Assessment of on-farm, market and wild food diversity in three agro-ecological zones of Western Kenya

Poster presented at Tropentag 2014. International Conference on Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development. "Bridging the Gap between Increasing Knowledge and Decreasing Resources" Prague (Czech Republic) Sep 17-19 2014

Building resilient crop-livestock farming systems in Senegal

The Senegalese agricultural and livestock sector is the main economic activity representing approximately 17% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and employing 70% of the population. Around 350,000 families nationwide carry out livestock breeding activities, representing nearly 30% of Senegalese farmers. Limited agricultural production conditions, characterized by poor soils and weather conditions, limited access to advisory services, and poor-quality agricultural inputs and insufficient infrastructure contribute to Senegal’s inability to satisfy its food needs. Consequently, the country depends on food imports

CIS impacts on farmer wellbeing in Senegal: evidence and opportunities

Climate information services (CIS) enable farmers and pastoralists to better understand, anticipate and manage climate risks. At a national level, Senegal’s foundation for CIS is among the strongest in West Africa. Yet the potential contribution of CIS to the wellbeing of the country’s farmers and agropastoralists remains underexploited and inequitably distributed. Impediments include economic and gender-based disparities, inadequate integration of climate information into agricultural advisories, weak capacity to communicate and interpret probabilistic information at a climate time scale, and lack of climate knowledge among agricultural professionals who support farmers and agropastoralists with information and advisories. This InfoNote summarizes available evidence of the use and impact of CIS for Senegal’s farmers, and discusses what AICCRA is doing to alleviate impediments and enhance the benefits of CIS to Senegal’s farming population

Exploring Niches for Short-Season Grain Legumes in Semi-Arid Eastern Kenya — Coping with the Impacts of Climate Variability

Climate variability is the major risk to agricultural production in semi-arid agroecosystems and the key challenge to sustain farm livelihoods for the 500 million people who inhabit these areas worldwide. Short-season grain legumes have great potential to address this challenge and help to design more resilient and productive farming systems. However, grain legumes display a great diversity and differ widely in growth, development, and resource use efficiency. Three contrasting short season grain legumes common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] and lablab [Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet] were selected to assess their agricultural potential with respect to climate variability and change along the Machakos-Makueni transect in semi-arid Eastern Kenya. This was undertaken using measured data [a water response trial conducted during 2012/13 and 2013/14 in Machakos, Kenya] and simulated data using the Agricultural Production System sIMulator (APSIM). The APSIM crop model was calibrated and validated to simulate growth and development of short-season grain legumes in semi-arid environments. Water use efficiency (WUE) was used as indicator to quantify the production potential. The major traits of adaptation include early flowering and pod and seed set before the onset of terminal drought. Early phenology together with adapted canopy architecture allowed more optimal water use and greater partitioning of dry matter into seed (higher harvest index). While common bean followed a comparatively conservative strategy of minimizing water loss through crop transpiration, the very short development time and compact growth habit limited grain yield to rarely exceed 1,000 kg ha−1. An advantage of this strategy was relatively stable yields independent of in-crop rainfall or season length across the Machakos-Makueni transect. The growth habit of cowpea in contrast minimized water loss through soil evaporation with rapid ground cover and dry matter production, reaching very high grain yields at high potential sites (3,000 kg ha−1) but being highly susceptible to in-season drought. Lablab seemed to be best adapted to dry environments. Its canopy architecture appeared to be best in compromising between the investment in biomass as a prerequisite to accumulate grain yield by minimizing water loss through soil evaporation and crop transpiration. This lead to grain yields of up to 2,000 kg ha−1 at high potential sites and >1,000 kg ha−1 at low potential sites. The variance of observed and simulated WUE was high and no clear dependency on total rainfall alone was observed for all three short-season grain legumes, highlighting that pattern of water use is also important in determining final WUEbiomass and WUEgrain. Mean WUEgrain was lowest for cowpea (1.5–3.5 kggrain ha−1 mm−1) and highest for lablab (5–7 kggrain ha−1 mm−1) reflecting the high susceptibility to drought of cowpea and the good adaptation to dry environments of lablab. Results highlight that, based on specific morphological, phonological, and physiological characteristics, the three short-season grain legumes follow different strategies to cope with climate variability. The climate-smart site-specific utilization of the three legumes offers promising options to design more resilient and productive farming systems in semi-arid Eastern Kenya

Meta-analysis of crop responses to conservation agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa

Conservation agriculture involves reduced or no-tillage, permanent soil cover and crop rotations to enhance soil fertility and crop yields. Conservation agriculture practices are increasingly promoted on smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa as a means to overcome continuing poor-profitability and soil degradation. In recent years a growing number of studies have been carried out in sub-Saharan Africa comparing conservation agriculture practices to conventional tillage-based practices. These studies have been conducted under a range of conditions (climate, soil, management, cropping system) gaining variable results on crop yield responses. The aim of this study is to compare and combine the results from different conservation agriculture experiments using meta-analysis in the hope of identifying patterns among study results, sources of disagreement among those results, or interesting relationships that may come to light in the context of the different studies

AICCRA Country Scaling Vision: Senegal

By the end of 2023, AICCRA Senegal aims to reach and have positive impacts on over 300k farmers and value chain players through the delivery of climate informed agro-advisories, building on enhanced climate information services (CIS), and new/improved climate smart agricultural (CSA) packages and technologies. The strategy for this scaling vision uses multiple pathways and is achieved through partnerships with the National Agricultural, Research and Extension Services (NARES) and private sector in Senegal. A conceptual framework for this vision is adapted from the Scan tool following Jacobs et al. (2018)