Mary Nyasimi, Catherine Mungai and Maren Radeny

CCAFS-East Africa

Agricultural practices and technologies to enhance resilience, food security and productivity: messages to SBSTA 44

Agricultural practices and technologies to enhance food security, resilience and productivity in a sustainable manner: Messages to the SBSTA 44 Agriculture Workshops

Info note February 2016: Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture-Practices and technologies: . Messages to the SBSTA 44 agriculture workshops

http://hdl.handle.net/10568/71053 http://hdl.handle.net/10568/71051

Perspectives from Africa

Key Messages

Agro-ecological zones & farming systems are extremely diverse - interventions

need to be targeted to specific contexts.

Many agricultural practices and technologies beneficial to food security, resilience

and productivity.

Indigenous knowledge provides the backbone of successful climate change

adaptation in crop farming, livestock and fisheries

Bringing practices and technologies to scale is possible and underway. Strong

mechanisms for finance, capacity enhancement and technology transfer are

prerequisites for success.

Engaging women in design & management of new technologies and practices will

help close the gender gap in agriculture & deliver positive outcomes

8 Areas of Interventions

Agricultural Technologies and Practices in Africa

Interventions focus on enhancing soil health – Build on existing indigenous practices and knowledge to maximize benefits to climate change adaptation.

• West African Sahel, a range of indigenous practices – contour stone bunds (CSB), half-moons in Niger, zai – address challenges of rainfall runoff, erosion & increasing organic matter. CSBs reclaimed 300,000 ha of land

• Integrated soil fertility management - use of organic & inorganic fertilizers, well-adapted, disease- and pest-resistant germplasm, and good agronomic practices

1. Soil and land management

2. Crop management

Crop-specific innovations e.g. soil management, agroforestry, and water management. Crop-specific innovations e.g. breeding of more resilient crop varieties, diversification and intensification.

• Coffee Banana Intercropping in East Africa - Banana trees provide shade against temperature increases & reduce incidence of coffee leaf rust - incomes by over 50% compared to monocropping

• Bioversity Seeds for Needs project: uses GIS to identify gene bank accessions that may be suitable for current and future climatic conditions. Evaluation by women farmers – Community gene banks available

•

3. Livestock management

Improved or modified livestock mgt practices: improved grazing mgt, use of improved pasture & agroforestry sp, better use of locally available feeds, highly nutritious diet supplements and concentrates, and breeding for heat-tolerance. Better animal health mgt e.g. surveillance & veterinary services to animal performance and productivity.

• Supplementary feeding of leaves of the tree Leucaena leucocephala – highly when fed as a supplement can increase meat and milk yield substantially

• Changing from local breeds to cross-bred cattle - In Kenya, heat-, drought and disease- resistant crossbreeds of native sheep and goats are being introduced to increase resilience & productivity of farming households.

4. Forestry and Agroforestry

• Cocoa Agroforestry Systems (CAS) in Cameroon and Ghana: use shade as an option to reduce the impacts of climate change. CAS mimics forest structure and can contribute to forest biodiversity

• Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) in Niger: use of the extensive systems of living roots underneath the degraded land. Farmers identify and protect tree and shrub wildlings. Cereal yields increased by an average of 100kg/ha

In smallholder farming systems increasing forest cover and agroforestry can build resilience and environmental health, including mitigation benefits.

5. Fisheries and aquaculture

• Seeweed Multi-trophic fish farms in South Africa re-circulated water increases productivity through nutrient cycling

Expansion and innovations in aquaculture offers cost- effective opportunities to provide sustainable sources of protein under climate change.

• Catchment Water Allocation Tool in Malawi: A decision support tool used to explore options in water allocation and management across and within sub-catchments. Harvesting and storing water can support integrated farming of crops, livestock and fish for increasing food security and nutrient intake, and diversifying sources of farm income.

6. Water management

• Low-cost gravity-fed drip irrigation systems in Benin & Togo. designed and developed by farmer groups involving bunds, drainage canals and irrigation infrastructure. increased rice yields by 3.5 to 4t/ha

Agriculture largest user of freshwater. Improved water mgt. can be achieved through capture and retention of rainfall. Soil fertility and crop mgt innovations also improve water use efficiency

• Emerging water harvesting technologies in Egypt & Morocco Use of small basins and semi-circular bunds & combining trees and shrubs with the use of contour ridges

7. Climate information services

• Scaling Up Climate Services for Agriculture in Senegal: Weather forecasting and advisory services for 7.4 million rural people. Diverse partners, Union of Rural Radio (URAC), a federation of NGOs (FONGS), and the Senegalese Agricultural Research Institute (ISRA).

• Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) in Africa: Agricultural extension staff with groups of farmers analyze historical climate information & use participatory tools to develop & choose crop, livestock options best suited to individual farmers’ needs – Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi, Ghana and Lesotho

Climate information services help farmers cope with climate variability.

8. Crop and livestock weather insurance

• Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE): Linking insurance to credit: Rwanda, Kenya & Tanzania. 800,000 farmers reached. Crops maize, beans, wheat, sorghum, millet, soybeans, sunflowers, coffee & potatoes. Linked to mobile money market (Mpesa). Projected to reach 3 million farmers across ten countries in Eastern and Southern Africa by 2018.

• R4 Rural Resilience Initiative in Senegal, Ethiopia, Malawi & Zambia. < 32,000 farmers.

• Index Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI): Pastoralists in northern Kenya & southern Ethiopia. Enhances resilience by reducing risk of asset loss through mortality or distress sale resulting from drought

Well-designed and targeted agricultural insurance can enable farmers to re-invest in inputs and technologies despite bad years

Lessons from implementation

• Strong mechanisms for finance, capacity development and technology transfer are prerequisites for success of these agricultural practices and technologies.

• Investment to reach scale by sharing of best-fit practices among countries and farming communities, matching options to fine-scale variations in local circumstances.

• Available decision support tools to match practices and technologies with agro-ecological zones.

• Identify best-bet investment opportunities and country readiness for implementation and scaling up - successful interventions can serve as resources to assess investment risks and benefits, and seek international support

• Promote gender equality - Engaging women in design & management of new technologies practices will lead to more gender-sensitive innovations

• Potential for agricultural practices and technologies to achieve co-benefits for environmental health and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Thank you

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