This Thematic Series on “Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies in West Africa: learning from the ground AR4D experiences” contains seven papers presented by researchers from four West African countries based on participatory action research conducted since 2012 in the region. These research activities were funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) through a project titled “Developing community-based climate-smart agriculture through participatory action research in CCAFS benchmark sites in West Africa” (see [1]). This research action under the scientific lead of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) aimed to test and validate, in partnership with rural communities and other stakeholders, scalable climate-smart village models for agricultural development that integrate a range of innovative agricultural risk management strategies. The project also aimed to enable farmers, developers, managers and policy makers for the agriculture sector to develop cost-effective climate-smart agriculture (CSA) options that support local sustainable development and enhance livelihood resilience. It is therefore a response to the challenges (degraded lands, low crop productivity, high level of poverty for rural people, etc.) faced to satisfy the food needs of an increasing population in the face of a changing climate.
Tag: agriculture
Assessing the Impact of Landuse on Water Quality Using Macroinvertebrata in the Upper Way Besai Catchment
Deforestation is often blamed as a main culprit for decreasing water quality. About 20% of the State Forest land in Indonesia is classified as ‘protection forest’ in order to safeguard water quality. Also in Sumberjaya (sometimes violent) evictions took place in order to ‘safeguard’ the watershed. This study aims to assess the impact of land use on the biological water quality.
Restoring lives and landscapes: how a partnership between local communities and the state is saving forests and improving livelihoods in Guinea
This booklet tells the story of a project that has had a profound influence on the management of four large forest areas in Guinea. The Landscape Management for mproved Livelihoods (LAM L) project has also done much to improve the welfare of local people. ndeed, the two – better forest management and improved livelihoods – are inextricably linked. The World Agroforestry Centre, the Center for nternational Forestry Research (C FOR) and their partners in the LAM L project have developed a system of co-management, involving local communities and government agencies, which is generating considerable interest in Guinea and throughout the region. Not long ago, these forests were managed by government agencies. Local people were forbidden from using them. As a result, the forests were widely abused, and the authorities were able to do little to stem the tide of illegal logging, poaching and land clearance. Under co-management, in contrast, local people derive real benefits from the forests, and in return they have shown their willingness, and ability, to manage them sustainably.
Farming trees, banishing hunger: how an agroforestry programme is helping smallholders in Malawi to grow more food and improve their livelihoods
This booklet tells the story of Malawi’s Agroforestry Food Security Programme. Funded by Irish Aid and coordinated by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), in partnership with a consortium of national institutions, the four-year programme will enable at least 200,000 families – or around .3 million of the poorest people in Malawi – to increase their food production and enhance their nutrition. At the same time, the programme will do much to improve soil fertility and restore degraded farmland. All of this will be done by encouraging farmers to use the agroforestry technologies developed by the World Agroforestry Centre and its partners over more than a decade of research in Southern Africa. During recent years, thousands of farming families – some of their stories are told here – have dramatically increased their welfare, and that of their land, by planting trees which capture atmospheric nitrogen, and by incorporating into their small farms a range of trees which yield fruit, firewood and livestock fodder. The benefits of these agroforestry technologies are clear; the task now is to promote their use throughout Malawi. This is precisely what the Agroforestry Food Security Programme is doing. During 2007, the programme supported almost 90,000 smallholder farmers by providing seeds, seedlings, nursery materials and training. This is just a beginning. These farmers will receive further support over the coming years, ensuring that they become self-sufficient and confident enough to share their skills with their neighbours. The World Agroforestry Centre and its national partners in Malawi would like to express their thanks to Irish Aid for its strong commitment to adopting science-based solutions to tackle hunger and poverty. Irish Aid’s faith in developing perennial solutions to perennial problems is exemplary, and its support, amounting to at least US$ 4 million over four years, should make hunger a thing of the past for a significant number of people in Malawi
COCOA futures: an innovative programme of research and training is transforming the lives of cocoa growers in Indonesia and beyond
Cocoa provides a living for over 6.5 million smallholder families, a significant source of revenue for a small number of tropical countries, and the key ingredient that sustains the chocolate industry. To keep pace with growing demand, annual cocoa production must rise by 1 million tonnes over the next decade. If that’s to happen, millions of hectares of old and unproductive cocoa gardens will have to be rehabilitated.
Soil macrofauna in agricultural landscapes dominated by the Quesungual Slash-and-Mulch Agroforestry System, western Honduras
Smallholder agroforestry systems often incorporate features that are associated with abundant, diverse soil macrofauna populations. This study sampled soil macrofauna communities across four major land uses present within agricultural landscapes where the Quesungual Slash-and-Mulch Agroforestry System (QSMAS) has been increasingly adopted by smallholder farmers in western Honduras. The four land uses were: secondary forest (F), agroforestry plots of less than two years of age (AF 10), and silvipastoral fields (SP). Transect-based sampling of soil macrofauna using the standard Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute (TSBF) method was employed in both the dry season and wet season. All four land uses sampled in this study harboured diverse, abundant and highly variable soil macrofauna populations. In the dry season, total density of soil macrofauna ranged from 1265 ± 308 individuals m2 in F sites to 1924 ± 436 individuals m2 in AF < 2 sites. In the wet season, total density ranged from 907 ± 294 individuals m2 in F, to 1637 ± 358 individuals m2 in AF < 2. Biomass values followed a similar pattern, ranging from 4.3 ± 1.1 g m2 to 24.8 ± 8.2 g m2 in the dry season and from 13.1 ± 3.0 g m2 to 41.9 ± 11.1 g m2 in the wet season. In order of decreasing strength of statistical relationship, soil depth, land use and season were all related to some aspects of soil macrofauna density, biomass and community composition. At a broad functional group level, soil macrofauna community composition was very similar across all four land uses. The results suggest that the agricultural practices associated with the ‘Quesungual’ agroforestry system may promote a relatively abundant, diverse soil macrofauna community. The presence of an abundant soil macrofauna community may have important effects on aspects of soil quality that are particularly important to resource-limited smallholder farmers.
Decomposition: driven by nature or nurture?
Although the carbon flow involved in decomposi- tion is approximately equal to that in primary pro- duction, the amount of research is far less. A recent symposium under the title “Driven by Nature” re- viewed the role of plant litter quality in determining decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems, both in the tropics and in the temperate region (Cadisch and Giller, 1996). In as far as decomposition of plant residues is indeed fully ‘driven by their nature’, i.e. determined by the physical, chemical and biological qualities of the organic residue, a fairly small re- search attention might be justified. In practice, how- ever, the biotic and abiotic environment in which decomposition takes place (the ‘nurture’) has a con- siderable modifying effect both on the rate at which decomposition occurs and on the end-products formed (CO 2, CH 4, humus, charcoal). The role of cell and tissue structure as well as ‘secondary’ metabolites during the life of the plant can now be connected to their effects during decomposition after death of the plant (or its parts).
Economic Performance of Cotton and Fruit Plantations in arid Regions: Observation from the Tarim River Basin, NW China
Arid lands cover 17% of the world’s land. There, crop production largely depends on irrigation and frequently faces water shortages. Cotton is grown in arid lands, e.g. Central Asia and Northwest China. Today, the Tarim Basin, Xinjiang, China has turned into the world’s most important cotton production region with an annual cotton lint production of 2.1 million t (8.85% of the world production). Against the background of water shortages, cotton farmers in parts of the Tarim Basin have shifted to more highly valuable fruit production, especially Zyzyphus jujube (Chinese Date) and the so-called Korla Fragrant Pear (Pyrus bretschneideri Rdhd.).This paper thus aims at assessing the costs, revenues, and profits as well as the return to land and the return to family labor obtained by farmers from those three crops in the Tarim Basin. Data were gathered through farm interviews.Seed cotton yield was 4482 kg/ha in average, with 6155 kg/ha attained by farms under the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). XPCC, family farms, and commercial farms attained profits of 16846 CNY/ha, 1480 CNY/ha, and 3165 CNY/ha, respectively. Profits from Chinese Date were 53255 CNY/ha and 64279 CNY/ha for family farms and commercial farms, respectively. Among the cotton farm types, the XPCC have the highest profits and return to land. This largely can be explained by the high seed cotton yields of the XPCC farms. Though the XPCC farms are operated by single families, they belong to a strict organization, the XPCC, which urges the families to plant cotton, but provides extension services, too.Chinese Date has become an attractive alternative for small family farms.The value of this study lies in the primary data, household interviews, used. This especially applies for commercial farms which are located outside villages and their statistics.
Poverty eradication and food security through agriculture in Africa: Rethinking objectives and entry points
Agriculture in Africa is expected to meet the dual objectives of providing food and helping people to escape poverty. African agriculture is dominated by smallholdings and donors generally target their agricultural support at the smallholder sector. The expectation is that if the gap between actual and potential yields can be closed, smallholders will grow sufficient crops to feed their families, with a surplus to sell, thus meeting food security needs and bringing in an income to move them out of poverty. In practice, this is often not possible. While technologies already exist that can raise smallholder farmers’ yields 3 or 4 times, even under rainfed conditions, the small size of land available to them limits how much can be grown and the per capita income from agriculture is insufficient to allow people to move above the current World Bank-defined poverty line of US$1.90 per day. We link this finding with farmer typologies to further explain that there are large differences between individual farming households themselves in terms of their investment incentives and capability to benefit from field-level technologies that are aimed at increasing farm productivity. We argue for more differentiated policies for agricultural development in Africa and suggest that policymakers should be much more aware of the heterogeneity of farms and target interventions accordingly. It is important to understand where and for whom agriculture will have the main purpose of ensuring food and nutritional security and where and for whom there is the potential for significant increases in incomes and a contribution to wider economic growth. Let us recognize the distinctiveness of these targets and underlying target groups and work towards solutions that address the underlying needs.
Agricultural crops suitability for Aceh Barat Distict
Tree farming was dominant in the west coast prior to tsunami, and that they promised not only sustainable livelihood, but also superior environmental protection. During the tsunami, considerable portion of this ‘green infrastructure’ was devastated and thus land suitability evaluation efforts is required for supporting the redesign and reconstruction. The objective of this research was to evaluate the land suitability of Aceh Barat District for tree crops and food crops.