal west Africa struggle to
produce 700-800 kg/ha on farms as small as half of a hectare, large scale,
commercial farmers of Zimbabwe harvest some of the highest cereal crop
yields in the world, regularly topping 10 MT/ha on farms larger than 1,000
ha.
The
challenge of improving maize varieties for small-scale farmers in Africa
appear to be centered around making the crop more resistant to foliar
diseases (in humid zones of West Africa and mid-altitude zones of East
Africa) and more tolerant to drought (especially in drought-prone southern
Africa). There are also
widespread opportunities in reducing the time to maturity.
Longer-term, there are important opportunities in adding Striga
resistance, resistance to stem borers, and increased protein content.
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