TransformationsI nternal newsletter of the Wor ld Agroforest r y Centre

Vol 8 Issue 18 24/11/2015

I n t h i s i s s u e• Paving the way for a Land Degradation Neutral

World

• New Australian High Commissioner to Kenya tours ICRAF

• Soil-Plant Spectral Diagnostics Lab team conducts spectroscopy training in Ghana

• ICRAF holds a gender sensitization workshop in South Asia

• New public-private partnership for ICRAF’s R&D efforts on shea

• ICRAF and Zambia extend partnership

• ICRAF & KADLAAC partner to support Ugandan farmers

• Centre in the Media

• New stories/Blogs

• Vacancies

• Pictorial

• Publications

• Staff of the Week

Bi-weeklyPaving the way for a Land Degradation Neutral WorldBy Clinton Muller, Ermias Betemariam & Benson Macharia

In the first major global meeting since the agreement of the new global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 12th Session of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP12) met in Ankara, Turkey on 12-23 October 2015. A key focus of the convention was the adoption of the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets for UNCCD as part of SDG 15.3, which aims to achieve a land degradation neutral world by 2030.

During the opening address, UNCCD’s Executive Secretary, Monique Barbut, highlighted current issues surrounding desertification and land degradation, and the amplified threats of pressures from forced migration and conflict. A key focus of activities for the ICRAF delegation was on the

global restoration agenda in support of LDN. The organization co-hosted several events at the Rio Conventions Pavilion, including the Ecosystems Restoration Day. During the event, Dr. Dennis Garrity facilitated a high-level session on the Global Forest and Landscape Restoration, with a focus on the recently endorsed 100 million hectare restoration initiative of the Africa Union. Dr. Ermias Betemariam also made a presentation on the current efforts to accelerate effective approaches in support of country-level initiatives. He underscored the roles that the CGIAR and other partners could play in achieving LDN in Africa.

Dr Madelon Lohbeck made a presentation on a comparative study from Peru and Uganda on soil and land health monitoring approaches.

Dr Dennis Garrity makes opening remarks at the African Restoration Movement session organized by ICRAF

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New Australian High Commissioner to Kenya tours ICRAFBy Ruth Kinuthia

On 11 November 2015, HE John Feakes the new Australian High Commissioner to Kenya accompanied by Liz Ogutu, the Africa Region Manager for Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) visited ICRAF to learn more about the organization’s work and ACIAR-funded projects.

The High Commissioner held meetings with ICRAF’s senior leadership and research teams. During the discussions, Dr. Fergus Sinclair, SD1 Research Leader, stressed the importance of embedding research in development and scaling up impact.

“ACIAR was among the first investors to fund an initiative which aims to embed research into the development agenda and scale up impact through the Trees for Food Security project,” Fergus shared.

Dr. Catherine Muthuri, Project Manager of the Trees for Food Security

initiative, noted that ACIAR-funded projects had had a positive impact on the livelihoods of many farmers in several countries, while Jeremias Mowo, Regional Coordinator for the Eastern and Southern Africa region, expressed the need for an Australian-funded project in Kenya where lessons learnt from other ACIAR-funded projects would be applied.

HE John Feakes assured the team of his continued support and expressed an interest in travelling to the project sites to see the impact on the ground and interact with the farmers.The team later toured the laboratories.

The visit ended with a brief tree-planting ceremony. Other members of the ICRAF team included Tony Simons, the Director General, Ravi Prabhu the Deputy Director General – Research, Evelyne Kiptot, Jonathan Muriuki, Ramni Jamnadass, Keith Shepherd and Cathy Watson.

The ICRAF team also contributed significantly during the SDG Day by co-hosting the event with GEF. Several mechanisms to support land restoration were highlighted including EverGreen Agriculture by Dr Garrity and the Landcare approach by Clinton Muller. Additionally, Dr.

Keith Shepherd chaired a session on Land Health Surveillance that stimulated a discussion on new decision and surveillance science and technology in support of the LDN agenda. All the presentations are available at the Rio Conventions Pavilion website.

Paving the way for a Land Degradation Neutral World. Cont

Madelon Lohbeck, Clinton Muller (partly hidden) and Chris Reij from World Resources Institute hold discussions with a visitor at the Restoration Kiosk organized by ICRAF

ICRAF staff and the High Commissioner pose for a photo

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ICRAF holds a gender sensitization workshop in South AsiaBy Farhat Naz

A training workshop dubbed “Gender Sensitization: Concepts and Tools for Gender Analysis” was conducted on 12-13 October 2015 in New Delhi, India. The aim of the training was to give the participants, who came from diverse academic and professional backgrounds, a better understanding of gender concepts, analysis tools, and gender frameworks for conducting agroforestry research.

The event which comprised group discussions, lectures, role-play,

presentations and brainstorming, covered various concepts related to gender, theories, mainstreaming and tools for gender data collection. The participants also covered the importance of gender studies in general and within the South Asian context, researchers’ roles, responsibilities, positions and ethics in R&D within the larger realm of caste, religion, class and ethnicity in South Asia.

The event was facilitated by Farhat Naz and Ana Maria.

Participants of the gender sensitization workshop

Soil-Plant Spectral Diagnostics Lab team conducts spectroscopy training in GhanaBy Benson Macharia

ICRAF’s Africa Soil information Service (AfSIS) project conducted intensive spectroscopy training at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – Soil Research Institute (SRI) in Kumasi, Ghana, on 12-16 October 2015. The main objective was to provide training on rapid low cost soil and plant analysis using mid infrared spectroscopy and portable x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy techniques.

The team also installed the spectrometers and provided on-site training on methods to a total of 27 participants comprising scientists and technicians from CSIR soil research institutes in Kumasi, Accra and Kwame Nkrumah University.

For more information on Ghana Soil Information Service (GhaSIS) - http://africasoils.net/2015/04/30/launch-of-the-ghana-soil-information-service-ghasis/

Participants pose for a group photo.© Dr Francis Tetteh, CSIR-SRI Scientist and GhaSIS coordinator

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New public-private partnership for ICRAF’s R&D efforts on sheaBy Jean-Marc Boffa, Antoine Kalinganire, Ramni Jamnadass, Cathy Watson & Zac Tchoundjeu

For the past four years, farmers in the 21 countries of semi-arid Africa where shea is protected and managed in agroforestry parklands have been represented in a sector-wide multi-stakeholder public-private association. With members ranging from women groups and national producer associations to large multinationals supplying oils and fats such as AAK or Loders Croklaan, the Global Shea Alliance (GSA) promotes quality and sustainability in the shea industry. The largest (90%) export destination of shea nuts is linked to the extraction of edible stearin used in the formulation of cocoa butter equivalents for chocolate confectionary. Shea butter is also a prized ingredient in luxury cosmetic and personal care, as well as pharmaceutical products.

Shea is primarily a women’s crop. It is harvested by over 90% of local women farmers in the Sahel, and provides up to 30% cash income to those belonging to the poorest households. However, with the increasing mechanization of agriculture, rising fuelwood demand, and the disuse of fallowing practices that used to ensure the regeneration of young trees in farmlands, shea tree populations are declining.Through early contacts established by Dr. Dennis Garrity, GSA identified ICRAF as the natural regional partner to lead and coordinate research efforts in its Sustainability Programme.

A review of opportunities and challenges for the sustainability of shea populations was commissioned to ICRAF and provided the basis for developing three of the six workstreams of GSA’s sustainability strategy dealing with tree improvement, parkland management and pilot conservation projects.

With support from PDU and SD3, ICRAF is now a formally registered GSA member and sustainability partner and is actively collaborating with GSA to implement the Sustainability Programme. On 26-28 October 2015, ICRAF organized and facilitated a regional workshop for GSA at

its Sahel Node research station in Samanko (Bamako). The main aim was to develop a strategy and the contents of an extension manual for the sustainable management of shea tree populations. This tool will be used by GSA’s private sector, NGO and CBO field partners in their parkland sustainability activities. Workshop participants first discussed recent trends in shea parklands and the factors driving change in these land use systems, as well as specific land and tree tenure conditions that affect resource management. Several sessions were then dedicated to developing components of the manual on community sensitization and diagnosis, multi-stakeholder agreements as well as parkland and tree-based technical interventions.

The event, which was funded by ICCO Cooperation in Mali, was attended by Joseph Funt and Aaron Adu, GSA’s Managing Director and Africa Operations Director respectively, researchers from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Nigeria, several international NGOs active in shea and national producer groups.

With recently established offices in Washington DC and Brussels, GSA is vigorously pursuing donor contacts and sensitizing them on the multiple prospects of investing in the sustainability of the shea sector and potential impacts for the 18 million women farmers estimated to collect shea nuts in the region. GSA has applied for a grant from the Global Development Alliance, USAID’s primary instrument for supporting public-private partnerships to implement its Sustainability Program. In addition, an MoU between ICRAF and GSA is being finalized.

Plans for joint GSA-ICRAF visits to identified donors are also underway to discuss and eventually implement a series of novel activities in various areas including genome-enabled parkland regeneration and management, large-scale micro-propagation, and the commercial promotion of unique fresh fruit cultivars of shea.

Shea fruits

Woman and child collecting shea fruits on the ground

Participants of the GSA regional workshop

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ICRAF has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Kapchorwa District Landcare Chapter (KADLACC) to facilitate collaboration on projects to support smallholder farmers in Uganda.

KADLACC is a platform that supports a network of 44 community-based natural resource management groups in Uganda’s Mount Elgon sub-region. KADLACC has more than a decade of experience engaging with Landcare Innovation Platforms to facilitate community actions in soil and water conservation. Specifically, KADLACC works in the following areas: watershed management, farmer learning, institutional development, protected areas, collaborative management, farmer innovations, resource mobilization, marketing and enterprise development, and partnerships and networking.

Under the terms of the MoU, ICRAF and KADLAAC will work together to strengthen human and institutional capacity for agroforestry research and development; conduct joint, long-term experiments; pool resources; and develop value chains to boost market-oriented agricultural production, among other activities.

The MoU took effect on 1 October 2015 and will last for an initial duration of four years.

A member of a community-based nursery adjacent to Mt Elgon National Park in southeast Uganda. © Olivia E. Freeman

ICRAF & KADLAAC partner to support Ugandan farmersBy Paige McCLanahan

C E N T R E I N T H E M E D I A

• ICRAF champions capacity needs assessment for agroforestry mitigation and adaptation

• Fodder shrubs a cheaper alternative to commercial feeds

• Nakuru farmers advised to practise organic farming

• Enhancing readiness to address climate shocks in Africa

• ASB Partnership policy brief examines REDD+, climate and SDG implementation

• Vietnam agriculture ministry and CGIAR align development agenda

• Le projet YAMSYS pour améliorer la productivité de l'igname en Côte d'Ivoire

• Will the rubber sector flourish in the AEC?

• International workshop on energy to be held next week

• Conference on bioenergy and development: statement of the co-chairs

• Niger Basin countries adopt climate resilience investment plan

• A million euros for ICRAF’s Agroforestry Food Security Programme in Malawi

• ERuDeF shortlisted for Southwest implementation

ICRAF and Zambia extend partnershipBy Paige McCLanahan

The World Agroforestry Centre and the government of Zambia have renewed their commitment to work together in the future, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that commits them to at least another five years of partnership.

ICRAF and the Zambian government have been actively collaborating for more than 20 years, with most of their collaborations focused on the Zambezi Basin Agroforestry Project, which wrapped up in 2007.

The new MoU, which took effect on 27 October, is intended to facilitate ICRAF’s working presence in the country, including by allowing free movement of ICRAF staff; exempting ICRAF’s imports from customs duties; and allowing for the unrestricted import of germplasm for ICRAF

projects, consistent with national inspection regulations.

“The Government of Zambia is desirous to increase the production of food crops, raising the economic well-being of smallholder farmers, sustaining agricultural productivity, and building resilience to climate change,” the MoU said.

“Both the government of Zambia and ICRAF are seeking to find sustainable solutions to land and soil management, to understand the effects of climate change, and to support Zambian farmers and institutions to take up measures to mitigate and adapt to [climate change] through tree-based agroforestry production systems.”

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N E W S T O R I E S / B L O G S

• Multipurpose trees help Tanzania smallholders build a resilient farming system

• Beyond eucalyptus woodlots: what’s on the agroforestry menu for communities around Virunga?

• From knowing to reaping benefits from trees in the Philippines

• Farmers and funders need to open their eyes to the benefits of integrated landscapes

• Surviving the long dry season in Konawe Selatan with improved farming systems

• Considerations for successful forest restoration in a changing climate

• Liming farmers brace for dry season with cover crops

• ICRAF/IASS conference on bioenergy and development: statement of the co-chairs

• Bioenergy and development: the investment case for sustainable production systems

• Farmer master chefs reveal the colourful diversity of food

• Overlooked no more, precious fruit tree comes into its own in West Africa’s Sahel

• PUB or coffee shop: how to inform landscape watershed management?

Position Job Category Duty Station Closing Date

Research Assistant - SIP, CIMMYT Nationally Recruited Staff Nairobi 29 November 2015

For more information go to http://worldagroforestry.org/working-for-icraf/vacancies

Learning Opportunities

Call for Applications for Ph.D. Fellowships under DAAD’s In-country/In-region Fellowship Program

P I C T O R I A L

ICRAF partners with Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA)

Margaret Kroma, Samuel Mwangi, ESPA Evidence Advisor, Prof. Paul van Gardingen - ESPA Director and Fergus Sinclair

Margaret Kroma, Assistant Director General, Partnership and Impacts and Prof. Paul van Gardingen, ESPA Director

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KALRO officials visit the Soil-Plant Spectroscopy Lab, 4 November 2015

Mercy Nyambura explains the results of xray diffraction mineralogy measurement

Ermias Betemariam explains the application of Infrared Spectroscopy on land health surveillance Rory Crew examines the plant growth chamber

Zakayo Kinyanjui points out how seeds are stored in the seed gene bank

Lab visit by Rory Crew, Grants and Compliance Accountant, BRACED Consortium, 9 November 2015

Agnes Were explains various agroforestry tree species

Keith Shepherd explains the working of the laser particle size analysis spectrometer

Keith Shepherd explains the importance of soil sample validated handling procedures Stanley Kitiki demonstrates the logging in of soil sample details

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The Australian High Commissioner to Kenya, HE John Feakes visits ICRAF, 11 November 2015

Ramni Jamnadass explains some of the baobab products

Sheila Abwanda demonstrates how greenhouse gases are sampled in farmers' fields Katja Kehlenbeck shows Marlene Diekmann a grafted baobab seedling

Lab visit by Marlene Diekmann, GIZ, 12 November 2015

John Nyaga points out macro and microaggregates isolated through the wet sieving process

Julius Njoroge explains the use of a profile probe that allows measurement of soil water in the field

Aster Gebrekirstos, lead tree ring scientist explains tree rings and their interpretation

HE John Feakes plants a Grevillea robusta seedlingHE John Feakes scrutinizes some of the different soil types analysed in the Infrared spectroscopy lab

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University of Nairobi professors visit the Soil-Plant Spectroscopy Lab, 12 November 2015

Robin Chacha explains the importance of crushing and sieving of soil samples

Dickens Ateku expounds on the coning and quartering procedure of soil samples for analysis

Beatrice Oware explains the principle of xray diffraction spectrometer and its application in mineralogy Emily Barasa explains particle size analysis

SD 6 Planning Meeting, 11-12 November 2015

Christine Lamanna and Cheikh MbowRavi Prabhu makes a contribution during the feedback session

Mehmood Hassan and Henry Neufeldt Fergus Sinclair makes a contribution

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Transformations is the bi-weekly newsletter of the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi

Compiled and edited by: Daisy Ouya & Betty RabarDesign/Layout: Tabitha ObaraProof reading: Betty RabarDistribution: Hellen KiaragoE-mail: Icraf-transformations@cgiar.orgWebsite: www.worldagroforestry.org

© 2015 Copyright and Fair Use ICRAF holds the copyright to its publications and web pages but encourages fair use, without alteration, of these materials for non-commercial purposes. Proper citation is required in all instances. Information owned by other providers and requiring permission is marked as such. Website links provided by our site will have their own policies that must be honoured. The information provided by ICRAF is, to the best of our knowledge, accurate although we do not guarantee the information nor are we liable for any damages arising from its use. ICRAF maintains a database of users, but this information is not distributed and is used only to measure the usefulness of our information. Without restriction, please add a link to our website: http://www.worldagroforestry.org on your website.

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Submitting a story for Transformations Bi-Weekly? Please email to ICRAF-Transformations@cgiar.org, cc h.kiarago@cgiar.org by Tuesday 2.30pm; or reserve space by Monday 2.30 pm. We look forward to receiving your submissions. Transformations Bi-weekly is distributed every two weeks. Thank you.

Name: Bernard Fungo

Title: Research Fellow

Station/region: Kisumu (SD6)

Years at ICRAF: 4 years

Favourite sport: Soccer

Favourite book or magazine: The Fifth Witness (By Michael Connelly)

Favourite music: Country music

Hobbies: Watching sports, debating

My favourite tree is Prunus africana because it provides a natural remedy for prostate cancer among men

Staff of the week

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Publications

Blog: http://blog.worldagroforestry.org/

PUBLICATIONS BY ICRAF STAFF

Journal articlesAbengmeneng CS, Ofori DA, Kumapley P, Akromah R, Jamnadass R. 2015. Estimation of heritability and genetic gain in height growth in Ceiba pentandra African Journal of Biotechnology 14 (22): 1880-1885

Colfer CJP, Elias M, Jamnadass R. 2015. Women and men in tropical dry forests: a preliminary review International Forestry Review 17(S2)

Gebauer J, Assem A, Busch E, Hardtmann S, Möckel D, Krebs F, Ziegler T. 2015. Baobabs in Eastern Africa: a review (Der Baobab (Adansonia digitata L.): Wildobst aus Afrika für Deutschland und Europa? Erwerbs-Obstbau 56 (1): 9-24

Njenga M. 2015. The bioenergy-environment-gender nexus: how simple innovations can drive change The Cornerstone, Journal of Sustainable Finance & Banking 2 (2): 34-36

ReportDobie P, Neufeldt H, Sharma N, Iiyama M, Ciannella R, Njenga M, Valencia A-MP, Bohra B, Pragya N, Favaro S, Cornelius J, Miccolis A, Cianella R, Sinclair F, Jamnadass R, Neely C, Hassan M, Mbow C, Watson C, de Jong M, Chevenoy A, Okia C, Lynam J, Cisneros H, Prabhu R, Terheggen A, Mohan S. 2015. Strategy on tree-based energy: clean and sustainable energy for improving the livelihoods of poor people Nairobi: World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), 32p

Working paperKirui J, Maritim W, Kiptot E, Wafula S, Ngaina JN, Kugonza J. 2015. Mobile phone ownership and use of short text message service by farmer trainers: a case study of Olkalou and Kaptumo in Kenya ICRAF Working paper no. 206 Nairobi: World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) 14p