Low-Cost Staking for Climbing Beans

Empowering Beans, Sustaining Growth!

The Low-Cost Staking practice offers innovative and affordable methods to address challenges in climbing bean cultivation, particularly the need for plant support. It focuses on reducing the use of wooden stakes by employing alternative materials and techniques such as tripod staking, wooden string trellises, and live plant support. These approaches aim to enhance yield while minimizing environmental damage caused by deforestation from excessive stake harvesting.

This technology is TAAT1 validated.

8•8

Scaling readiness: idea maturity 8/9; level of use 8/9

Project adoption1

Technology integrated in the ENSURE project.

Project	Beneficiaries	Budget	Duration	Key figures
ENSURE Enabling Environments for Sustainable Regional Agriculture Extension	3,000,000 farmers.	13.14 million	2024–2027	149,940 farmer leaders & trained farmers. 9,996 trained. 2 → 3.5 t/ha.

See project details ›

Adults 18 and over: Positive medium

The poor: Positive medium

Under 18: Positive low

Women: Positive medium

Climate adaptability: Highly adaptable

Farmer climate change readiness: Moderate improvement

Biodiversity: No impact on biodiversity

Carbon footprint: Much less carbon released

Environmental health: Greatly improves environmental health

Soil quality: Does not affect soil health and fertility

Water use: A bit less water used

Problem

The need for plant support poses a financial burden for farmers, hindering wider adoption and leading to suboptimal yields.
Limited availability of wooden stakes and overharvesting contribute to difficulties in achieving optimal staking densities, impacting yield potential.
Deforestation and delayed afforestation due to stake overharvesting raise environmental concerns, necessitating sustainable alternatives.
Effective staking requires knowledge of plant density, stake length, and durability, necessitating suitable methodologies for different contexts.
The technology explores alternative materials and innovative methods like tripod staking and live plant support to reduce reliance on wooden stakes.
Inadequate staking results in yield losses ranging from 50% to 90%, limiting farmers' profitability and food security.
Sustainable staking practices aim to mitigate environmental impact while enhancing climbing bean productivity and profitability.
Proper staking methods improve farming practices, including plant density management and pruning, leading to better yields and resource utilization.
Adoption barriers, such as labor requirements and material availability, are addressed through innovative, farmer-friendly staking solutions.
By enabling cost-effective staking, the technology supports livelihood improvement for small-scale farmers, boosting their income and food security.

Solution

Introduces innovative staking methods such as tripod staking, wooden string trellises, and live plant support, reducing the reliance on traditional wooden stakes.
Explores a range of materials for staking, including agroforestry species, tall grasses, and intercrop stems, allowing farmers to utilize locally available and affordable resources.
By reducing the need for expensive wooden stakes and introducing low-cost alternatives, the technology helps lower production expenses for farmers.
Promotes sustainable practices by mitigating deforestation risks associated with overharvesting wooden stakes, thereby conserving natural resources and preserving ecosystems.
Improves yield potential by providing adequate plant support, minimizing yield losses caused by inadequate staking practices.
Offers flexible staking solutions suitable for various farming contexts and conditions, allowing farmers to choose the most appropriate method based on availability of materials and local preferences.
Facilitates knowledge transfer on optimal staking techniques and practices, empowering farmers to implement effective staking methods and improve their crop yields.
Enhances the livelihoods of small-scale farmers by enabling them to increase their bean production, generate additional income, and improve food security for their households.

Key points to design your program

This technology promotes innovative, low-cost staking systems for climbing beans using locally available materials and alternative plant support methods. It can be integrated into climbing bean value chain development, food security, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable intensification, agroforestry, and rural livelihood programmes. By reducing dependence on expensive wooden stakes, lowering production costs, improving land productivity, and reducing pressure on forest resources, the technology enables farmers to adopt climbing bean production more efficiently while strengthening environmental sustainability. It supports SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), while creating income opportunities for women, smallholder farmers, and resource-constrained households through affordable production systems.

To successfully integrate this technology, consider the following key actions:

Identify climbing bean production areas where limited access to affordable staking materials, high production costs, and declining forest resources constrain technology adoption and productivity.
Establish partnerships with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, ProPAS, national agricultural research institutions, extension services, agroforestry programmes, and farmer organizations to support technology dissemination and technical guidance.
Assess the local availability of sustainable staking materials, agroforestry resources, suitable companion species, and market conditions to identify the most appropriate staking systems for each production environment.
Strengthen technical capacity through Farmer Field Schools by training farmers, extension agents, and producer organizations on staking design, plant spacing, efficient use of locally available materials, and integrated climbing bean production.
Promote integrated climbing bean production systems by facilitating access to improved climbing bean varieties, sustainable staking materials, soil fertility management practices, and locally adapted support structures.
Support community-based supply systems for alternative staking materials, farmer organizations, agroforestry initiatives, demonstration sites, and advisory services to strengthen long-term adoption and local innovation.
Monitor programme performance through indicators such as technology adoption, reductions in staking costs, improvements in bean productivity, reduced reliance on harvested wood, household income, and the participation of women and youth.

300 %

Increase in yields compared to bush beans

20,000—50,000 stakes per hectare

Staking density for highest yields

2 meters

Height of stakes for highest yields

⁓200,000 plants

Plant population per hectare

IP

Open source / open access

Scaling Readiness describes how complete a technology\’s development is and its ability to be scaled. It produces a score that measures a technology\’s readiness along two axes: the level of maturity of the idea itself, and the level to which the technology has been used so far.

Each axis goes from 0 to 9 where 9 is the “ready-to-scale” status. For each technology profile in the e-catalogs we have documented the scaling readiness status from evidence given by the technology providers. The e-catalogs only showcase technologies for which the scaling readiness score is at least 8 for maturity of the idea and 7 for the level of use.

The graph below represents visually the scaling readiness status for this technology, you can see the label of each level by hovering your mouse cursor on the number.

Scaling readiness score of this technology

Maturity of the idea 8 out of 9

Uncontrolled environment: tested

Level of use 8 out of 9

Used by some intended users, in the real world

Maturity of the idea										Level of use
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Project	Beneficiaries	Budget	Duration	Key figures
ENSURE Enabling Environments for Sustainable Regional Agriculture Extension	3,000,000 farmers.	13.14 million	2024–2027	149,940 farmer leaders & trained farmers. 9,996 trained. 2 → 3.5 t/ha.

Countries with a green colour: Tested & adopted
Countries with a bright green colour: Adopted
Countries with a yellow colour: Tested
Countries with a blue colour: Testing ongoing

Countries where the technology is being tested or has been tested and adopted
Country	Testing ongoing	Tested	Adopted
Benin	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Burundi	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Cameroon	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Central African Republic	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Côte d’Ivoire	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Democratic Republic of the Congo	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Ethiopia	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Ghana	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Kenya	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Malawi	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Mozambique	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Nigeria	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Rwanda	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
South Sudan	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Tanzania	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Uganda	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Zambia	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted

This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones. Any zones shown in white are not suitable for this technology.

Agro-ecological zones where this technology can be used
AEZ	Subtropic - warm	Subtropic - cool	Tropic - warm	Tropic - cool
Arid	–	–	–	–
Semiarid
Subhumid
Humid

Source: HarvestChoice/IFPRI 2009

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are applicable to this technology.

Goal 1: no poverty

Goal 2: zero hunger

Goal 8: decent work and economic growth

Goal 12: responsible production and consumption

Best yields come from 2-meter-tall stakes.
Ideal stake density: 20,000 to 50,000 per hectare.
Recommended stake materials: Acacia, bamboo, or grasses like elephant grass.
Plant climbing beans in rows or hills with specific seed spacing.
Stakes should be at least 2 meters tall and have a rough surface for plant grip.
Single stakes can support 1 to 4 plants.
Tripod stakes can support 1 to 3 plants and can be connected for added strength.
Various materials like reeds, tree bark strips, or creeping plant stems can provide vertical support.