Base on the experience of Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) implementation in West Africa, ICRAF is suggesting linking value chains (VCs) development, innovation platform elaboration with PICSA approach as a mean for climate change adaptation and mitigation and enhancing farmers’ resilience. This aims to integrating PICSA to the planned activities of partners such as CORAF through their existing innovation platforms and use the developed skills to improve the efficiency of the most important VCs while reducing risks. By strengthening the capacities of actors on climate change adaptation, skills acquired from PICSA trainings can also be considered as de-risking avenue in agriculture-food systems-value chains and thus provide more possibilities for these skilled persons to access financial services for their livelihood activities. PAIRED, an USAID funded project of CORAF, has been seen as excellent opportunity for linking PICSA to VCs development through Innovation Platform in West Africa. ICRAF has then engaged in collaboration with CORAF to achieve this goal. The training started in Kumasi, Ghana for 21 participants including three women coming from Ghana and Nigeria, the two West African Anglophone countries (Ghana and Nigeria) involved in CORAF/PARIED project from May 17 to 21, 2021. The second session was held in Cotonou, Benin from May 31 to June 4, 2021 for 4 Francophone countries including Benin, Mali, Niger and Senegal. Twentyfour participants (1 woman), coming from meteorological services agencies, state extension services and national research institutes, attended the francophone workshop in Cotonou. PAIRED is a West African Agricultural Research, Education and Development Partnership project funded by USAID for 6 years (2017-2022) led by CORAF, an international non-profit association working to enhance prosperity, food, and nutrition security in West and Central Africa with a headquarter based in Dakar, Senegal. CORAF has been a partner of ICRAF for various projects such as Capacitating Stakeholders in Using Climate Information for Enhanced Resilience in the Agricultural Sector in West Africa (CASCIERA-TA) a two-year World Bank funded project (Bayala et al. 2020). PAIRED project is implemented in 6 West African countries including Benin, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. The main objective is to increase agricultural growth, food and nutritional security and reduce poverty in West and Central Africa through innovation platforms and the diffusion and adoption of innovative technologies. There is component regarding the diffusion included for addressing the challenges of climate change and variability that farmers are facing, it assumed that synergies between climate change adaptation goals and competitive strategies in food value chains, resilience of the food systems are of great importance. To help farmers copping with the negative impact of climate change CORAF and ICRAF are collaborating with various partners including AGRHYMET, Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security research program (CCAFS), the University of Reading, national meteorological and hydrological services, national research institutes and various NGOs in many West African countries to implement innovative approaches such climate-smart agriculture (CSA), Climate-Smart Village (CSV) and Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA). The goal of the present activitiesis to build the capacity of agriculture stakeholders in the use of climate information services and strengthen the value chains of essential livelihood products in West Africa for innovative public-private joint venture. This requires identifying market and primary entry points through PICSA as well as extending the participation in the value chains to corporate partners alongside civil society, smallholder farmers and research institutions. The specific objective of these 2 session trainings is to enhance the capacity of stakeholders involved in PAIRED project to learn and implement 4 PICSA approach for an efficient use of climate information services and increase farmers’ resilience to climatic change.
Tag: agriculture
Overcoming constraints of scaling: Critical and empirical perspectives on agricultural innovation scaling
Scaling is a ubiquitous concept in agricultural research in the global south as donors require their research grantees to prove that their results can be scaled to impact upon the livelihoods of a large number of beneficiaries. Recent studies on scaling have brought critical perspectives to the rather technocratic tendencies in the agricultural innovations scaling literature. Drawing on theoretical debates on spatial strategies and practical experience of agricultural innovation scaling in Ethiopia, this paper adds to the current debate on what constitutes scaling and how to overcome critical scaling constraints. The data for the paper came from a qualitative assessment using focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and document analysis on scaling work done in Ethiopia by a USAID-funded research for development project. The paper concludes with four broad lessons for the current understating of agricultural innovation scaling. First, scaling of agricultural innovations requires a balanced focus on technical requirements and associated social dynamics surrounding scaling targets, actors involved and their social relations. Second, appreciating the social dynamics of scaling emphasizes the fact that scaling is more complex than a linear rolling out of innovations towards diffusion. Third, scaling may not be strictly planned; instead, it might be an extension of the innovation generation process that relies heavily on both new and long-term relationships with key partners, trust, and continuous reflection and learning. Fourth, the overall implication of the above three conclusions is that scaling strategies need to be flexible, stepwise, and reflective. Despite the promises of flourishing scaling frameworks, scaling strategies it would appear from the Africa RISING experience that, if real impact is to be achieved, approaches will be required to be flexible enough to manage the social, processual and emergent nature of the practice of scaling.
Understanding and influencing agency and behaviour change in Kenya
This country brief is part of the outputs for Work Package 5 of the CGIAR Initiative on Agroecology. The focus of Work Package 5 is understanding and then influencing individual and collective agency and behavior among food system actors (FSAs) to drive inclusive and equitable agroecological transformation. Through learning from past experiences relevant to agroecological transformation, this country brief aims to inform the development of the Agroecological Living Landscapes (ALL) and the approach to the Agroecology Initiative’s (AE-I’s) activities in Kenya. The aim is to investigate successes and failures in achieving behaviour change, the nature of the change(s) achieved as well as the aims and assumptions behind the actions planned to enable change. The country brief outlines the trends in initiatives that make a significant contribution to agroecological transformation in terms of numbers of initiatives, types of initiatives, and AE principles promoted.
Strengthening decision-making on sustainable agricultural intensification through multi-stakeholder social learning in sub-Saharan Africa
Increasing and competing demands on agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa mean that policy and investment decisions become more complex. Despite growing consensus on the need for sustainable agricultural intensification, there is limited agreement on how to achieve this in practice. Governments and societies face uncertainty and complex choices. This paper explores the potential of Multi-Stakeholder, Social Learning (MSL) approaches, facilitated by National Learning Alliances (NLAs), to improve policy and investment decisions. Comparative evidence from a donor-supported research and learning programme in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia is used in a theory-based evaluation approach to assess the contribution of the NLAs to capacity and practice change amongst individuals, networks and senior decision-makers. Ten outcome cases are explored, including their contribution to systemic changes in the governance of evidence. Key lessons included: the value to decision-makers of engaging with informal networks; importance of combining dialogue, deliberation and experiential learning; the need to create safe spaces in national level MSL processes; the demanding combination of facilitation skills and commitment; and appropriately flexible support. This suggests a need not only for the production of quality research, but crucially support for MSL as a means of contributing to the good governance of evidence and sustainable change.
Co-production and Uptake of Weather and Climate Services: Evidence of Welfare Impacts Among Farmers in Senegal Using A Dynamic Panel Data Approach
The present study aims to assess the impact of weather and climate information on the agricultural productivity and household income of smallholder farmers in Senegal. More specifically, authors assess the effectiveness of the Multidisciplinary Working Group (MWG) model that co-produces tailored weather and climate information in influencing management responses by farmers, ultimately leading to improved livelihoods in the form of higher crop yields and incomes.
Contribution of forests and trees to food security and nutrition
Key messages
- Forests, trees and agroforestry play a key, often undervalued, role to support food security and nutrition (FSN), in its four dimensions (availability, access, utilization and stability).
- Forests, trees and agroforestry provide: (i) diverse and nutritious foods (such as nuts, oils, vegetables – leaves, flowers, roots –, fruits, bushmeat, fish, herbs, saps, mushrooms, tubers and insects), and feed for livestock; (ii) bioenergy for cooking and boiling water; (iii) income and employment (both formal and informal); and (iv) ecosystem services indispensable for agriculture and food production, now and in the future.
- All these contributions need to be better considered by policies aiming at strengthening food security and nutrition, towards SDG2.
- The contributions of forests and trees to FSN allow a broader and richer understanding of the notion of people’s “forest dependence”, with local to national and global dependences.
- Maximizing the contributions of forests, trees and agroforestry to FSN requires policy coherence and integrated landscape approaches.
- Agricultural policies need to better integrate the specificities of tree crops and the multiple benefits provided by the integration of trees in farming systems.
Understanding the Driving Forces and Actors of Land Change Due to Forestry and Agricultural Practices in Sumatra and Kalimantan: A Systematic Review
Indonesia has experienced one of the world’s greatest dynamic land changes due to forestry and agricultural practices. Understanding the drivers behind these land changes remains challenging, partly because landscape research is spread across many domains and disciplines. We provide a systematic review of 91 studies that identify the causes and land change actors across Sumatra and Kalimantan. Our review shows that oil palm expansion is the most prominent (65 studies) among multiple direct causes of land change. We determined that property rights are the most prominent issue (31 studies) among the multiple underlying causes of land change. Distinct combinations of mainly economic, institutional, political, and social underlying drivers determine land change, rather than single key drivers. Our review also shows that central and district governments as decision-making actors are prominent (69 studies) among multiple land change actors. Our systematic review indicates knowledge gaps that can be filled by clarifying the identification and role of actors in land change.
Financial risks that may impair smallholders’ ability to continue farming: An agricultural risk profiling methodology
The idea behind this document is to provide a quick overview of some of the details that might be important for World Agroforestry (ICRAF) when devising new projects in which agricultural risk management1 is a desired component. The document is intended to serve as an addendum to training sessions for ICRAF on agricultural insurance. Please refer to the documentation of the sessions for further information. As learned during the training sessions, in the insurance/reinsurance industry and, in particular, for types of property insurance2, the usual way of gathering information about a certain agricultural risk or farm holding is through a proposal form (also known as questionnaire or risk assessment form).
Learning pathway: Course flows & blueprint
This course is a pivotal contribution to FAO’s vision of fostering a Better Environment, particularly focusing on Biodiversity for food and agriculture. Aligned with FAO’s strategic initiatives, the course is fortified by the approval of the FAO Strategy on Mainstreaming Biodiversity Across Agricultural Sectors and the 2021-23 Action Plan, emphasizing the importance of targeted policies and practices for sustainable use, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems.
Combined application of the EM-DEA and EX-ACT approaches for integrated assessment of resource use efficiency, sustainability and carbon footprint of smallholder maize production practices in sub-Saharan Africa
The goal to improve food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) through domestic, resource efficient and low carbon agriculture is importance. Interventions to produce more food could impact the resource-base and lead to increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agroecosystems. Unfortunately, existing methods are limited in analyzing small-scale agricultural systems, and this situation is an obstacle to decision making which aims at sustainable agriculture. In this paper, we showcase the recently developed Emergy-Data Envelopment Analysis (EM-DEA) approach to assess the resource use efficiency (RUE) and sustainability in maize production systems in Ghana, SSA. Using the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM), five land use and resource management scenarios were modeled to represent practices as decision making units (DMUs) in small-scale maize systems. The carbon footprint of the systems was assessed using an approach, which we adapted from the FAO Ex-Ante Carbon balance Tool (EX-ACT). The overall trend of the results showed that the yield, total emergy, GHG emissions and carbon footprint all increased with increase in urea application intensity. However, the relationship between the yield and urea intensity was not always linear. A system that used more renewable or fewer resources to produce a yield equal to that of its peer was considered more efficient and sustainable in relative terms. In particular, the business-as-usual scenario (12 kg/ha/yr NPK input to rainfed maize system, i.e. Extensive12) was inefficient when compared to the four contrasting scenarios. The ecological intensive scenario (20 kg/ha/yr urea input to rainfed maize-legume intercropping system, i.e. Intercrop20) achieved the greatest marginal yield, better RUE and sustainability. The high input scenario (100 kg/ha/yr urea input plus supplemental irrigation to maize monoculture, i.e. Intensive100) produced the greatest yield, but the demand for purchased inputs as well as GHG emissions and carbon footprint were greatest. The no external input scenario (0 kg/ha/yr urea input to rainfed maize system, i.e. Extensive0), and the moderate input scenario (50 kg/ha/yr urea input plus supplemental irrigation to maize monoculture, i.e. Intensive50) showed the greatest and least yield gaps relative to Intensive100, respectively. Based on these results and trade-off analysis, it was evident that Intercrop20 and Intensive50 were the two best case scenarios. As such, land use policy that aims at sustainable agriculture could recommend Intercrop20 and Intensive50 for implementation in low and high input maize production systems, respectively. Comparison between our results and other existing empirical studies revealed similarities that confirm our results. We conclude that the information derived using the EM-DEA and EX-ACT approaches could be useful when making informed decisions that aim at sustainable agriculture. Despite the limitation caused by scarcity of data, the use of the EM-DEA approach led to inclusive information on RUE and sustainability of the DMUs. Hence, the EM-DEA approach represents a way forward to better assess energy footprint in agricultural land use as a whole.