This document is a brief synthesis of best practices and opportunities for scaling-up regreening /land restoration and sustainable land management from the implementation of the European Union (EU)-funded Regreening Africa program and the experience of implementing partners. This will be useful for informing future EU efforts to support regreening in Ethiopia, notably EU programming at the country level upon request and other initiatives.
Tag: Adaptation
RWANDA. Country Information Brief
This document provides a brief synthesis of best practices and opportunities for scaling up regreening /land restoration and sustainable land management, learnt from the implementation of the Regreening Africa program and the experience of implementing partners. It is intended to inform future European Union (EU) programming efforts to support regreening in Rwanda, notably EU programming at the country level upon request and other initiatives.
KENYA. Country Information Brief
This document aims at providing a brief synthesis of best practices and opportunities for scaling-up regreening /land restoration and sustainable land management (SLM) in Kenya, that were learned from the implementation of the Regreening Africa program and the experience of implementing partners. This will be useful for informing future European Union (EU) programming at the country level.
GHANA. Country Information Brief
This document provides a brief synthesis of best practices and opportunities for scaling-up regreening/land restoration and sustainable land management in Ghana, learnt from the implementation of the Regreening Africa program and the experience of implementing partners. It is intended to inform future European Union (EU) programming efforts to support restoration investments in the Sahel, including the Great Green Wall Initiative.
SOMALILAND. Country Information Brief
This document provides a brief synthesis of best practices and opportunities for scaling-up regreening/land restoration and sustainable land management in Somaliland, learnt from the implementation of the Regreening Africa program and the experience of implementing partners. This will be useful for informing future European Union (EU) efforts to support regreening in Somalia.
Conservation agriculture improves adaptive capacity of cropping systems to climate stress in Malawi
Context: Adaptation to climate stress is an unprecedented challenge facing cropping systems. Most adaptation assessments focus on how adaptation options affect yields of a single crop under different weather or climate conditions. Yet, cropping systems often comprise more than one crop, and holistic assessments should consider all crops grown in a cropping system. One adaptation option is Conservation Agriculture that is commonly defined around a set of three principles: minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil organic cover, and crop species diversification. Objective: Here we estimated the statistical effect of Conservation Agriculture on cropping-system yields under historical climate conditions. Methods: The cropping-system yields considered all crops grown including maize (Zea mays L.) and legumes in intercropping or rotation, or both. The climate conditions included conditions of heat stress for maize and precipitation balances during the maize growing season. Heat stress for maize was studied using growing degree days over 30 °C. Precipitation balance was the difference between precipitation and reference evapotranspiration. Data included 6296 yield observations from on-farm trials in farmer plots conducted over 14 seasons (2005–2006 to 2018–2019) in ten communities in Malawi. These yield data were coupled with daily weather data. We studied three treatments: (1) a Control Practice treatment where the soil was tilled, crop residues were removed, and there was no crop species diversification, (2) a No-Tillage treatment where the soil was not tilled, crop residues were retained, and there was no crop species diversification, and (3) a Conservation Agriculture treatment where the soil was not tilled, crop residues were retained, and there was crop species diversification through legume intercropping. The use of maize varieties and legume rotation changed over time; however, the treatments studied remained the same over the entire length of the on-farm trials period in all individual communities. Results and conclusions: Results of our study showed that heat stress for maize had a negative effect on cropping-system yields for non-stress-tolerant maize varieties and no legume rotation, although the Conservation Agriculture treatment reduced this negative effect compared with the Control Practice treatment. With the use of stress-tolerant maize varieties and legume rotation and Conservation Agriculture, our results suggest that heat stress for maize did not have a negative effect on cropping-system yields. Significance: Our results demonstrate how Conservation Agriculture can improve the adaptive capacity of cropping systems and this provides urgently needed evidence on how farmers can adapt to climate stress.
Multi-Actors’ Co-Implementation of Climate-Smart Village Approach in West Africa: Achievements and Lessons Learnt
Climate change and variability are significant challenges for the environment and food security worldwide. Development strategies focusing simultaneously on adaptive farming, productivity, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-known as climate-smart agriculture (CSA) strategies-are key to responding to these challenges. For almost a decade, within the framework of Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), World Agroforestry (ICRAF), and its partners have been using Participatory Action Research (PAR) to fully engage key stakeholders in co-creating such CSA development strategies. This includes the testing of Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) CSA scalability options. The multidisciplinary teams include the National Research and Extension Systems (NARES), national meteorological services (NMS), non-profit organizations (NGOs), and local radio programs, among others. The CCAFS-West Africa Program, World Agroforestry-West and Central Africa (ICRAF-WCA), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), University of Reading, and Centre Régional de Formation et d’Application en Agro-météorologie et Hydrologie Opérationnelle (AGRHYMET) provide technical backstopping to the national teams. Climate information (CI) was used as an entry point to inform the development of CSA technologies and practices within Climate-Smart Villages (CSV). This groundwork has led to a greater understanding of three critical factors for successful CSV implementation: (1) Building strong partnerships to co-design and develop agricultural systems that improve ecosystem and population resilience, (2) Key stakeholders (researchers, farmers, development agents, and students) capacity strengthening through vocational and academic training, and (3) Using CI for livelihood planning at all scales. These three factors support more effective identification and testing of agricultural technologies and practices addressing climate variability and change at plot, community, and landscape levels. This paper discusses the PAR-CSA methodology and parameters for evaluation, including biophysical and social change. Keys to success, including communication, knowledge sharing tools, and scalability are also discussed. Finally, future opportunities for improvement are presented, including knowledge product development, CSA policy and investment planning, capacity building, further engagement of the private sector, and additional research on existing practices and tools.
Historical reconfigurations of a social–ecological system adapting to economic, policy and climate changes in the French Alps
To ensure their quality of life, people adapt to multiple changes by maintaining or transforming the structure and functions of their socio-ecological systems (SES). A better understanding of mechanisms underpinning SES adaptation, especially the contribution of changes in human–nature interactions, is crucial to facilitate adaptation to future challenges. Using a chronosystemic timeline and based on literature, archives and local knowledge of inhabitants, we explored the past trajectory of a mountain SES (Pays de la Meije, French Alps) since 1900 by analysing drivers, impacts and responses. We hypothesised that adaptation has occurred through changes in the co-production of nature’s contributions to people (NCP). We identified four historical periods of combined changes in agriculture and tourism with associated changes in NCP. Results show which and how drivers of changes have influenced NCP co-production, how NCP have been mobilised in adaptive responses and how human and natural capitals involved in NCP co-production have been reconfigured for adaptation. We show that drivers of change have been mainly exogenous and out of the control of local actors, like public policies, markets and consumption patterns. These drivers can directly impact the capitals involved in NCP co-production like amount of workforce, knowledge or skills, creating not only threats but also opportunities for the livelihood of the local community. Depending on the intensity of capital reconfiguration and the type of NCP involved, adaptive responses range from resistance to transformation of the governance system and socio-economic sectors. This analysis highlights existing path dependencies that could hinder future adaptation.
Factors affecting smallholder adoption of adaptation and coping measures to deal with rainfall variability
Rainfall variability is becoming more profound in East Africa. Smallholders relying on rainfed agriculture are particularly affected and need to adapt their farming systems accordingly. This study examined the measures small-scale farmers use to adapt to, or cope with rainfall variability and their rated perceived effectiveness. It also explored limitations to adoption of measures and sources of learning measures. Questionnaire-based interviews were held with 80 smallholder farmers, both female and male, living in Kisumu and Trans Nzoia counties in Kenya who had regular or sporadic access to advisory services (denoted trained and non-trained farmers). Trained farmers used more adaptation measures, especially of the measures perceived to be more effective, than non-trained farmers. Female farmers felt more limited by lack of knowledge than male farmers, while money, land and labour limited the smallholder farmers equally. Few measures were used to overcome limitations, but several limitations were covered within the advisory package used for trained farmers, and therefore large differences were seen not only in numbers of measures used, but also in the choice of measures and perceived effectiveness of use. Thus advisory services and policy interventions can play important roles in future efforts to improve adoption of measures.
Models for integrating climate objectives in forest policy: Towards adaptation-first?
Recognizing the potential interactions and synergies between adaptation and mitigation in land-use policies in general and forest policies in particular, research on climate change policy has increasingly focused on integrating both objectives simultaneously (hereafter “interaction model”). However, while support exists for the integration of adaptation and mitigation, very few policies have successfully integrated both objectives in practice (hereafter “separation model”). In addition to the interaction and separation models, we introduce the “adaptation-first model”—an approach to climate policy integration that centers adaptation at the core of forest management, with mitigation as one benefit amongst others—and assess whether it more effectively characterizes the practical realities of forest management than the separation or interaction models. Drawing on a review of policy documents, a survey (n = 48) and interviews (n = 22) with government managers in British Columbia (BC), Canada, we analyze which of the three models have been used for integrating climate objectives into BC’s forest policy and explore views of government managers on the relationships and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation and which model should be prioritized for their integration into forest management. Our analysis of climate-focused forest policy documents indicates that a possible shift from the separation to the interaction model is taking place in BC. However, our results also indicate that while government managers support the interaction model in principle, they perceive numerous barriers to policy integration that may prevent the shift towards the interaction model to materialize in practice. Because of the fundamental perceived differences in the levels at which adaptation and mitigation intervene in decision-making, government managers in our study were generally more comfortable with the adaptation-first model, which ultimately suggests the need to rethink how we frame climate integration into forest management and policies.