Projet UE-FIDA « Développement de chaînes de valeur et de paysages intelligents face au climat pour accroitre la résilience des moyens de subsistance en Afrique de l’Ouest » Rapport de l’atelier sur le développement de profil de risque climatique pour la région de Tillabéri, Niger

Du 9 au 11 Décembre 2020, s’est déroulé, au Niger, dans la salle de réunion de la Direction Régionale de l’Institut National de la Statistique de Tillabéri, l’atelier des acteurs régionaux pour le développement du profil de risque climatique de la région de Tillabéri. L’atelier a été organisé dans le cadre du projet de « développement de chaînes de valeur et paysage climato-intelligents pour accroitre la résilience des moyens de subsistance en Afrique de l’Ouest », financé par l’Union européenne (UE) et mis en œuvre par le projet « Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security » (CCAFS) au Mali, Niger et Sénégal en partenariat avec les instituts de recherches agricoles nationaux (INRAN, ICRISAT)

Prioritizing value chains for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) promotion in Mali, Niger and Senegal

Climate change is already having a significant effect on agriculture and food security in West Africa. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is proposed as a solution to transform and reorient agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. To benefit from the positive gains arising from CSA, a wide scale adoption of CSA technologies and practices is required. The value chain (VC) approach is positioning as a major upscaling opportunity for agricultural innovations in general and CSA options in particular as it offers opportunities to address most of adoption constraints of CSA. Through ensuring an effective and efficient coordination among its actors and creating partnerships with other stakeholders (such as public-private, private-cooperatives and related organizations along the VC), the VC approach improves the access to input and product markets and support the development of business services, contributing to promote the uptake of CSA technologies and practices. The Output 2 of the CCAFS- EU-IFAD-funded project “Building Livelihoods and Resilience to Climate Change in East and West Africa: Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) for large-scale implementation of Climate-Smart Agriculture”, aims at developing climatesmart value chains to increase livelihood resilience in West Africa (Mali, Niger and Senegal). To reach this goal, the preliminary activity of the project was to conduct a series of stakeholders’ workshops in order to select promising VCs for the promotion of CSA in Mali, Niger and Senegal

Profil des risques climatiques des chaînes de valeur des principales cultures de la Région de Tillabéri, Niger

A l’instar des régions du Niger, l’agriculture de la région de Tillabéri fait face à plusieurs conséquences néfastes du changement climatique affectant le développement agricole de la région. Cependant, il existe diverses potentialités pour développer ce secteur agricole afin de mieux supporter les chocs climatiques telles que l’Agriculture Intelligent face au Climat (AIC). C’est ainsi que depuis 2011, le programme de recherche du CGIAR sur le Changement Climatique, l’Agriculture et la sécurité alimentaire (CCAFS) met en oeuvre au Niger, un projet de développement de chaînes de valeur et paysage climato-intelligents pour accroitre la résilience des moyens de subsistance. Ce projet s’articule autour de trois activités principales, à savoir (i) l’analyse des chaînes de valeur afin d’identifier les risques climatiques et autres contraintes auxquelles font face les chaînes de valeur et qui pourraient être résolues par des options climato-intelligentes, (ii) l’intégration d’options agricoles climato-intelligentes (AIC) fondées sur des évidences dans les chaînes de valeur sélectionnées par le biais des plateformes d’innovation multipartites et (iii) l’élaboration d’un cadre conceptuel pour l’analyse de chaînes de valeur climato-intelligente

Agricultural intensification and policy interventions: Exploring plausible futures for smallholder farmers in Southern Mali

Assessing how livelihoods in rural sub-Saharan Africa might change given future trends in socio-economic and biophysical conditions helps to identify and direct effective efforts towards poverty reduction. Based on existing literature, hypothetical changes in farmer practices and policy interventions were described and used to build five contrasting scenarios towards the year 2027. A simulation framework was developed to assess food self-sufficiency and income per capita now and in the future for a representative village of 99 households in Southern Mali. In the current situation, 26% of the farms were food self-sufficient and above the 1.9 US$ day−1 poverty line. This percentage would fall to 13% in the “Business as usual” scenario. In the “Dairy development” scenario, with intensification of livestock production and support to the milk sector, 27% of farms would be food self-sufficient and non-poor. Additional policy interventions targeting family planning and job creation outside agriculture would be needed to improve both household food self-sufficiency and income per capita. In this optimistic scenario, 77% of the farms would be non-poor and food self-sufficient in 2027. Additional programs to promote Integrated Pest Management, small-scale mechanization and mineral fertilizer on traditional cereals could allow a drastic increase in productivity and would lift 94% of the farm population out of poverty. Considering the entire heterogeneous farm population was crucial to accurately assess pathways out of poverty. Our study stresses the need for a strategic and multi-sectoral combination of interventions to improve livelihoods

Contribution of Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies to Food Self-Sufficiency of Smallholder Households in Mali

Climate change has resulted in food insecurity for the majority of farming communities in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Mali. In this paper, we present a methodology for scaling climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies such as Contour Bunding (CB), Microdosing (MD), Intercropping (IC), Zaï pits, and Adapted crop Variety (AV) treatments, and evaluated their contribution to smallholder households’ food self-sufficiency. We used the participatory technology selection method and on-farm demonstration in order to tackle farm-related constraints. The study found that there has been a major shift in the spatial distribution of land use/land cover (LULC) classes between 2016 and 2020. About 25% of the areas changed from other land use/land cover to cropland. Crop yields obtained from CSA-treated fields were significantly higher than yields from farmers’ practice (FP). The application of CSA technologies resulted in millet yield increases by 51%, 35%, and 23% with contour bunding (CB), microdosing (MD) and intercropping (IC), respectively. With Zaï pits and adapted variety (AV) treatments, the yield increases were 69% and 27%, respectively. Further, the use of IC and MD technologies reduced the food-insecure household status to 13%, which corresponds to a food insecurity reduction of 60%. The application of Zaï technology reversed the negative status of food-insecurity to +4%, corresponding to a reduction in food insecurity of more than 100%. In the case of food-secure households, the application of CSA technologies led to increased food production. However, notwithstanding this, prospects for CSA in the Sahel hinge on the capacities of farming households and local extension agents to understand the environmental, economic and social challenges in the context of climate change, and consequently to self-mobilize in order to select and implement responsive technologies

Effects of climate variability and climate change on crop production in southern Mali

In West Africa predictions of future changes in climate and especially rainfall are highly uncertain, and up to now no long-term analyses are available of the effects of climate on crop production. This study analyses long-term trends in climate variability at N'Tarla and Sikasso in southern Mali using a weather dataset from 1965 to 2005. Climatic variables and crop productivity were analysed using data from an experiment conducted from 1965 to 1993 at N'Tarla and from a crop yield database from ten cotton growing districts of southern Mali. Minimum daily air temperature increased on average by 0.05. °C per year during the period from 1965 to 2005 while maximum daily air temperature remained constant. Seasonal rainfall showed large inter-annual variability with no significant change over the 1965-2005 period. However, the total number of dry days within the growing season increased significantly at N'Tarla, indicating a change in rainfall distribution. Yields of cotton, sorghum and groundnut at the N'Tarla experiment varied (30%) without any clear trend over the years. There was a negative effect of maximum temperature, number of dry days and total seasonal rainfall on cotton yield. The variation in cotton yields was related to the rainfall distribution within the rainfall season, with dry spells and seasonal dry days being key determinants of crop yield. In the driest districts, maize yields were positively correlated with rainfall. Our study shows that cotton production in southern Mali is affected by climate change, in particular through changes in the rainfall distribution

Climate variability and change in Southern Mali:learning from farmer perceptions and on-farm trials

Agricultural production in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of west Africa is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and climate change. The present study aimed to understand farmers' perceptions of climate variability and change and to evaluate adaptation options together with farmers, including tactical management of planting date in combination with the use of mineral fertilizer. Farmers perceived an increase in annual rainfall variability, an increase in the occurrence of dry spells during the rainy season, and an increase in temperature. Overall, this is in line with the observed meteorological data. Drought tolerant, short maturing crop varieties and appropriate planting dates were the commonly preferred adaptation strategies to deal with climate variability. On-farm trials confirmed that planting delays significantly reduce crop yields. The use of mineral fertilizer is often promoted, but risky for smallholders: although larger fertilizer applications increased the yield of maize (Zea mays) and millet (Pennisetum glaucum) significantly, a gross margin analysis indicated that it did not lead to more profit for all farmers. We conclude that integrating management of nutrients and planting time with improved farmer access to timely weather information, especially on the onset of the rains, is critical to enhancing adaptive capacity to increased climate variability and change

Evaluation of climate adaptation options for Sudano-Sahelian cropping systems

In the Sudano-Sahelian region, smallholder agricultural production is dominated by rain-fed production of millet, sorghum and maize for food consumption and of cotton for the market. A major constraint for crop production is the amount of rainfall and its intra and inter-annual variability. We evaluated the effects of planting date on the yield of different varieties of four major crops (maize, millet, sorghum and cotton) over three contrasting growing seasons in 2009-2011 (with 842. mm, 1248. mm and 685. mm of rainfall respectively) with the aim of identifying climate adaptation options in the Sudano-Sahelian region. Three planting dates (early, medium, and late) and three varieties of long, medium, and short duration of each crop were compared. For fertilized cereal crops, maize out yielded millet and sorghum by respectively 57% and 45% across the three seasons. Analysis of 40 years of weather data indicates that this finding holds for the longer time periods than the length of this trial. Late planting resulted in significant yield decreases for maize, sorghum and cotton, but not for millet. However, a short duration variety of millet was better adapted for late planting. When the rainy season starts late, sorghum planting can be delayed from the beginning of June to early July without substantial reductions in grain yield. Cotton yield at early planting was 28% larger than yield at medium planting and late planting gave the lowest yield with all three varieties. For all four crops the largest stover yields were obtained with early planting and the longer planting was delayed, the less stover was produced. There was an interaction between planting date and variety for millet and sorghum, while for maize and cotton the best planting date was more affected by the weather conditions. The findings of this study can support simple adaptation decisions: priority should be given to planting cotton early; maize is the best option if fertilizer is available; planting of maize and sorghum can be delayed by up to a month without strong yield penalties; and millet should be planted last. © 2013 Elsevier B.V