Agro-Ecological Transition in the South

Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

The Global South, including Madagascar and Burkina Faso in Africa (International)

Implementing Organisation:

CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development)

Period:

2003 – now

In a nutshell

CIRAD identified agroecology as one of its top research priority, focusing on how agro-ecological systems function and assessing their capacity as credible alternatives to conventional production models.

CIRAD’s work on agroecology encompasses several organizational levels – plant, cropping system, farm, rural organization, value chain and territory. Three key research topics were identified: making use of biodiversity, designing systems and supporting transition.

Its research approach associates diagnoses, knowledge generation and use of local know-how, capacity building and support of innovation processes.

CIRAD is building novel interdisciplinary expertise and operational solutions to ensure the agro-ecological transition in farming systems in the South.

 

 

 

Context

The biophysical conditions in which Sub-Saharan agriculture is practised are notable for their contrasting climates (droughts or too much water), conditions which favour pest development, and poor, fragile soils. For a variety of reasons, it is often difficult to apply conventional intensification solutions in the poorest countries. These include rapid population growth, the withdrawal of the State, the influence of the globalized agro-industry, the lack of investment and inadequate services. Sustainable production methods need to be developed which not only take into account those constraints, but also make the most of opportunities: markets, resources and local expertise.

Objective

CIRAD workstream on agroecology aims to understand the biophysical mechanisms and interactions at play within farming systems to boost natural regulation processes and resource use efficiency.

They also seek to design locally adapted agro-ecological production systems and assess their performance.

As CIRAD has many local partners, another important goal is to support transition to agroecology with the help and involvement of multiple stakeholders.

Research

Farm level:

  • Replacing synthetic inputs like fossil fuels, fertilizers and pesticides
  • Improving the use of natural resources by using inter-, cover- and service crops
  • Encouraging agroforestry, rotations and crop-livestock systems to increase synergies

Regional/national Level:

  • Participatory breeding systems
  • Cutting marketing and transaction costs to speed up agro-ecological transition
  • Connecting research findings and local knowledge to achieve practical, efficient solutions

Lessons Learned/challenges

One challenge is how to organize the continuous transition from conventional agriculture to agro-ecology and how to deal with the extra costs that come with it. Additionally, one needs to pay greater attention to labour productivity and to improving working conditions, since the agro-ecological transition is often labour-intensive and based on practices that involve taking extra care of crops.

Relevant Links & references

 

 

 

Collaborative Crop Research Program

Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

West, East and South Africa, Andes-South America (Local and National)

Implementing Organisation:

McKnight Foundation

Period:

1983 – now

In a nutshell

The Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) funds participatory, collaborative research on agroecological intensification, bringing smallholder farmers, researchers, and development professionals together to create technology to improve nutrition, livelihoods, and productivity for farming communities.

The CCRP provides grants to local and national grantees participating in communities of practice in the following four regions: Andes, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Those actors bring deep knowledge of the regions in which they work and collaborate among themselves and with other stakeholders on solutions to poverty and food insecurity. CCRP regional teams provide direct support to strengthen their capacity, foster innovation, and explore pathways to take technologies and processes to scale.

 

 

Context

The CCRP has been established over 30 years and now works in multiple countries which belong to the poorest and most food insecure in the world (including Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda in Africa and Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru in South America). The program was built in response to concerns that communities in those countries are starving due to a combination of poor crop production, increasing population, political conflict and climate change.

Objective

CCRP strives to improve access to local, sustainable, nutritious food using collaborative research and knowledge sharing with smallholder farmers, research institutions, and development organizations.

Research

Farm level:

  • Biological nitrogen fixation with legumes to improve soil fertility and provide a greater diet diversification
  • Conservation of agricultural biodiversity and resilience (to climate change and diseases) through breeding and variety selection
  • Integrated crop and pest management
  • Traditional knowledge as a key to success

Regional/national Level:

  • Seed distribution systems
  • Promoting of farmer-driven innovation and supporting farmer organizations
  • Bring together multiple stakeholders to find collaborative solutions through a Community of Practice rather than top-down implementations

Lessons Learned/challenges

The most crucial point for success in collaborative research is the inclusion of all types of stakeholders by developing a community of practice and building the necessary trust. Especially, integrating smallholder farmers within the research program ensured greater impact. Additionally, it is important to do research on a broad spectrum of disciplines and issues, including agricultural techniques on the farm level, as well as policy and market development on the big scale.

Relevant Links & references

 

 

 

Soils, Food and Healthy Communities

Field, Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

Malawi (National)

Implementing Organisation:

Cornell University

Period:

2000 – now

In a nutshell

The Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC) project works to empower smallholder farmers in Malawi to build sustainable, healthy and resilient communities. Farmer-led, participatory research based on ecological approaches is the most important component of the approach. This includes strengthening local indigenous knowledge and democratic processes to address inequalities in Malawi.

The programme consist of various activities to educate and empower farmers. Special attention is put to the role of women and the Malawian youth. SFHC introduces a set of agroecological practices on the farm level, promotes local orange maize varieties and organizes recipe days to improve the diversity of diets and the role of men in their households.

 

 

Context

Malawi has a current population of over 16 million. About 80% of the inhabitants live in rural areas and rely on agriculture for their food and livelihoods. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world with over 70% of the population living below the poverty line. An estimated one-third of Malawian households experience chronic food insecurity and calorie deficiencies. High rates of gender inequality in Malawi has contributed to these high rates of food insecurity and malnutrition, as women have little control over agricultural decisions, experience high levels of physical violence, and have lower education and training opportunities.

Objective

All of the project activities focus on improving soil fertility, child nutrition and food security. For example, seed distribution and farmer training and annual field days are important elements to achieve these goals. The project has also integrated several activities to promote agricultural, nutritional and social practices, especially for the poor, HIV-infected and other marginalized groups.

Key Interventions/Research

Farm level:

  • Planting legumes for natural nitrogen fixation
  • Incorporating crop residues for improved soil fertility
  • Improved food diversity and preparation, especially for young children

Regional/national Level:

  • Seed distribution systems
  • Farmer Research Team(FRT) derived from village communities
  • Organization of training camps
  • Organization of field days and exchange visits to show fellow farmers the use and impact of agroecology (farmer-to-farmer)
  • Developing local food enterprises to improve income

Lessons Learned/challenges

A key for success in this project is the increasing support of the government, which has not always been there. Because of their agriculture input subsidy program, they were not fond of this project at first. However, support has risen over time and now the extension staff of the ministry of agriculture are taking part in training and field days. At the moment, only a small part of government money goes into agroecology as they still have the input subsidy program where the most part of the money flows into.

Relevant Links & references

 

 

FARMER – RESEARCHER PARTNERSHIP, SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

Field, Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

Santa Cruz, California (Subnational)

Implementing Organisation:

University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) – Agroecology Program

Period:

1988 – now

In a nutshell

This example is documenting how strawberry monocultures turned into sustainable agroecosystems through a 30-year farmer-researcher partnership.

It all started with a research partnership between a farmer and a researcher for agroecological transition of the conventional monoculture strawberry production. Step by step, changes and improvements of the practices, thereby proofing the feasibility in the field, has been a successful approach to drive a sustainability transformation. Through adoption of the practices by other farmers and companies in the region and an increased consumer awareness, organic production has scaled up, leading to an 8-fold increase of organic strawberry production between 1997 and 2016. At the later stage of the transformation also direct marketing was a key to success to provide market incentives for the farmers.

 

 

 

Context

Monterey and Santa Cruz counties account for about half of the total California strawberry crop, producing more than $953 million worth of strawberries on 13,063 acres in 2016. Strawberry production has traditionally been done in a very conventional, water and chemical input intensive way. In 2017, a key fumigant, MeBR, was nationally banned, increasing the demand for and transformation to sustainable alternatives.

Objective

The main goal was to redesign traditional large-scale monoculture strawberry production systems into an agroecological system through a researcher-farmer partnership by starting on one model farm and subsequent scaling improvements step-by-step and upscaling.

Key Interventions/Research

Farm level:

  • Stepwise input substitution
  • Model farm through farmer-researcher partnership
  • «push-pull» pest management techniques
  • Sophisticated crop rotations, intercropping
  • Comprehensive, system-wide redesign that nurtures complexity and diversity

Regional/national Level:

  • Provision of access to research to solve upcoming challenges in the field (research-partnership)
  • Alternative network for direct sales

Lessons Learned/challenges

This example of a larger scale transformation of strawberry monocultures is indicating that with sufficient resources, time and support from (participatory) research, transformations of a system in a very sceptical setting- the approach was considered radical – is possible.

To provide a price incentive and compensate the higher labour costs, decreased input costs and a direct sales system were also a key success factor to support this transition

The challenges for the future are mainly environmental ones such as soil erosion, nutrient leaching, groundwater depletion and saltwater intrusion.

Relevant Links & references

Food Security & Sovereignty in Las Segovias, Nicaragua

Field, Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

Nicaragua (National)

Implementing Organisation:

CAN (Community Agroecology Network)

Period:

2009 – now

In a nutshell

The Food Security and Sovereignty in Las Segovias Project is a collaboration between CAN and PRODECOOP, a coffee farmer cooperative organization. The project aims to improve food security and reduce seasonal hunger among 1500 smallholder coffee farming families in Northern Nicaragua.

CAN engaged in a participatory planning process to define strategies based on recognized needs to establish year-round access to healthy food in participating rural communities.

One important pillar of this project are the corn storage and distribution centres (CADA). The CADAs help farmers to store their harvest centrally and use it in thin months for the whole community. A second pillar are the seven seed banks to provide farmers with quality seed (mainly corn and beans) all year long.  A third aspect is the diversification of farms especially with fruit trees, cassava, plantain and sweet potatoes, which has always been practiced in South America.

 

 

 

Context

In Nicaragua, seasonal hunger is one of the biggest challenges. Food insecurity has especially risen since the coffee-leave rust outbreak in 2011 and the start of a drought in 2014. Central America has seen a succession of droughts, hurricanes, and other hazards in the past decade and is likely to be hit by the threats of climate change in the future more often.

Nationwide, the prevalence of undernourishment dropped from 55% to 20% between 1990 and 2010 and several government assistance programs have expanded. Despite these gains, food insecurity remains a pressing challenge among many rural Nicaraguan smallholders.

Objective

The main goals of this project are improved food availability, access, and food utilization through CADAs, seed banks, farm diversification and experimentation, and organizational capacity building in order to reduce seasonal hunger and erase undernourishment among children.

Key Interventions

Farm level:

  • Distribution of fruit trees and different varieties of vegetables to enhance diversification
  • Metal silos have been distributed to improve grain storage methods and reduced rates of grain spoilage and loss

Regional/national Level:

  • Build food storage and distribution centres known as CADAs to mitigate hunger in thin months
  • Construction of seedbanks, which are operating and helping seed production, especially corn and beans, mitigating the impacts of harvest loss and responding to the farmers’ seed demand with efficiency and availability of quality seed
  • Training, research, dissemination, and ongoing farmer and promoter development

Lessons Learned/challenges

The Participation Action Research implemented by the project allowed to refine the set of strategies that are the most needed by farmers through constant feedback and reflexion on lessons learned. Four more strategies were added to the original three, such as increase household capacity and access to seed and rootstock production.

Another lesson is that the elimination of the thin months and reaching every single family, their cooperatives and communities is a slow process. The cumulative effects of multiple hazards remains the main challenge. For instance, the coffee leaf rust and other pests that has affected nearly all coffee farming families, adds up to the effect of drought.

There is also a need to promote strategies for the preservation of local and patrimonial varieties, especially in consideration of climate change adaptation and the lack of water.

Relevant Links & references

 

 

Syprobio

Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin (International)

Implementing Organisation:

FiBL (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland)

Period:

2010 – now

In a nutshell

SYPROBIO is active in three West-African countries and seeks to combine and strengthen the knowledge and creativity of researchers, technicians and local farmers to address problems related to food security and adaptation to climate change. They set up ten representative circles of concerted actors to find sustainable solutions in order to enhance resilience based on the principles of agroecology and prove that they work. Together they defined 27 innovative practices for on-farm research. Those innovations came from different domains like soil fertility, seed, plant health, cultivation and socio-economy. Through these farmer-led innovation platforms new practices are tested and introduced and comparative research on the economic and agronomic differences is done.

 

 

 

 

 

Context

The current social, economic, climatic and ecologic situation in West Africa constitutes both practical and intellectual challenges. Soil degradation, pests, food insecure farmers, climate change, rural-urban inequalities and fragile societal structures are just a few problems that the region has to deal with. Agriculture is in the middle of this multidimensional complex.

Objective

The innovations shall improve food security and climate change adaptation. The national research partners conduct on–station research in order to complement the on-farm research to provide further evidence on scientific differences between various farming practices, categorized into organic simple and diversified, conventional low and high input farming.

Research

Farm Level:

  • Introduction of varieties more resilient to pests and weeds
  • Usage of bio pesticides and organic manure to reduce synthetic inputs
  • Intercropping using local varieties and trap plants to increase nutrient efficiency and reduce application of pesticides

Regional/National Level:

  • Self-organized farmer groups to improve capacities to analyse and make decisions
  • Circles of concerted actors (CCA) to bring together different stakeholders and to develop practicable sustainable solutions (based on the research)
  • Innovation platforms (IP) as social systems to promote appropriate technologies (that enhance resilience and solve its member’s problems).

Lessons Learned/Challenges

The main concern of the farmers is the low soil fertility with low potential to yield increase without external inputs. Also producing sufficient compost is difficult with a lack of animals little water, few machines.

Farmers also struggle with lacking means of communication, institutional instability and high costs for field visits by researchers. In order to scale up the practices of SYPROBIO communication between science, economy and politics needs to improve.

Relevant Links & References

 

 

 

EcoDry

Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

Spain, Jordan, South Africa, Mexico and other countries (International)

Implementing Organisation:

Coventry University

Period:

2014 – 2017

In a nutshell

The Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University is leading the project EcoDry that aims to enhance understanding and share knowledge on agroecological strategies to build the resilience of farming systems in dryland and drought situations that includes improved water management in general. The project brings together partners from the UK, Spain, Mexico, South Africa and Jordan.

The EcoDry project is about cooperation and exchange between the different research centres, allowing testing different agroecological practices and research and extension techniques in different contexts. These will enable the construction of common methodologies and approaches to address the challenges of dry lands and drought in the context global climate change.

The project contributed to a bank of knowledge about innovative best practices for adapting to drought or flooding conditions and develop methods for working with farmers to implement these practices.

 

 

 

Context

Drought is one of the major constraints affecting food security and livelihoods of more than two billion people that reside on dry areas which constitute 41% of the world’s land surface. In dry areas, the integration between farming practices and water management is a key point to enhance the resilience of production system to drought.

Objective

The EcoDry joint exchange project aims to enhance understanding and share knowledge on strategies to build the resilience of farming systems to natural and man-made impacts in dryland and drought situations, including climate change, through collaboration of joint research and capacity building activities between participating universities.

In particular, the sub-objectives of the project is 1) to identify and build a body of knowledge on innovative agroecological strategies to mitigate threats of natural and man-made nature for drylands and drought, 2) to build a network of expertise on agroecological innovations through workshops, conferences and seminars, 3) to provide opportunities for research on cutting-edge agroecological approaches in the natural and social sciences for postgraduate students.

Research

Farm Level:

  • Carbon farming to mitigate climate change, eco-intensification, energy efficient agriculture,  evolutionary plant breeding,
  • Rainwater harvesting, agroforestry, permaculture
  • Organic and biodynamic production techniques
  • Peri-urban agriculture to meet food and livelihood needs
  • Commercial cattle production as a resilient livelihood option for smallholders
  • Resilience of agricultural ecosystems to biological invasion
  • Compost and foliar sprays for improved rooibos tea growth and yield

Regional/National Level:

  • Rituals for resilience: reviving food and arts practices for socio-ecological restoration
  • Human water governance
  • Knowledge exchange between researchers: seminar, exchange trips, teaching

Lessons Learned/Challenges

The close exchange between hundreds of researchers, multiple research groups and universities had a substantial impact on existing research and teaching facilities, consolidated by training programs and mobility programs for talented researchers. One of the key lesson of the project is on the importance of building a community of practices and enhancing networks among researchers that contributed significantly to promoting frameworks agroecological strategies for drought mitigation. The pooling of evidence and experience contributed to building sustainable drought mitigation that influence both policy and practice.

Relevant Links & References

 

 

 

Enhancing Resilience in Food Systems

Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

Subsaharan Africa (Local and National)

Implementing Organisation:

ETH Zurich

Period:

2013 – now

In a nutshell

In this research initiative, the ETH Zürich World Food System Center, the Sustainable Agroecosystems Group, the Climate Policy Group, and the TdLab aim to develop a practice-oriented toolkit to assess the resilience and outcomes in food value chains, and to support the design of interventions by decision-makers. Through a holistic vision of food systems, the toolkit generates a database of knowledge in resilience and helps to identify key points of actions. The assessment tool accounts for the complex interactions and feedbacks that can occur at different scales, between processes, stakeholders, drivers (such as environmental change), and outcomes of food systems (such as food security, environmental and social welfare).

The tool is also designed to be used by practitioners, balancing simplicity of use and reliability of results.

Participatory and integrated assessments of various food value chains were performed to to test the concept and collect experience , including for tef in Ethiopia, cocoa, tomatoes and bananas in Ghana.

 

 

Context

With rapid environmental and climate changes, and more frequent economic, social and political shocks than ever, food systems around the world need to become more resilient in order to achieve food security for a growing global population.

In order to tackle the complexity of food systems today, decision-makers around the world have to take into account many factors. They need to be able to estimate where and how they can make the necessary changes, without making things worse elsewhere. They also need to know if such changes will allow the system to carry on functioning despite disturbances (such as natural disasters, market-related shocks, political crises, etc.).

Objective

The objective of the initiative is to develop a method to evaluate the viability of action measures to enhance the resilience of value chain activities.

It also aims to apply the method to various cases studies to engage stakeholders and to draw lessons on the barriers and challenges in implementing resilience measures

Research

Farm Level (for the case study in Ghana):

  • Irrigation technologies/systems
  • Early mature varieties
  • Weather forecast
  • Reduced tillage and mulching
  • Improved harvesting technologies
  • Shade trees/agroforestry

Regional/national Level:

  • Developing guidelines to assess resilience in food value chains
  • Developing a toolkit to support the management of trade-offs between outcomes
  • Identifying the potential of farm level interventions, as well as the barriers and challenges across sites to scale it up

Lessons Learned/challenges

Farmers got very limited governmental support to implement different new methods. They also received little information from extension services to learn about new technologies. Additionally, some of the interventions require some investment, which is not possible for all farmers to do. Finally, for irrigation and bookkeeping, farmers lacked field evidence of the viability; hence, specific approaches need to be develop to convince farmers of the value of those interventions

Relevant Links & references

 

Push-Pull Project

Climate, Research

Category:

Location/Scale:

Kenya and other SSA countries (Regional)

Implementing Organisation:

Icipe (International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology)

Period:

2006 – now

In a nutshell

Push–pull is a polycropping innovation that provides integrated management of insect pests and soil fertility while making efficient use of natural resources to increase farm productivity by addressing most aspects of smallholders’ constraints. The technology involves intercropping cereal crops with legumes and planting forage grasses around this intercrop.

The conventional push-pull uses Napier grass as the border crop with silverleaf desmodium as the intercrop. The climate-adapted push-pull, however, uses the drought tolerant Brachiaria and Greenleaf Desmodium.

This technology exploits the fact that adult female insect pests rely on chemical stimuli (‘smell’) emitted by plants to select those for egg laying. The desmodium emits a substance that repels female stemborer moths (“push”) while the Napier grass releases attractive cues that ‘pull’ the moths towards itself.

Additionally, desmodium acts as weed control as it helps to deplete the striga grass.

 

 

Context

Cereals are the major food and cash crops for the majority of poor smallholders in Sub-Saharan-Africa (SSA), and together with livestock, provide the main source of nutrition and opportunities for income generation. Productivity of these crops is severely reduced by a complex of biotic constraints, such as stemborer pest complexes, fall armyworm and parasitic striga weeds, as well as abiotic factors, mainly water stress and degraded soils.

All this directly results in increased levels of food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty that are further complicated by high human population growth rates, environmental degradation and climate change.

Objective

Through mitigating the effects of stemborer, fall armyworm and striga grass, Push-Pull seeks to increase cereal yield for smallholder farmers. Thus, enabling them to decrease the cost of external inputs, such as fertilizers or pesticides, and generate additional income through selling the Napier grass as fodder or use it to feed own livestock.

Key Interventions/Research

Farm level:

  • Planting of desmodium between the maize to repel the stemborer and striga grass
  • Planting napiergrass around the maize field to attract the stemborer and use of grass residues for livestock fodder.

Regional/national Level:

  • Organisation of field days to inform a lot of farmers about the most important principles
  • Farmer teachers and farmer field schools are used in later stages to reinforce the message

Lessons Learned/challenges

So far, a limiting factor has been the shortage of high quality desmodium seeds. In order to scale-up, a constant seed supply chain for all farmers must be established. Secondly, the Napier stunt disease has caused some troubles and is threatening the successful application of Push-Pull. Finally, climate change is presenting more and more problems for agriculture, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where Push-Pull is mainly used. Therefore, a climate resilient variation of the push-pull approach was designed and tested now.

Relevant Links & references