Smallholder farmers in the semi-arid districts of Kongwa and Chamwino, Tanzania, are increasingly vulnerable to food insecurity due to the escalating impacts of climate change. This study examined the association between climate-smart agriculture (CSA) adoption and food security using survey data from 380 households. The findings indicate that manure application, drought-tolerant seeds, and tree intercropping are the most widely adopted CSA practices, although the adoption rate declines as adoption intensity increases: approximately 25% of households adopt only one practice, while fewer than 5% implement six. CSA adoption was associated with higher dietary diversity (HDDS), improved food consumption scores (FCS), and lower household food insecurity access scores (HFIAS) and reduced coping strategies index (rCSI). CSA adoption was also associated with higher farm income, with greater adoption intensity amplifying both food security and income benefits. Household characteristics, including education, gender, off-farm income, asset ownership, and access to extension services, were linked to variations in adoption and outcomes. These findings highlight the potential of integrated CSA strategies to support food security and livelihoods. Policies promoting CSA intensification, addressing socio-economic barriers, strengthening extension services, and targeting gender disparities can enhance the effectiveness and inclusivity of CSA adoption in semi-arid Tanzania.
Tag: agricultural development
A relational turn in Indonesian food security perspectives: connecting values in land, nutritional and planetary health
Food security debates in Indonesia increasingly extend beyond concerns of food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Environmental degradation, climate change, nutritional transitions, and competing land-use priorities highlight the need for broader perspectives that connect food systems with human and planetary well-being. This paper argues that a relational perspective can strengthen food-security analysis by emphasizing how food systems are embedded in relationships among people, landscapes, institutions, and ecological processes. Building on expanded food-security frameworks that include sustainability and agency, we examine four Indonesian policy arenas: landscape transitions in East Java, food-estate development in Merauke, school lunch programmes, and coastal protection along the North Java coast. These examples show how competing understandings of food security shape policy choices and development pathways, highlighting the importance of agency, identity, and ecological resilience in achieving long-term food security.
Managing change: farmer institutional development under NAADS. A field study on farmer institutions working with NAADS
The National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program was launc hed in 2001 to contribute to the overall strategy of development for Uganda. The Governme nt’s core policy objective of poverty eradication is articulated through a strategic framewor k, the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) whose principle goal is to provoke social transformation by raising incomes of smallholder communities. In order to achieve this, the Plan for the Modernization of Agriculture (PMA), spec ifically addressing the reas ons for low productivity, was formulated. NAADS was designed to focus on increasi ng access to knowledge, tec hnologies and information for profitable agricultural production and contribute to income generation through profitable agricultural-based enterprise development to ultimately ameliorate poverty. Theref ore, NAADS is a specific and important part of the PMA. NAADS is built on principles of partic ipation, reducing poverty, strengthe ning farmer liveli hoods and reducing the level of environmental degradation. Further, NAADS activities are oriented towards gender equality and an equitable distribution of benefits. NAADS fi rst 3 years (2001-2003) had the esta blishment and st rengthening of farmer groups (FGs) and farmer for a (FF) at sub-county and di strict levels as a key component. Farmer groups or institutions were to be oriented around identifyi ng different commodity-based enterprises where service needs related to fostering enterprise development would be addressed thr ough service provider contracts issued by the FF. A significant number of groups were in existence prior to 2001 while others were initiated during this inception phase. FG formation a nd registration and sub-county FF establ ishment was initiated after a period of sensitization, involving officials at the sub-county and district levels and the general farming community. Initially the FF were appointed though the aim was to eventually have a proc ess that encourages representative selection from the FGs. The intermediate goal is to create grassroots inst itutions through which farmer demands are articulated, leading to the procurement of extension services.
Development pathways in forest frontiers: contextual changes and local responses of small-scale farmers in the Peruvian amazon
Many rural areas in the tropics are characterized by smallholder families. Technical assistance is considered crucial for improving local livelihoods and increasing production potential. However, rural development interventions suffer from a lack of financial and human resources and have undesirable social and environmental impacts. Targeted changes in critical contextual factors can be an effective and low-cost option to facilitate sustainable farmer responses. Empirical studies analyzing these dynamics are scarce. To better understand contextual changes and local responses leading to tangible landscape-level outcomes, we conducted an in-depth case study in the districts of Soritor and Jepelacio, in the northwestern part of the San Martin region of Peru, a typical forest frontier area where smallholder farmers have settled over the last 40 years. The study shows that villages followed a standard development trajectory characterized by quantitative and qualitative improvements in infrastructure and services, leading to market integration and better quality of life. These improvements correlate with the specialization and intensification of farmers’ production systems, along with increased pressure on forests due to the influx of new settlers. Consolidation was observed three to four decades after settlement began. While the study sheds light on the relationships between contextual changes, farmer responses, and impacts over space and time, it also makes clear the difficulties to influence the observed development pathway. The results support the promotion of extension, financial, logistical, and legal instruments tailored to local realities, to facilitate local action for sustainable development and avoid the negative social and environmental consequences of economic growth.
Foundations of a learning system for food system transformation under uncertainty
Despite a broad consensus on the necessity of fundamental change, endeavors to transform food systems appear to have reached an impasse. Greater engagement with the uncertainty of food systems could open up new ways of triggering transformation directed towards achieving more sustainable and inclusive outcomes. As a way of reorienting current food system change efforts to better embrace uncertainty, we propose a framework for a transformative learning system that serves two aims. First, the framework highlights the importance of locally led action, experimentation, and learning, providing a way of focusing on the core capacities and skills needed to act in the face of uncertainty. Second, it outlines the different types of learning functions that need to operate at different scales of food systems to trigger disruptive, coordinated, and more democratic change processes. The operationalization of this framework necessitates shifts in roles and ways of working across the landscape of food system interventions. The discussion will address the who and how of this potential change, as well as its subsequent impact on the operational modalities of individuals, the process of change itself, and the structures and institutions involved in the process. We argue that embracing uncertainty and the focus on learning has the potential to facilitate a more agile and locally relevant change process. This would allow actors to learn from decentrally pursued food systems reforms, leading to the emergence of diverse pathways that complement on-going efforts and potentially accelerate transformation efforts.
Mobile applications in improving communication and information delivery for agricultural development in Uganda: challenges and opportunities
Small scale farmers inhabiting the highly dissected highlands in Kabale district, Uganda lack access to appropriate information necessary to apply methods and technologies for increasing agricultural productivity and improving the management of the natural resource base. Their information needs are characteristically changing over time in such a way that they required access to certain information not available due to limiting communication services. To address this shortcoming, African highlands Initiative (AHI) designed an action research project funded by IDRC through its ACACIA initiative, which introduced an effective information chain to connect farmers to appropriate information providers through telecentres and village information centres. The centres were equipped with portable phones among other information and communication technologies including print materials like leaflets, brochures, pamphlets, research report and books. The paper discusses the dynamics of using portable phones among small holder farmers isolating strength, weakness and threats while analysing insights associated with results patterns. Research findings showed that use of phone was appreciated by rural communities as easy, fast and convenient way to communicate and get prompt answers of respective problems. Farmers were more excited about the use of phone than other information and communication technologies. Use of mobile phones to access information differed from one parish to another. Information on marketing is mostly needed (100%), post-harvest handling (98%), improved seed management (93%) and natural resources management (71%). Further, it was revealed that generally more male farmers (59.3%) used phones than female farmers (40.7%). However more female farmers (66.7%) requested information on NRM and agriculture compared to male farmers (33.3%). Despite some challenges such as poor phone network and distances from calling centre, the use of phone in the study area was accompanied by positive outcomes, and opened a range of opportunities including emerging of strong social groups working together collectively to achieve a common goal. This is demonstrated by farmers coming together to market their produce. Based on project results the fastest growth of the mobile in the country provides opportunities for various actors along commodity chain (production to end user) to look into possibilities of using mobile applications to boost agricultural development that accounts for 30.2 % of the county’s GDP.
Assessing the Need for Establishing Land, Soil, and Crop Information Hubs to Support Climate-Smart Agriculture in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda
The Land, Soil, and Crop Information Services (LSC-IS) project (2021–2025) aims to establish sustainable agricultural data hubs within national research organizations in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda to support climate-smart agriculture. Beginning with a comprehensive needs assessment, the project identified user data requirements, institutional capacity gaps, and staff expertise needs. These findings informed strategies for embedding, long-term maintenance, and sustainability of the hubs, alongside multi-stakeholder engagement at national, district, and local levels. Two primary use cases guided the assessments: soil fertility management and soil and water conservation. Methodology included workshops, stakeholder interviews, and surveys emphasizing data demand for advancing climate-smart agriculture. In Ethiopia, AICCRA supports the Ministry of Agriculture in developing the AgDataHub and the National Soil Information System (NSIS). In Kenya, KALRO leads the Kenya Digital Agriculture Platform and contributes through the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP). In Rwanda, the Rwanda Soil Information System (RwaSIS) provides soil fertility advisories and links to the Smart Nkunganire System (SNS), with a national Agricultural Management Information System (AMIS) under preparation.
Prioritizing Tanzania’s agricultural development policy to build smallholder climate resilience. Final report for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations 22: Risk-explicit and Evidence-based Policy Prioritization (REAP)
Faced with myriad options, Sub-Saharan Africa policy makers struggle to prioritize actions. Commonly used modeling approaches perform poorly in data scare conditions or focus intently on tools at hand. Policies, by consequence, report ‘wish lists’, making them a challenge to implement given resource constraints. Here, we evaluate the potential of using an alternative approach, Bayesian Networks (BNs), to prioritize agricultural policy actions, specifically modeling seven ‘Investment Areas’ listed in Tanzania’s Agriculture Sector Development Programme II.
Prioritizing Tanzania’s agricultural development policy to build smallholder climate resilience. Final report for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations 22: Risk-explicit and Evidence-based Policy Prioritization (REAP)
Faced with myriad options, Sub-Saharan Africa policy makers struggle to prioritize actions. Commonly used modeling approaches perform poorly in data scare conditions or focus intently on tools at hand. Policies, by consequence, report ‘wish lists’, making them a challenge to implement given resource constraints. Here, we evaluate the potential of using an alternative approach, Bayesian Networks (BNs), to prioritize agricultural policy actions, specifically modeling seven ‘Investment Areas’ listed in Tanzania’s Agriculture Sector Development Programme II.
Prioritizing Tanzania’s agricultural development policy to build smallholder climate resilience. Final report for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations 22: Risk-explicit and Evidence-based Policy Prioritization (REAP)
Faced with myriad options, Sub-Saharan Africa policy makers struggle to prioritize actions. Commonly used modeling approaches perform poorly in data scare conditions or focus intently on tools at hand. Policies, by consequence, report ‘wish lists’, making them a challenge to implement given resource constraints. Here, we evaluate the potential of using an alternative approach, Bayesian Networks (BNs), to prioritize agricultural policy actions, specifically modeling seven ‘Investment Areas’ listed in Tanzania’s Agriculture Sector Development Programme II.