Village Baseline Study: Site Analysis Report for Kaffrine – Kaffrine, Senegal

The village baseline study of Toune Mosquée village in the CCAFS benchmark site Kaffrine in Senegal took place from June 2 to 4, 2011. Natural resources in the village are in a progressive state of degradation. The ‘protected’ forest has almost disappeared, the soils have low fertility and are degraded, and crop production is not sufficient to meet the food needs of a family throughout the year. Families must buy food to fill the gap in production. For that they harvest and sell forest products, which creates a vicious cycle of resource degradation. The male and female groups identified 35 organisations operating in the village including informal groups, state services, associations, NGOs and Muslim brotherhoods. While 18 of those work on food security issues, only 4 are involved in the management and protection of natural resources. Very few agricultural extension and training opportunities target women despite the women’s significant role in agriculture and livestock production. Women obtain information on livestock feeding techniques from people and organisations such as the horticultural project, women’s associations, and water and forest services. Men get information on soil inputs and soil fertility management from other farmers, organisations, radio and television, and from community leaders, notably the office of the village chief and the mosque on Fridays. The radio is the form of media most commonly used by the women but few women own a radio

Adaptation Actions in Africa: Evidence that Gender Matters

This paper presents the initial data analyses of the CCAFS gender survey implemented in four sites in Africa. Using descriptive statistics we show gender differences in terms of perceptions of climate change, awareness and adoption of climate smart agricultural (CSA) practices, and types and sources of agro-climatic information in the four sites.We find that both men and women are experiencing changes in long-run weather patterns and that they are changing their behaviours in response; albeit relatively minor shifts in existing agricultural practices. For example, the most prevalent changes reported include switching crop varieties, switching types of crops and changing planting dates. As expected, women are less aware of many CSA practices. Encouragingly, this same pattern does not hold when it comes to adoption; in many cases, in East Africa in particular, women, when aware, are more likely than or just as likely as men to adopt CSA practices. In West Africa, overall, the adoption of these practices was much lower. In addition, we see that access to information from different sources varies greatly between men and women and among the sites; however, promisingly, those with access to information report using it to make changes to their agricultural practices. Our findings suggest that targeting women with climate and agricultural information is likely to result in uptake of new agricultural practices for adaptation

Characteristics of microbial habitats in a tropical soil subject to different fallow management

Changes in land use affect soil properties. In most West-African farming systems forest-fallow management intended to restore soil fertility no longer functions efficiently because the duration of the fallow periods has been shortened and the fallow areas have been reduced. Alternative practices must, therefore, be adopted. This study tested the efficiency of short periods of improved fallows (Andropogon gayanus and Acacia holosericea) in regenerating soil microbial properties, compared to the efficiency of a natural long-term fallow. The microbial community was studied by cloning and sequencing 16S rDNA and by analyzing enzyme activities (alkaline phosphatase, p-glucosidase). The study was carried out at the soil aggregate scale to test how the microbial community in different micro-habitats reacted to the different fallow practices. The 4-year-old Acacia holosericea and Angropogon gayanus fallows did not regenerate soil properties as efficiently as the 21-year-old natural fallow. However, Andropogon gayanus could be used to restore soil properties quickly. Three different aggregate-size fractions were affected by fallow management: organic residues, the > 2000 mu m fraction and the 2-50 mu m fraction. These microhabitats were enriched with bacteria belonging to the Telluria genus and more generally to beta-Proteobacteria. Published by Elsevier B.V

Implications de la recherche centrée sur le genre au Sénégal pour l’adaptation au changement climatique

Les modèles agricoles et climatiques sont capables de pré-dire l’impact du changement climatique sur les rende-ments de différentes récoltes dans diverses régions. Cet impact est toutefois difficile à prévoir sur la vie des indivi-dus. Chaque groupe ou type de personnes vivra différemment les conséquences du changement climatique suivant sa position au sein de la société, déterminée par le sexe, la classe sociale, le groupe ethnique, la religion, l’âge et d’autres facteurs. Les normes locales et liées au genre concernant qui fait quoi et qui contrôle les profits des différentes activités sont également importantes. Il est donc évident que les stratégies appropriées d’adaptation au chan-gement climatique, y compris l’adoption de pratiques agricoles in-telligentes face au climat et l’utilisation de l’information climatique, diffèrent selon les groupes de personnes ainsi que pour les femmes par rapport aux hommes

Implications of gender-focused research in Senegal for farmer's adaption to climate change

Crop and climate models predict how climate change will impact yields of various crops in different regions. However, it is difficult to predict the impact of climate change on individuals’ lives. Different groups and types of people experience the impacts of climate change differently depending on their position in society, which is determined by gender, race, class, ethnicity, religion, age, and other factors. Local cultural and gender norms regarding who does what and who controls the benefits from different activities also matters. It stands to reason, then, that appropriate climate change adaptation strategies, including adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices and use of climate information, will be distinct for different groups of people, and for women compared to men

Estimates of carbon stocks in sandy soils cultivated under local management practices in Senegal’s groundnut basin

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is essential for the productivity of agroecosystems and for mitigating climate change. Because the SOC contents of sandy soils are usually small, the effects of agricultural management upon SOC stocks in such soils have been insufficiently studied. In West sub-arid Africa, the coarse-textured soils (mostly Arenosols) are diversely managed by smallholders. In this study, we aimed to quantify SOC stocks in cultivated soils of that region, in a context where agricultural practices rely mainly upon organic inputs derived from various integrated crop-livestock systems. SOC stocks were estimated for the 0-30 cm depth in 1,813 plots in Senegal's groundnut basin. We found that SOC stocks in farmers' fields varied between 2.3 and 59.8 Mg C ha(-1) (mean +/- standard deviation, 14.6 +/- 0.14 Mg C ha(-1)). SOC stocks were influenced slightly by soil type, but were only weakly correlated to soils' clay and silt contents. SOC stocks differed significantly among the three studied village territories due to contrasting livestock-raising systems. Average stocks were significantly higher in plots close to housings (home-fields), which receive larger amounts of organic inputs, than in plots farther from the village (out-fields). Thus, the organic inputs to home-fields improves soil C stocks of these sandy soils in the short term. Innovative agricultural practices in the studied area probably need to target options for managing all fields optimally. Those options will require continuous application of organic products-a measure that will in turn require solutions for improving availability or management of local organic resources