Afghanistan is a land-locked country with an area of 65,262,600 hecatares (ha) of which only 7,600,000 ha (11.6%) is cultivable and out of this, only 50% ia arable land. It is characterized by a continental arid and semi-arid climate where the presence of the mountains leads to local climate variations. Temperatures vary from – 10c in winter to 34C in summer. Annual precipitation in most pats of the country ranges between 100-400 mm with an average of 250mm. More than 80% rainfall is received during the winter and early spring. The country is divided into the following six agro-climatic zones.
Tag: agriculture
A coalition for enabling demand-driven development in Kabale District, Uganda
Fifteen nurseries that have demonstrated significant improvement in the produce on of quality plants and best nursery practices in Cameroon have received prizes. The prize award ceremony took place Wednesday 8th February 2012 at the Centre’s regional oce in Bastos,Yaounde. The biennial event brought together representatives of short-listed ICRAF promoted nurseries from across Cameroon is to recognize, motivate and celebrate outstanding efforts by nursery operators that have made eorts to improve the performance of their nurseries by producing improved planting materials and to promote tree domestication techniques and agroforestry practices.
Nitrous Oxide and Methane Fluxes from Urine and Dung Deposited on Kenyan Pastures
Livestock keeping is ubiquitous in tropical Africa. Urine and dung from livestock release greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4), to the atmosphere. However, the extent of GHG’s impact is uncertain due to the lack of in situ measurements in the region. Here we measured N2O and CH4 emissions from cow urine and dung depositions in two Kenyan pastures that received different amounts of rainfall using static chambers across wet and dry seasons. Cumulative N2O emissions were greater under dung+urine and urine-only patches (P < 0.0001), more than three times higher in the wet compared with the dry season (P < 0.0001), and higher in the farm receiving higher rainfall overall (P < 0.0001). Cumulative CH4 emissions differed across treatments (P = 0.012), driven primarily by soil CH4 uptake from the urine-only treatment. Cumulative N2O emissions were positively related to N input rate in excreta. However, the relationship was linear during the dry season (r2 = 0.99; P = 0.001) and exponential during the wet season (r2 = 0.99; P < 0.0001). Nitrous oxide emission factors were 0.05% (dry season) and 0.18% (wet season) of N in urine and dung+urine, which is less than 10% of the IPCC Default Tier 1 emission factor of 2%. We predict that emissions from cattle urine in Kenya are approximately 1.7 Gg N2O–N yr-1 (FAO estimates 11.9 Gg N2O–N yr-1). Our findings suggest that current estimates may overestimate the contribution of excreta to national GHG emissions and that emission factors from urine and dung need to account for agroecosystems with distinct wet and dry seasons.
Addressing gender in climate-smart smallholder agriculture
This brief focuses on the constraints that women face to more equitable participation in smallholder carbon and climatesmart initiatives. It highlights the important role that a flexible learning approach plays in advancing equity goals, and offers recommendations for concrete actions that can empower both women and men.
An economic evaluation of medicinal tree cultivation: Prunus africana in Cameroon
Wild populations of the Afromontane forest tree Prunus africana (Rosaceae), known as the African Cherry or Red Stinkwood (sometimes called Pygeum africanum) are currently the sole source of bark and bark extract exported from Africa and Madagascar to Europe. This trade has taken place for nearly 30 years, for production of at least 19 different herbal preparations sold by 23 companies based primarily in Europe, but also in North and South America. These are used to treat benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), a common disease in older men. This account provides an interesting case-study of a medicinal species which is in transition from wild harvest to cultivated sources of supply. It also illustrates the ‘ecological footprint’ of Europe on African forests, and upon a medicinal resource within them. Bark exploitation has caused serious damage to wild populations of Prunus africana, including trees inside forests of high conservation value in Madagascar and Cameroon. Because of the difficulty of implementing and enforcing conservation measures or developing local institutions to do so, sustainable bark harvesting of remaining wild stocks by local communities is considered unlikely in Cameroon and in Madagascar. For these reasons, cultivation has been suggested as an alternative source of bark production. This study investigated the economic feasibility of different planting systems (enrichment planting, small-scale farming and plantations) for Prunus africana cultivation. As part of this process, we investigated Prunus Africana bark production and growth rates, finding statistically significant correlations between bark thickness, diameter at breast height (dbh) and tree height. Prunus africana showed rapid growth, reaching 14m high and 37cm dbh in 18 years. Results of a comparison between the flow of costs and benefits from small-scale production of Prunus africana and Eucalyptus camaldulensis show that Eucalyptus camaldulensis cultivation is 30% more profitable than Prunus Africana production. But there are reasons why farmers might rather invest in Prunus africana instead of, or in addition to, Eucalyptus trees: Prunus africana is highly valued as an ingredient in many local medicinal treatments, it is used in making tools such as hoes and axes, and it is a good source of poles and firewood. Moreover, farmers and field observation indicated that with the possible exception of maize, crop yield is not much affected by the presence of Prunus africana in the fields. This contrasts with the depressive effect of Eucalyptus trees on crop yields. In North West Province, Cameroon, at least 3,500 farmers are already planting Prunus africana. Bark price is affected by moisture content, distance from the factory and the monopoly, which the company has had on export of bark and bark extract. This study determined bark moisture content to be 42-50%. In rural Cameroon, intermediaries only pay 70 FCFA (0.14 US$) per kg of Prunus africana bark, equivalent to about US$ 142 per ton of fresh bark. At the factory gate, bark sells for 104-270 FCFA francs per kg (in 1994, 1 US$ = 490 CFA), depending on bark moisture content and quality, equivalent to US$ 212 – 551 per ton. Higher prices were paid for bark in Cameroon in 1994, when an Italian company paid 250 FCFA francs/kg, regardless of bark moisture content (US$510 per ton of fresh bark). In Kenya, the price paid to the exporter was considerably higher (11 French francs (US$ 2) per kg). This is equivalent to a price of US$ 2,000 per ton of fresh bark. By comparison, the price for fresh bark of the black wattle, Acacia mearnsii, which is cultivated for its tannin- rich bark, was US$ 94 per ton. On the basis of this study, we recommend clarification of Cameroon forestry law to enable farmers to sell bark from Prunus africana trees they cultivate, that information on the best methods for Prunus africana cultivation from seed be provided to farmers, more competitive bark prices that reflect the international market value of this product, and the initiation of an out-grower scheme with the involvement of the pharmaceutical company that buys the bark and has a monopoly on the export of bark extract.
Analysis and processing of the field assessment of participatory research: workshop document. Workshop held at EARO in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 17-21, 2002
The participatory research assessment initiative started in early 2001 when there was an agreement on shared objectives with EARO management. This was followed by the design of anassessment frame (workshop in April 2001), a field assessment of case studies (in March 2002), and a subsequent analysis of field assessment information (part I of this workshop), and then feedback to EARO management which resulted in decisions on next steps and the way forward (part 2 of this workshop reported here). The 8 case studies for the field assessment were chosen to compare different types of research that were conventional to those using different degrees of farmer participation and associated techniques and methods. The selection of cases were also set up so as to make a comparison between NRM and variety selection types of research, and to provide practical examples that could be analysed using the performance indicators related to effective research (the impact framework designed in the first workshop.) The overall general expectations at the onset of the assessment process were to understand the potentials and constraints of participatory research in the Ethiopian context, to produce a framework and guidelines for best practice and for impact assessment of research, and formulate a strategy for operationalizing participatory research using our knowledge of success factors in Ethiopia as part of implementing effective research. The overall hypothesis that was that participation of farmers and stakeholders makes research more effective. More specifically, the 2-part workshop reported here was organized to deepen the analysis of participatory research (PR) using a synthetic assessment of a range of field experiences against the impact framework that is indicative of good general research practice (Part I ). Part I had the following outputs: a summary of the impacts, benefits, gaps, challenges and constraints of the approaches used; identification of best practices in existing work and reflections on the assessment, the guiding principles and lessons arising — which we called success factors. These results were then shared in Part 2, a second workshop session that invited a wider group of EAROmanagers from headquarters and research stations. This management group provided further reactions, impressions and recommendations as well as a strategy to move forward to improve the efficiency of research in Ethiopia. Some guiding values and principles for effective, impact-oriented research were identified in the first workshop and shared with managers during Part 2 a and these were felt to be very important.Some of the important impact areas and contributions of PR identified in the synthesis included:. Enhances the development of appropriate technologies. Enhances relevance of research approach. Establishes linkages among farmers, between farmers and institutions. Engages farmers in actively searching for their own solutions to problems. Builds farmers capacity in managing their resourcesria . Changes attitudes of researchers and institutions towards farmers of the weak areas identified in current application of PR included:Inadequate competency in PR of implementing agents. Limited commitment and engagement by research staff in fieldwork with farmers. Inadequate documentation of the PR process. Limited technology options for farmers
Lateral resource flow and capture – the key to scaling up agroforestry results
The ideal of agroforestry experimentation has become a situation where all resource capture is restricted to a vertical soil column under the plot and lateral light interception is minimized.
Tree nursery and seed procurement characteristics influence on seedling quality in Oromia, Ethiopia
Most tree nurseries in Ethiopia overemphasize mass seedling production to the expense of seedling quality. The study aimed at evaluating nursery characteristics and tree seed procurement approaches, and how these influenced seedling quality in eight purposively selected Woredas of Oromia region. A total of 169 respondents from government and non-government organizations, farmer nursery owners and development/extension agents and officers were interviewed. Seed quality was explored through assessing the seed supply sources, the type of seed source and mother tree selection, and the practices in seed physiological quality assessments. Our results revealed that over half (62.5%) of the nurseries were government owned, while 20% were NGO-run nurseries and the remaining 17.5% were owned by farmers. Nine challenges constraining tree seedling production and leading to underperformance were identified, with the two major problems shared by all nursery types being lack of sufficient material and germplasm input and using seeds of low or unknown quality. Informal seed dealers were the main source of seeds (87.6%) for all the nursery types. On the other hand, nursery operator’s own seed collection was from any free-standing trees either planted or retained as these sources were easily accessible. Seeds were, on average, collected from few mother trees, implying a high probability of sourcing seeds of narrow genetic diversity. Analysis of variance revealed statistically significant differences in seedling germination among the different seed procurement approaches within the same seed type. The seeds obtained from formal seed dealers had the highest germination rates in both hard-coated (87.3%) and soft-coated (79.7%) seeds. Our findings suggest that there is need to improve the seed procurement and the seedling supply system through quality assurance of the seeds used in seedling production. © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Tree Nursery Establishment and Tree Management; Training Manual for Community Tree Nursery Operators and Tree Farmers
1.1 What is a tree nursery A tree nursery is an area/ place where young trees (seedlings) are given special care. 1.2 Types of tree nurseries (i) Temporary or flying nursery: can be used for a season or two, a year or two. Permanent nursery: Is meant to serve for a long period of time. In this case, seedlings are raised from year to year. 1.3 Factors to consider when deciding on the type of nursery The number of plants required The period the demand is likely to last Availability of transport/market
Enabling Decision-Making for Agricultural Interventions
Agricultural systems are influenced by a range of environmental, economic and socio-‐cultural factors. Due to this complexity, policymakers in agricultural development need science-‐based guidance to make decisions. Classical research approaches, using data-‐driven models, often fail to inform intervention decisions due to insufficient and low quality data. Given their multifaceted and complex nature, agricultural issues require the integration of knowledge and systems thinking from beyond the discipline-‐specific approaches that are often used.