FORI results Burundi
FO-RI | Project results | Burundi
Farmers leading the research on soil fertility and crop protection
Farmers do not just receive advice here. They set the research questions. Every season, farmer-experimenters and researchers meet to review what happened in the fields, name the problems that remain, and design the next round of trials together. The trials run on farmers' own plots, three cropping seasons a year, on the two problems farmers themselves prioritised: declining soil fertility, and crop pests and diseases.
Photo: CSA
The idea
The research agenda belongs to the farmers
Most agricultural research reaches farmers as advice, arriving already finished. This project inverts that. Farmer-experimenters and researchers from the University of Burundi meet at the end of each cropping season to look at what the plots actually did, work out what the results mean, and decide together what still needs testing.
The two priorities came from the farmers themselves: soil fertility that keeps declining, and pests and diseases that keep returning. Every trial since has answered to one or other of those.
Because Burundi has three cropping seasons a year, the cycle turns quickly. A question raised at a season review can be in the ground within weeks, and answered before the year is out. Trials sit on members' own plots rather than on a research station, so the conditions being tested are the conditions farmers actually work in.
Urumuri rw'abarimyi, Murimyigirijambo, Dukoribirama Manege, Girumwete Dukore, Kerebuka Dukore and Kazoza keza, across the communes of Rugombo, Mugina and Murwi in Cibitoke province, Gihanga in Bubanza, and Mutimbuzi in Bujumbura.
How it works
One cycle, three times a year
The method came from CAPAD's earlier TIN project on soil fertility and is now the way this project runs. Nothing about it depends on waiting for a final report.
Season review
Farmer-experimenters and researchers meet to go through what happened on each plot. What worked, what did not, and what problem is still standing. Between 30 and 40 cooperative members turn up to these meetings, including many who are not formal experimenters and who want in.
Design the next trials
The problems that remain become the next research questions. Protocols are built together, then installed on members' own plots: 110 experiments in season B 2025, 61 in season C 2025 and 61 in season A 2026.
Observe, adapt, spread
Farmers do not wait for the formal trial to finish. Once they see something work, they scale it up on their own land, and often modify it. Those modifications come back into the next season review as findings in their own right.
The trials
What was tested, and what works
Seven practices have been through the cycle. Each entry below gives the preparation and the dose the trials settled on. The doses are the validated ones, not suggestions.
Improved organic manure one handful per hole
Preparation
To 100 kg of farmyard manure, add 2 kg soy flour, 30 kg Tithonia (or 3 kg Tithonia powder), 4 kg molasses and a handful of rich soil.
What farmers observed
Earthworms appeared in the mixture within hours of the molasses going in.
Validated dose
One handful per planting hole.
Liquid fertiliser 2 litres per 3 m × 3 m
Preparation
180 litres water, 5 litres animal urine, 10 kg cow dung, 2 kg soy flour, 4 kg molasses and a handful of rich soil.
Application
From flowering onwards. Farmers report leaves staying green, with vigorous cobs and pods.
Validated dose
2 litres sprayed over 3 m by 3 m.
Improved mulching 2 litres urine, 2 kg ash
Method
Spread ash and animal urine over the mulch.
Validated dose
2 litres of animal urine and 2 kg of ash per 3 m by 3 m.
Tithonia liquid manure rated highest by farmers
Known locally as purin de Tithonia, it works as both a biopesticide and a foliar fertiliser, which is why farmers rate it above everything else tested. It is effective against fall armyworm and a range of other insects and pests, across several crops.
Beyond the trial plots
Rice growers in the Imbo plain now buy it, and the Kerebuka Dukore cooperative has started producing and selling it, receiving large orders.
Still pending
A sample was submitted to the ISABU laboratory for analysis of its nutrient composition. Results were not yet available when the annual report was written.
Sand and ash mixture effective, but laborious
Used against fall armyworm in maize. The trials found it effective and feasible, with the clear caveat that applying it is hard work. See the constraints section below.
Tithonia burial 24 kg per trial plot
Burying Tithonia to restore soil fertility proved effective, and it suppresses pests as well. Of the doses tested, 24 kg was the most effective on the trial plots.
The volume is also the problem, which the project treats as the next research question rather than as a closed result.
Banana rhizome against tomato blight not satisfactory
Tested in season C 2025. The results were not satisfactory, and the research continues. It is listed here because a negative result is still a result, and it shapes what gets tested next.
2025 in numbers
Results in numbers
Figures from the 2025 annual narrative report.
Women made up more than 51% of participants in cooperative-level activities and young people around 19%. Among those adopting the tested practices, 46% are women and 33% are young people. Where a household plot is given over to an experiment, the decision is taken jointly by the couple.
"When I saw the results of applying Tithonia liquid manure to control pests, I applied it to the whole plot." Farmer-experimenter, Imbo plain
What changes on the ground
Farmers do not wait for the trial to end
The clearest sign that a practice works is that people start using it before anyone tells them to. Farmers scale successful trials up to whole plots on their own initiative, and they do not simply copy the protocol. They adjust the dose, combine treatments, and try the material on problems it was never tested against.
Those adaptations are not deviations from the research. They come back into the next season review as findings, and several have changed what gets tested.
"A capful of sand mixture per plant seemed like a lot to me, so I did one capful for two plants and that was enough."
Farmer-experimenter"I used a mixture of Tithonia liquid manure with chilli, the effect is much faster."
Farmer-experimenter"I used Tithonia powder at ploughing time and the snails disappeared."
Farmer-experimenter"Before, I used chemical products, but now I use natural products, it lets me reduce my production costs."
Farmer-experimenterHonest constraints
A result that works is not the same as a problem solved
The project's own review is blunt about this. A practice can perform well on a trial plot and still be out of reach at field scale. Three barriers come up again and again.
Labour
The sand and ash mixture is effective but exhausting to apply.
"On a small area it's feasible, but it becomes difficult on large areas."
Equipment
Sprayers, drums and buckets for preparing and applying Tithonia liquid manure are shared between members, and there are not enough of them.
"We take turns with the equipment, but it isn't enough."
Raw material
Tithonia is hard to propagate reliably and hard to grow in the volumes the practices need.
"24 kg for a small trial plot is a lot, how am I going to fertilise one hectare?"
These are being treated as the next research questions rather than as project failures. Work is under way on better Tithonia propagation, and on cooperative-level mechanisms that let members access equipment sustainably rather than through hand-outs.
The year was difficult. Heavy rain and flooding in season A, an early end to the rains in season B, and late rains in season A 2026 destroyed some trial plots. A nationwide fuel shortage, currency devaluation and food inflation made field visits and gatherings harder to organise throughout the year.
What comes next
Ready for wider dissemination
These are the practices the project judges ready to go beyond the experimenter group. Two are still being refined, and one is the focus of the current season's trials.
- Improved organic manure
- Transformed liquid fertilisers Effectiveness confirmed
- Improved mulching with ash and urine
- Use of human urine for soil fertilisation
- Combining the successful protocols on a single plot Season A 2026 trials
- Rapid composting in sacks and under tarpaulin Being refined
- Improved sand and ash mixture Being refined
Resources
Download the outputs
Acronyms 10 terms
- AgriCord Alliance of agri-agencies mandated by farmers' organisations
- GERDAL Groupe d'Expérimentation et de Recherche, Développement et Actions Localisées
- CANALLs Agroecology living labs programme, Horizon Europe
- GP-SAEP Programme funded by IFAD
- CAPAD Confédération des Associations des Producteurs Agricoles pour le Développement
- IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
- CSA Collectif Stratégie Alimentaire
- ISABU Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi
- FO-RI Farmers Organizations Leading Research and Innovation
- TIN Earlier CAPAD soil fertility project, EU funded
This project is part of the FO-RI programme, Farmers Organizations Leading Research and Innovation, implemented by the AgriCord Alliance with the financial support of the European Union.
