Agroforestry Food Security Programme: overview of CA

progress

Bruce SosolaWorld Agroforestry Centre

Presented at CARWG 2014 at Holiday Inn Hotel, Bulawayo, 30th -31st October 2014

Agroforestry Food Security Programme

• Sourced funding (Euro 2,400,000) from Irish Aid and FICA toscale up agroforestry and conservation agriculturetechnologies to 40,000 smallholder farmers in Malawi

• AFSP II running from 2012-2015

• Promotes integration of agroforestry in conservationagriculture cropping system

• Distributes fertilizer tree germplasm (Gliricidia, Faidherbia,Tephrosia, Pigeon peas)

Programme Impacts

• 1. Improved livelihood security of the smallholder farmers through agroforestry and conservation agriculture– Maize yield increases to 3 tonnes per ha on plots with fertilizer

trees– Number of food insecure days reduced to 2 months (60 days) or

less for targeted households– Amount of reported yearly farm income

• 2. Improved resilience of the farmers and farming systems to climate change variability through agroforestry and conservation agriculture.– Area planted under fertilizer trees increases to 0.2 ha per farmer– Area under CA increases to 0.2 ha per farmer

Baseline Maize Yields

The overall mean yield was 1.4 tonnes per ha

What has been done

• Submitted a paper to 1st ACCA symposium inZambia on “Assessment of maize productivityunder conservation agriculture withtephrosia” Njoloma (2014) et al.

• Developed Policy paper on mainstreamingfertilizer trees in CA cropping system into FarmInput Subsidy Program to support 10,000farmers

What has been done• Trained 20,000 farmers in CAWT covering a total of 2500

ha

• Field days are conducted at the CAWT demo sites(extension workers and farmers)

• Training of Trainers conducted for 97 Government andNGO extension officers

• Distribute about 30,000 kg of assorted fertilizer tree seed

• Developed a Training Manual on ConservationAgriculture with Trees (CAWT)

• Developed TV documentary, radio jingles on CA benefits

CA Baseline

• The soils are heavily under-nourished in OC, N, P and K

Mzimba Dedza Thyolo Optimal Range

pH Baseline Target Baseline Target Baseline Target

(0-20cm) 4.99 5.14 5.15 5.3 5.5 5.67 pH (5.8 -8.0)

OC (%)

(0-20cm) 0.78 0.82 1.1 1.16 1.16 1.22 OC (1.6 -5%)

Total N (%)

(0-20cm) 0.02 0.02 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 N (2-5%)

Extractable P

(mg/kg)

(0-20cm) 141.63 155.79 43.48 47.83 40.17 44.19 P mg/kg (25-30)

Extractable K

(mg/kg)

(0-20cm) 25.5 28.05 250.45 275.5 155.56 171.12 K mg/kg (60-160)

Building a Larger Network for Evergreen Agriculture Network in Southern Africa (BLENSA)

• Developed national networks in Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa (Limpopo)– National Agroforestry Research and Development Forum

(NARDERF) in Malawi

– Botswana Evergreen Agriculture and Agroforestry Network (BEAAN) in Botswana.

– Limpopo Conservation Agriculture and Agroforestry Forum (LiCAAF) in South Africa.

– National Steering Committee for Agroforestry Research and Development (CONDENSA) in Mozambique

• Developed BLEANSA website www.blensa.net

2.0 What research lessons

• The third principle has focused on Crop-Treeassociation as an alternative to crop rotation

• Community developed by-laws for bettermanagement of livestock and fire control tofoster CA adoption.

Inkosi Kachindamoto enforcing fire and livestock control byelaws