Tag: Intensification
Intensification benefit index: How much can rural households benefit from agricultural intensification?
Sustainable intensification (SI) of agriculture is the predominant objective for agricultural research and extension worldwide. Researchers and policymakers consider SI to be essential to avoid global hunger, improve human nutrition and reduce rural poverty while avoiding all manner of environmental disasters. To achieve these global public goods requires a large number of rural households – ‘small farmers’ – in less developed countries to improve their agriculture. Household size and farm size from 11,789 households in 15 countries from sub-Saharan Africa were used to calculate an intensification benefit index (IBI) that reflects how much a household will benefit if intensification occurs. IBI is defined as the increase in personal daily income (cents/person/day) as returns to land (dollars/hectare/year) increase. Actual net farm income from 160 rural households in each of three countries was compared with their IBI values to explore the gap between potential intensification and current smallholder farm performance. Fifty percent of all households had IBI values less than 0.075 cents/dollar, 70% less than 0.125 cents/dollar and 90% less than 0.225 cents/dollar. Returns of $1000/ha/year would result in fewer than 15% of households crossing a $2/person/day poverty line; $2500/ha/year would be required to lift 50% of the sample above the line; and even with $4000/ha/year, more than 30% of households would remain below the line. Since mean net returns from three sub-sampled sites were only $78, $83 and $424/ha/year the gap between potential- and actual performance is large but, theoretically, amenable to closure through adoption of improved technologies. However, surveys have shown that the available technologies would struggle to bridge the gap completely for rural households with small farms. For many small farms, the gains from adopting improved technologies are unlikely by themselves to lift them out of poverty and so might not be as attractive as scientists would wish.
Socioeconomic factors affecting the adoption potential of improved tree fallows in Africa
In many parts of Africa, farmers periodically fallow their land, which is allowing land to lie idle for one or more seasons primarily to restore its fertility. This paper assesses the feasibility, profitability, and acceptability of improved tree fallows, which are the deliberate planting of trees or shrubs in rotation with crops to improve soil fertility. Improved tree fallows are assessed at different stages of intensification, drawing on farmers’ experiences in three different settings. In extensive systems where land is plentiful and existing fallows with natural regeneration of vegetation restore soil fertility (southern Cameroon), farmers have little incentive to invest labor in establishing improved fallows. Where population density is higher and fallow periods are decreasing and farmers perceive a decline in soil fertility (eastern Zambia), improved fallows have great potential. In intensive systems where land is unavailable and cropping is often continuous (western Kenya), many farmers find it difficult to fallow land. Even here, there is scope for introducing improved fallows, especially among farmers who have off-farm income. Labor constraints and institutional support were found to greatly influence the feasibility of improved fallows. In intensive systems, low returns to cropping, low base yields, and a high opportunity cost of labor increase the returns to improved fallows. Principal factors associated with acceptability include past perception of soil fertility problems, past use of measures for improving soil fertility, current fallowing, economic importance of annual cropping, and wealth level. Adoption potential may be increased by reducing fallow periods, intercropping trees and crops during the first season, reducing establishment costs, producing higher value by-products, and by encouraging farmers to test improved fallows on high-value crops.
LivestockPlus – The sustainable intensification of forage-based agricultural systems to improve livelihoods and ecosystem services in the tropics
As global demand for livestock products (such as meat, milk and eggs) is expected to double by 2050, necessary increases to future production must be reconciled with negative environmental impacts that livestock cause. This paper describes the LivestockPlus concept and demonstrates how the sowing of improved forages can lead to the sustainable intensification of mixed crop-forage-livestock-tree systems in the tropics by producing multiple social, economic and environmental benefits. Sustainable intensification not only improves the productivity of tropical forage-based systems but also reduces the ecological footprint of livestock production and generates a diversity of ecosystem services (ES) such as improved soil quality and reduced erosion, sedimentation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Integrating improved grass and legume forages into mixed production systems (crop-livestock, tree-livestock, crop-tree-livestock) can restore degraded lands and enhance system resilience to drought and waterlogging associated with climate change. When properly managed tropical forages accumulate large amounts of carbon in soil, fix atmospheric nitrogen (legumes), inhibit nitrification in soil and reduce nitrous oxide emissions (grasses), and reduce GHG emissions per unit livestock product.The LivestockPlus concept is defined as the sustainable intensification of forage-based systems, which is based on 3 interrelated intensification processes: genetic intensification – the development and use of superior grass and legume cultivars for increased livestock productivity; ecological intensification – the development and application of improved farm and natural resource management practices; and socio-economic intensification – the improvement of local and national institutions and policies, which enable refinements of technologies and support their enduring use. Increases in livestock productivity will require coordinated efforts to develop supportive government, non-government organization and private sector policies that foster investments and fair market compensation for both the products and ES provided. Effective research-for-development efforts that promote agricultural and environmental benefits of foragebased systems can contribute towards implemention of LivestockPlus across a variety of geographic, political and socio-economic contexts.
LivestockPlus: The sustainable intensification of forage-based agricultural systems to improve livelihoods and ecosystem services in the tropics
As global demand for livestock products (such as meat, milk and eggs) is expected to double by 2050, necessary increases to future production must be reconciled with negative environmental impacts that livestock cause. This paper describes the Livestock Plus concept and demonstrates how the sowing of improved forages can lead to the sustainable intensification of mixed crop-forage-livestock-tree systems in the tropics by producing multiple social, economic and environmental benefits. Sustainable intensification not only improves the productivity of tropical forage-based systems but also reduces the ecological footprint of livestock production and generatesa diversity of ecosystem services (ES) such as improved soil quality and reduced erosion, sedimentation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Integrating improved grass and legume forages into mixed production systems (crop-livestock, tree-livestock, crop-tree-livestock) can restore degraded lands and enhance system resilience to drought and waterlogging associated with climate change. When properly managed tropical forages accumulate large amounts of carbon in soil, fix atmospheric nitrogen (legumes), inhibit nitrification in soil and reduce nitrous oxide emissions (grasses), and reduce GHG emissions per unit livestock product. The LivestockPlus concept is defined as the sustainable intensification of forage-based systems, which is based on 3 interrelated intensification processes: genetic intensification-the development and use of superior grass and legume cultivars for increased livestock productivity;ecological intensification-the development and application of improved farm and natural resource management practices; and socio-economic intensification-the improvement of local and national institutions and policies,which enable refinements of technologies and support their enduring use. Increases in livestock productivity will require coordinated efforts to develop supportive government, non-government organization and private sector policies that foster investments and fair market compensation for both the products and ES provided . Effective research-for-development efforts that promoteagricultural and environmental benefits of forage-based systems can contribute towards implemention ofLivestockPlus across a variety of geographic, political and socio-economic contexts.
Addressing constraints in promoting wild edible plants’ utilization in household nutrition: case of the Congo Basin forest area
It is worth raising the question, why are wild edible plants (WEPs) which are rich in diverse nutrients and widely abundant underutilized despite the increasing rate of undernourishment in poor regions One reason is that their culinary uses are not quantified and standardized in nutrition surveys, and therefore, they are not properly included in household diet intensification and diversification across regions and cultures. Active steps are needed to bridge this gap. This paper outlines the constraints to including WEPs in nutritional surveys as the lack of standard ways of food identification of diverse WEPs, lack of specific food categorization and therefore difficult dissemination across regions and cultures. As a way forward, a functional categorization of 11 subgroups for WEPs is introduced and discussed. In labeling these sub-food groups, the paper advocates that more WEPs food items and culinary uses should be enlisted during household nutrition surveys. Food researchers could then capitalize these enlisted species and disseminate them to promote diverse food use of WEPs in other regions where they exist but are not utilized as food. © 2017 The Author(s).
Sustainable Intensification in Smallholder Agriculture
Sustainable intensification has recently been developed and adopted as a key concept and driver for research and policy in sustainable agriculture. It includes ecological, economic and social dimensions, where food and nutrition security, gender and equity are crucial components. This book describes different aspects of systems research in agriculture in its broadest sense, where the focus is moved from farming systems to livelihoods systems and institutional innovation Much of the work represents outputs of the three CGIAR Research Programs on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics, Aquatic Agricultural Systems and Dryland Systems. The chapters are based around four themes: the conceptual underpinnings of systems research; sustainable intensification in practice; integrating nutrition, gender and equity in research for improved livelihoods; and systems and institutional innovation. While most of the case studies are from countries and agro-ecological zones in Africa, there are also some from Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
What works where for which farm household?: Rapid approaches to food availability analysis
This chapter describes a different quantitative approach for characterizing livelihoods and assessing potential wide-scale impact of interventions that complements detailed household modelling. It considers how results inform intervention strategy, and how use of this approach has catalyzed the development of advanced data collection tools and associated analysis software that enhances the utility of the method. The methodology can be considered an ‘inverse’ of the typical approach of applying complex household modelling to a limited number of household types. Two example studies explore the utility of this approach to household analysis. Both studies focus on ‘food availability’ (FA) as a component of the broader and more complex concept of food security and encompass large geographic areas with diverse agroecological and socioeconomic characteristics. Though using similar FA indicators at the household level, the studies applied the indicators differently. A sensitivity analysis tested the effect of two categories of agricultural productivity interventions alongside an off-farm intervention.
Integrated Systems Research for sustainable Intensification of Smallholder Agriculture
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, endorsed by the Heads of States in the United Nations (UN) 2015, and the national discussions and implementation plans that followed, have put light on how intertwined and interdependent the various aspects of sustainability and sustainable development are (UN, 2015; van Noordwijk et al., 2015). This book on sustainable intensification of smallholder agriculture is relevant for many of the SDGs and in particular for achieving the following goals: reducing poverty (#1), achieving food security, improved nutrition and sustainable agriculture (#2), gender equity and empowering women (#5), conserving and sustainably using aquatic resources (#6, #14), and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems and reversing land degradation (#15). There are trade-offs and synergies between the SDGs and there is a need to balance the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The scale at which the SDGs are implemented also matters for agricultural development: global (e.g. climate agreement), regional (e.g. trade pacts), national (e.g. policies and incentives) or local level (e.g. innovation platforms and networks).
Understanding African Farming Systems as a Basis for Sustainable Intensification
This chapter aims to explore how deeper knowledge of African farming systems structure and function can identify strategic interventions for sustainable agricultural intensification and contribute to poverty reduction and livelihood improvement. It considers farming systems to be substantial populations of individual farm households with broadly similar patterns of livelihood and consumption patterns, constraints and opportunities, and for which similar development strategies and interventions would be appropriate. More than 70% of the rural poor in sub-Saharan Africa reside in five broad regional farming systems being the focus of the chapter: the highland perennial, maize-mixed, cereal-root crop mixed, agro-pastoral and highland mixed farming systems. Effective sustainable intensification leads to productive diversified farming systems that maintain the resource base and respond to external opportunities and pressures from changing markets, population pressure and policies. Reversing the trend of soil fertility depletion, which governs agricultural productivity, in all African farming systems has become a major development policy issue.