Increasing food security and farming system resilience in East Africa through wide-scale adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices

Transcription

1 Increasing food security and farming system resilience in East Africa through wide-scale adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices Mixed crop-livestock systems provide livelihoods for two thirds of the human population, providing half of the world s cereal and one third of its beef and milk (Herrero et al. 2010). Population growth and dietary change will drive global food demand to unprecedented levels in the coming decades (Delgado et al. 1999) meaning food production must increase 60-70% by 2050 to keep pace (Bruinsma 2009). Agriculture, although vital to the livelihoods of billions of people, is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions (Vermeulen et al. 2012). Future food security depends on agriculture s continued productivity despite its vulnerability to the projected impacts of climate change (IPCC 2000a): increased incidence of extreme weather events (Tao et al. 2009), shifting water regimes and distribution of pests and diseases (Jarvis et al. 2012; Garrett et al. 2012), declining forage quality due to shorter growing seasons (Jones & Thornton 2009), and high temperature stress (Challinor et al. 2007). Faced with these multiple challenges, smallholder farmers in mixed crop-livestock systems should be the first target for developing strategies that increase food production under variable climatic conditions without stressing natural resources and the climate system (Herrero et al. 2010). Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) refers to practices that optimize synergies among three interlinked objectives: food security, resilience of farming systems, and climate change mitigation (Beddington et al. 2012; FAO 2013). System level CSA practices such as agroforestry, conservation agriculture, or silvopastoralism have the potential to increase whole farm performance including livelihood and climate benefits (FAO 2010). A specific example is an improved crop-livestock-tree systems with more resilient livelihoods and food security through diversified production, carbon sequestration in rehabilitated land and reduced methane emissions per unit of meat or milk (mitigation) through feeding improvements (Thornton and Herrero 2010; Peters et al. 2013). Empirical evidence supports the multi-faceted benefits of CSA at the global level (Branca et al. 2011). However, information on how to identify, verify, and target CSA innovations at the local level and understand the mechanisms to enable wide-scale adoption is fragmented (FAO 2012). Considering the rapid pace of climate change and the threat of its impact on global food security, adaptation and mitigation measures must be put into place with an urgency to match. The Increasing food security and farming system resilience in East Africa through wide-scale

2 adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices project proposes to generate a scientific basis for strategic targeting of locally appropriate CSA practices, with an emphasis on system-based technologies for improved land and livestock management and overall increased food security. We aim to facilitate the adoption of CSA practices that enable farmers both adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change while improving food security. In particular, we aim to identify practices that maximize adaptive capacity, mitigate climate change and increase food security in smallholder agricultural systems, analyze the environmental benefits of these practices using real-time land and soil health survey data and improved crop/climate modeling, discern the social, political, economic and environmental barriers to adoption in East Africa, and implement locally appropriate CSA practices at project sites. The overall project goal is to improve food security and farming system resilience of smallholder mixed crop-livestock farmers in East Africa while mitigating climate change through wide-scale adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). The project integrates interdisciplinary approaches, including participatory research, integrating a meta-analysis of CSA practices, realtime land and soil health assessments, crop suitability modelling, socio-economic appraisals and multi-dimensional trade-off analyses, as well as on-farm participatory evaluations of CSA to identify, test, implement, and outscale locally appropriate CSA practices. Specific project objectives are as follows: Objective 1: Assess range of CSA practices and clarify their potential impacts on food production, the greenhouse gas balance and resilience of farming systems. Objective 2: Conduct spatially explicit monitoring and modeling of land health and agronomic suitability as well multi-dimensional trade-off analysis to identify locally appropriate CSA practices. Objective 3: Implement and appraise the most promising CSA practices at the local level to identify perceived benefits and barriers to adoption. Objective 4: Upscale and out-scale CSA activities in East Africa through participation in National Learning Platforms and a CSA AR4D pathway, involving strategic policy and development partnerships. The project targets diverse landscapes and agro-ecologies in East Africa. Two of the CCAFS benchmark sites where a range of climate change research and investments are being tested - Rakai in Uganda and Lushoto in Tanzania - serve as primary sites. These will be paired with their

3 climate analogues to scale out the efforts across East Africa and anticipate future conditions for the benchmark sites. Immediate potential for scaling out exists through CCAFS where networks include active links with national policy formulation and implementation initiatives. The target groups include small-scale agricultural farmers, especially women and marginalized groups, national agricultural research systems, policy makers, and climate finance entities. These groups are especially targeted in order to achieve the CCAFS gender IDO: women and marginalized groups gain improved access to and use of services and information related to climate change and mitigation through strengthened linkages to institutions, programs and interventions and through participation in decision-making processes. The aim is to use sciencebased technologies and participatory gender-based methods to better inform decision-making on climate-smart agricultural practices, emphasizing increased food security and sustainable production. Project Activities Meta-analysis of climate-smart agriculture practices to provide information on available practices and the associated environmental and social costs/benefits of each. Local workshops to identify prospective community-driven climate-smart solutions will be held. Comprehensive assessment of land and soil health at CCAFS sites using the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) to survey land and soil health across a network of 100 km 2 monitoring sites in East Africa. The LDSF is designed to provide a biophysical baseline and a monitoring and evaluation framework for assessing processes of land degradation and the effectiveness of rehabilitation measures over time (Vågen et al. 2010; Vågen and Winowiecki, 2013). Improvement of climate and weather data for climate change modeling is also included under this objective. Analogues analysis to enable better strategic planning of land management options across East Africa under progressive climate change. Modelling farming systems combining soil and land health assessments with climatic data sets to incorporate both spatial and biophysical data, as with DSSAT (Jones et al. 2003) or APSIM (Keating et al. 2003). This step will allow for the assessment of the spatial variability of crop productivity across the landscape within a diversity of farming systems.

4 Analysis of trade-offs in CSA adoption through integration of whole farm crop-livestock system performance under different CSA practices and monitoring trade-offs between the different CSA pillars: food security, farming systems resilience and climate change mitigation. Data will include socio-economic data on livelihood impacts, agronomic data on crop performance, livestock productivity data, GHG emissions data for mitigation, and soil health data for land degradation and soil fertility. The analysis will include a disaggregation of the various and conflicting interests at the household level (i.e. women and men), the community level (i.e. farm typology) and across the policy landscape (i.e. from village to national and from environmental to agricultural authorities). Community-based participatory workshops employing a variety of participatory methods to provide an overview of the extent to which farmers - both men and women - are familiar with the various climate-smart practices available to them, how widespread the adoption of such practices is, and the differential benefits and constraints to adoption for men and women farmers. Surveys and interviews to investigate the perceived costs and benefits of adopting the indicated CSA practices and summarize household and farm characteristics. Socioeconomic analysis will allow for the creation of a profile of individuals or households who are or are not likely to adopt CSA practices and the drivers behind the differences. Characteristics such as household size, resource access, decision-making, land area, crops grown, division of labor and social differentiation characteristics (age, ethnicity, gender) will be weighed against costs and benefits such as agricultural inputs, labor, infrastructure, and expected returns. On-farm Demonstration of CSA (participatory and farmer-led) will be implemented on plots at the benchmark sites. These demonstrations will target both CSA practicing and none-practicing and non-csa practicing farmers. Regional and National Learning Platforms already established and coordinated by CCAFS, involving key national policy-makers, NGOs and the research community, will be the medium for the project to respond to and inform current policy priorities and processes in the countries and at regional level, and to connect with the large-scale programs that are out-scaling CSA practices. CSA AR4D pathway that directly links the project with the IFAD Country Program Management Teams and their government partners that will implement the

5 forthcoming IFAD loans and ASAP grants in the two countries. Via this collaboration, the project will produce demand-driven knowledge products of direct relevance to the implementation of, and continuous learning within, the IFAD programs at national and regional level.