Project Activities include:

1) Analyze sociology-economic and biophysical data with households implementing climate smart practices based on the menu of practices.

2) Continue to build capacity of farmers and farmer groups and development and extension practitioners for increased crop-livestock-tree productivity using climate smart practices through farming and demonstration sites.

3) Measure progress in ecosystem characteristics monitoring changes using the Land Health Surveillance Framework and employing Greenhouse Gas Flux measurements

Expected outputs

1) Increased capacity development and implementation of climate smart agricultural practice for increased sustainable crop productivity;

2) Increased productivity and land health (including biological diversity and risks to water quality and quantity)

3) Measurement and monitoring to access carbon stocks and net emissions within farming systems and landscapes

Project Objectives are:-
The overall objective of the project shall be to contribute to the transition of small-scale farming systems from subsistence farming to intensified semi-commercial farming of fruit, nut and oilseed trees and of small scale private or community tree nurseries and micro-processors to more business oriented and profitable enterprises.

Building on the Global Foresight Report on Food and Farming Futures, and recent initiatives including the Integrated Monitoring System for African Landscapes, the purpose of this work is to:-

Identify lessons and opportunities for the derivation and use of data from monitoring systems in the sustainable intensification of agriculture (i.e enhancing productivity with less impact on scarce natural resources and which do not contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss)

In particular, this review will systematically

1) Map out key initiatives in data monitoring systems relating to agriculture, ecosystem health and poverty and well-being; including their objectives indicators and metrics used.

2) Gap analysis of systems, indicators and metrics, identifying strengths and weaknesses in methodology and use.

3) Undertake an evidence-based synthesis of applicability at different levels, standardization of indicators, composite metrics, coverage and replicability, validity, cost of indicator systems.

4) Synthesize lessons, guided by an expert panel, drawing of the evidence collated in the mapping and gap analysis.

Specific Objectives.

a) Support UNEP with the establishment and operations of an International Expert Panel on Landscapes in Green Economy.

b) Support UNEP with the disseminate of clear and concise information through the organization of a regional conference for Africa on forests and REDD+ in a Green Economy.

c) Articulate key messages on green economy, forests and sustainable land use through articles in the popular media and the internet.

Activities of ICRAF include:-

a) Facilitating the establishment of an International Expert Panel on Landscapes in a Green Economy, including supporting UNEP with finalizing the draft Terms of Reference for experts; support UNEP with the organization of the first meeting of the International Expert Panel on Landscapes in a Green Economy.

b) Support UNEP with the organization of the Regional Conference for Africa, in Nairobi, on exchanging information and experience on the potential of REDD+ and forests for a green economy transition.

c) Draft atlest 5 popular articles for publication based on the results of UNEP’s UN-REDD Programme work on outcome 6 ‘Green economy transformation and REDD+ strategies and investments are mutually reinforcing’

Expected Results and Outputs

Results expected.

1) The understanding of a Scientific, policy and practice community on sustainable land-use and landscape planning, especially of forests, is increased promoting green economy transformations in developing countries.

2) The awareness of scientific, policy and practice community is raised about sustainable use of forests and other forests and other land use and the relationship to the green economy.

Outputs Expected are:-

1) The International Expert Panel on Landscape in a Green Economy established and first meeting convened.

2) Report from Regional Conference and a network of practitioners on exchanging expereince on the role of forests and REDD+ for a Green Economy in Africa.

3) Atleast 5 articles published.

The specific objectives are to:

- Analyse the main drivers that have transformed farming systems (foodcrop and AFS) to identify the more resilient ones likely to withstand future hazards.
- Assess the contribution of AFS to food security and resilience at plot, farm, and landscape levels.
- Identify pathways that better conciliate production with provision of environmental services for rural poverty alleviation.
- Consolidate African research capacities and scientific network in tropical agroforestry.

Main Activities:

1. Management and dissemination of results and recommendations.
2. Characterisation of farming systems and identification of long term
drivers at household and landscape levels.
3. Assessment of synergies between AFS and food-crops at plot, farm,
and landscape levels for productivity and environmental services.
4. Characterization of the AFS main-crop quality for potential value
addition to the farmers’ incomes.

Project outputs

1. Productive and Environmental Interactions between AFS and food Crops at plot, farm, and landscape levels

2. Pathways to improve synergies between AFS and food crops at plot level

Bringing together a wide range of national and international partners from the environment, agriculture, nutrition, health and education sectors, the project will build on growing evidence showing that agricultural biodiversity has the potential to fulfill many of the nutritional requirements needed for a healthy and balanced diet and thus can help reverse the alarming trends in under- and over-nutrition afflicting many countries worldwide. The evidence will be used to conserve and promote the use of these species in the four countries by:

• Raising awareness of their importance
• Creating markets and value chains for their use
• Making sure that future policies and strategies that tackle malnutrition include the sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity as a cost-effective solution to rising diet-related nutrition and health conditions – such as nutrient deficiencies and obesity

The global multi-country-led project will make possible the exchange of experiences, tools and mechanisms and stimulate the identification of lessons learned and best practices that can be built upon as a global project. For example, in Brazil significant linkages have already been established between the agriculture, health and education sectors, which provide models and examples for the other countries participating in this project. Likewise, in Kenya efforts to enhance linkages between farmers and markets based on the nutritionally-superior African Leafy Vegetables provide excellent lessons and good practices for other participating countries. By bringing these experiences and practices together in a global context, the project will be able to facilitate considerable South-to-South cooperation and sharing, as well as potential for replication and scaling-up of these outputs and results beyond the project countries.

National partners

Brazil

• Ministry of Environment (MMA)
• Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA)
• Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger (MDS)
• Ministry of Health (MS)
• National Food Supply Company (CONAB)
• Ministry of Education/National Fund for Education Development (MEC/FNDE)

Kenya

• Kenya Agricultural Research Institute
• Ministry of Medical Services
• National Museums of Kenya

Sri Lanka

• Ministry of Environment
• Department of Agriculture
• Department of Health
• Department of National Botanic Gardens
• Universities of Ruhuna, Peradeniya and Wayamba
• NGOs: Green Movement of Sri Lanka, Community Development Centre and Seva Lanka Foundation

Turkey

• Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA)
• Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF)
• Turkish Association for the Protection of Nature (TTKD)

International partners

Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the initiative is coordinated by Bioversity International with implementation support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Given the cross-sectoral and multi-disciplinary nature of this project, additional support is coming from the World Food Programme (WFP); the Earth Institute, Columbia University; Crops for the Future; the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and AVRDC - The World Vegetable Centre in facilitating both implementation and scaling up of activities.

For further information please visit the project website, download the BFN Project Flyer, or subscribe to the BFN Project Newsletter.

The first goal of the project is to identify the top 20 or so disease/vector systems of economic importance in each of four livestock categories in Africa: cattle, sheep and goats, pigs, and poultry.

We will collate information from all of the expert lists that we can access, and use a citation search to determine which pest/disease systems have received the most research attention since 2000.

From these ranked lists, we will produce distribution maps to indicate presence or implied absence in each country of the pest/disease systems that rank highest in each of the four livestock categories.

This information will then be juxtaposed against spatially explicit measures of livestock and human geographies and disease impacts to help identify the prima facie importance of each disease within each country. This analysis will be published, and the atlas of maps will be made available online.

The 20 or so livestock pest/vector systems deemed likely to cause the largest economic losses in this first phase will be given more intensive study in a second phase of the project, where we will more formally address the bio-economic issues of relevance.

In early 2013 we plan to bring together relevant experts on livestock pests and diseases for a workshop to identify additional sources of data and technical information of prospective use for our analysis, and to critically review future research priorities and strategies.

The ultimate goal is to develop a robust, spatially explicit modeling approach rooted in technical and economic realities and combined with improved data (and data estimation methods), to enable more evidenced-based decision-making about strategic research and other intervention options designed to economically reduce the losses from livestock pests and diseases throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

Scientists

• Darren Kriticos
• Delia Grace
• Jason Beddow
• Jusper Kiplimo
• Pamela Ochungo
• Philip Pardey
• Tania Yonow

Partners

• HarvestChoice – University of Minnesota
• Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Objective

The overall objective of this project is to understand the mechanisms leading to the introduction of pathogens into urban populations, and their subsequent spread.

The focus is on livestock as sources of these pathogens: emerging diseases are likely to be zoonotic in origin, and livestock pathogens, through the close interactions between livestock, their products and people, are at high of risk crossing the species barrier.

The focus in this project is on Escherichia coli, as an exemplar of many potential emerging pathogens, which exists in a diversity of hosts, in the environment, on food, in waste etc.

The geographical focus is the city of Nairobi, Kenya, and its hinterlands. In the microbiology components, the project takes a landscape genetics approach to understanding E. coli distribution and spread, with a view to understanding how this is affected by environmental and socio-economic factors.

Research questions

• Does urban livestock keeping pre-dispose people to acquiring new or more diverse microbial flora?
• Is the risk compounded by poverty status or other social factors?
• How is the microbial flora influenced by the keeping of livestock in these areas?
• Do supply chains for livestock and livestock products bring people into contact with microbial diversity over and above what they would otherwise experience?
• Why do people source food from particular places? What social and economic factors define food sourcing in a complex city?
• What influences the microbial flora to which people are exposed through food?
• How does the design of complex urban environments influence exposure to microbial flora?
• How has the city of Nairobi grown, how does it continue to grow, and how does urbanization in the region affect exposure to microbial diversity in the human and animal population?
• What is the role of per-domestic wildlife in transmission of zoonotic pathogens and the transport of microbial flora?
• Why do supply chains exist in the way that they do, and how might they change as demand for products changes with urban growth, or as a consequence of legislation?

The findings will inform development of policy on urban livestock keeping by improving knowledge of the public health risks and by putting those risks in a wider socio-economic context, including the risks associated with alternative sources of livestock products.

Partners

• African Population and Health Research Center
• Development Planning Unit, University College London
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
• International Institute for Environment and Development
• Kenya Medical Research Institute
• Roslin Institute
• Royal Veterinary College, London
• University of Liverpool
• University of Nairobi
• University of Edinburgh
• Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre

• Increased and gender equitable utilization of improved and marketable bean varieties, new crop management techniques and micro-nutrient rich bean based products
• Increased trade by men and women farmers in an equitable manner
• Increased evidence-based response to bean sector demands and influencing bean policy in a gender equitable manner.

Four specific objectives:

• To enhance the role of legumes in soil fertility restoration;
• To identify market channels, constraints and opportunities for increasing farmers access to the national, regional and international grain legume markets;
• To build the capacity of smallholder farmers and other stakeholders on legume technologies;
• To scale best-bet legume soil fertility enhancing technologies, market and agroenterprise options

• Establish functional partnerships and innovation platforms to identify and resolve problems related to Striga management in maize-legume based production systems.
• Use new tools to generate new knowledge to increase the current understanding of the biology and control of Striga.
• Deploy and disseminate integrated Striga management technologies in maize-legume based systems.
• Enhance community, local government and national government capacity to participate in the generation, testing and dissemination of improved Striga management practices.

Activities

• Expert consultation on already published maps of poverty, livestock and zoonoses hotspots with the aim of achieving a preliminary qualitative evaluation of which countries/regions need updating.
• Collation of additional data from countries/regions undergoing rapid change in demographics, location of livestock units, biodiversity and those forecast to suffer most from climate change.
• Update/refresh of the ILRI 2002 publication, Mapping poverty and livestock in the developing world.
• Update/refresh of the map by Jones et al. (2008) in the journal Nature: Jones, Kate E et al. “Global trends in emerging infectious diseases.” Nature 451.7181 (2008): 990-993.
• Identification of priority zoonoses which pose risk to the poor.
• Development of maps showing hotspots for poverty, livestock and zoonoses.

Funding: UK Department for International Development (DFID)

The goal of this project, the fifth of seven work packages of the FoodAfrica Programme, is to reduce the risk of mycotoxin contamination in staple crops in Kenya. To achieve this goal, cost-effective and incentive-based mycotoxin control strategies and solutions will be developed for the use of poor farmers and other actors within the feed-dairy chain.

The principal project activities are:

• Integrated risk and economic assessment of the Kenyan feed dairy chain
• Investigation of technologies and strategies to reduce mycotoxins risk in the feed-dairy chain
• Impact assessment of a package of post-harvest strategies for reducing aflatoxins in maize

Evidence dissemination and capacity building are included in each activity. The capacity of local researchers and postgraduate students is developed through participation in designing surveys, field work and data analysis.

In addition, participatory methods are applied to develop and test strategies to mitigate the risk of mycotoxins in the feed-food chain. Farmer participatory research engages farmers in action research on their fields so they can learn and adopt new technologies and disseminate the knowledge to other farmers.

Partner institutions

• MTT AgriFood Research Finland
• International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
• University of Nairobi

Funding: Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

It focuses on four emerging or re-emerging zoonotic diseases in four diverse African ecosystems:

• Henipavirus infection in Ghana
• Rift Valley fever in Kenya
• Lassa fever in Sierra Leone
• Trypanosomiasis in Zambia and Zimbabwe

Its innovative, holistic approach brings together natural and social scientists to build an evidence base designed to inform global and national policy players seeking effective, integrated approaches to control and check disease outbreaks.

The Drivers of Disease Consortium comprises over 30 researchers working in 17 institutes across Africa, Europe and the US and includes researchers in the environmental, biological, social, political, and human and animal health sciences. They will generate new knowledge on:

• Ecosystem change
• How ecology and people’s interactions with ecosystems affect disease emergence
• Disease transmission and exposure

The partner institutes are:

• ESRC STEPS Centre, Brighton, UK
• University of Cambridge, UK
• Institute of Zoology, London
• University of Edinburgh
• University College, London
• Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, University of Ghana
• International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya
• Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)
• University of Nairobi
• Kenema Government Hospital, Sierra Leone
• Njala University, Sierra Leone
• Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development, Zambia
• University of Zambia
• Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Zimbabwe
• University of Zimbabwe
• Stockholm Resilience Centre
• Tulane University, USA

Funding: The programme is funded by a £3.2m grant from the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

The HEALTHY FUTURES project aims to minimize these risks by improving our ability to predict and to communicate the extent and severity of future outbreaks under different environmental change scenarios. The project focuses on three water-related, high-impact vector-borne diseases (malaria, Rift Valley fever and schistosomiasis) in eastern Africa. It takes into account environmental/climatic trends and changes in socio-economic conditions to predict future risk to these diseases. The project includes work packages on climate and disease modelling, vulnerability mapping and decision support.

Research questions

• What are the environmental factors determining distribution and activity of the relevant vectors and pathogens in eastern Africa?
• To what extent are outbreaks in the three target vector-borne diseases also a reflection of socio-economic conditions, including migration, form of settlement and conflict?
• To what extent have these influencing factors varied in the documented past and what have been the disease impacts of these variations?
• To what extent does the actual distribution of transmission and outbreak of the three target diseases match the potential distribution, and what factors appear to determine the difference?
•  How are the transmission and outbreak of the three target diseases likely to vary according to internationally accepted scenarios of environmental conditions?
• How is the spatial interaction of the risk of disease transmission and outbreaks amongst highly heterogeneous socio-economic conditions, cultures and communities likely to influence vulnerability to disease impacts?
• What are the main barriers restricting the abilities of health and veterinary services to respond to warnings of heightened risk of a disease outbreak, and how might these barriers be best overcome?
• What are the implications for other parts of Africa and for Europe of predicted changes in the distribution and emergence of the three target vector-borne diseases in the study area?

The HEALTHY FUTURES consortium consists of 15 partner institutions, eight of which are based in Africa and seven in Europe.

Trinity College Dublin is the coordinator of the project.

Funding: European Union

ILRI contact: Bernard Bett

Additionally and in relation to the conference titled “Linking knowledge to Policy and Action for Food and Livelihoods”, ICRAF will organise a field trip (as member of the Local Planning Committee), producing promotional material, arranging interpretation from and to Spanish, organising a GFRAS cocktail for participants and other duties as may be required.

Among other activities, ICRAF will:
1. Describe and assess past climate change modelling initiatives for Kenya and their relevance, if any for the project site.
2. Screen climate data sources available for the pilot sites as well as available agriculture information and access relevant data.
3. Compare suitable climate change models and select relevant ones for the modelling and down scaling.
4. Undertake climate- crop model coupling to synchronize agronomic practices with climate variability.
5. Develop weather trigger benchmarks for particular crops/if possible varieties.
6. Carry out analysis
7. Based on the scenarios, develop adaptation options.
8. Communicate the findings from the local climate change model to relevant stakeholder through a workshop.
9. Cover climate change information, models and scenarios relevant to the agricultural sector in Busia and Homabay countries.

Specific objectives are as follows:
1. To conduct integrated mapping of selected landscapes
2. To assess the resource investment required for landscape level natural resource development

The aim of this project is to investigate the feasibility of using inactivated mycoplasma for the induction of protective responses against a challenge with CBPP. Therefore we will use a two-step approach. The project team will first establish a robust and reproducible challenge model. Afterwards they will immunize cattle with bacterins from a African Mmm outbreak strain followed by a challenge trial. The immunisations will be carried out using different adjuvants and routes of immunization to compare the rate of the protection achieved.
Project goal and purpose

A better vaccine to CBPP is the major stepping-stone for a successful eradication policy. Many attempts to improve the current live vaccine or to find protective antigens have failed. The main goal of this proposal is to deliver proof of concept for an inactivated vaccine.

If successful, future research will be geared towards improving a practical delivery package and towards acquiring solid scientific data on protective immune responses and to generate knowledge, which can be applied to other mycoplasma infections in the veterinary field.
Expected outputs

• Develop a uniform challenge model for CBPP
• Confirm induction of protection by inactivated mycoplasma

The project is a partnership with BecA and CSIRO

 Objective 1: To enhance market opportunities, policies and partnerships along the legume value chain to increase income and nutritional security of smallholder farmers in drought-prone areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and SA.

 Objective 2: To enhance groundnut productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

 Objective 3: To enhance cowpea productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA.

 Objective 4: To enhance common bean productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA.

 Objective 5: To enhance chickpea productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

 Objective 6: To enhance pigeonpea productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

 Objective 7: To enhance soybean productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA.

 Objective 8: To develop sustainable seed production and delivery systems for reaching smallholder farmers in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

Objective 9: To manage implementation of the project, including periodic meetings, reporting, data management and dissemination, and developing a revised logframe and milestones based on the Foundations’ Strategy.

• Participatory assessment of Rift Valley fever (RVF) surveillance and rapid response activities
• Economic impact assessment and identification of cost-effective mitigation measures

The first component is aimed at assessing the 2007 outbreak of RVF in Kenya in order to identify key lessons on how to better predict, detect and respond to RVF. This will also provide information on how to better engage decision-makers to act promptly and appropriately in response to future outbreaks of the disease.

The second component of the project will leverage the information generated from the participatory assessment towards developing tools that improve risk management and decision making for future RVF outbreaks. This will facilitate planning of governmental and non-governmental preparedness, develop better contingency plans and better inform public policy in case of subsequent outbreaks in terms of the impact of uncontrolled disease and cost-effectiveness of measures.

Objectives

Component 1

1. To describe the symptoms of Rift Valley fever (RVF) in livestock and people, and assess the socio-cultural and economic determinants of knowledge and effectiveness of interventions as perceived by stakeholders in order to develop better surveillance and response systems.
2. To assess stakeholders’ perceptions on the impact of RVF at the household to the local market level.
3. To evaluate the local and national response capacity using key informant interviews and data collection in governmental and non-governmental organizations.
4. To foster communication between public health and livestock professionals and between professionals and the communities.

Component 2

1. To assess the economic impact of RVF at local and national levels.
2. To assess and prioritize the cost-effectiveness of disease control options from a multi-sectoral perspective.
3. To analyze intervention scenarios and provide recommendations that identify preferred strategies and steps needed to create institutional change to enhance the capacity to mitigate future outbreaks.

Funding: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

The review considers eight themes:

• Transmission routes and wildlife
• Pathogen recombination
• Risk factors for transmission
• Drivers influencing interaction
• Historical changes and trends
• Livestock production systems
• Socio-economic, institutional and political factors
• Risk management and control

Specific activities to be undertaken are as follows:
1. Collect and analyse “information on Agroforestry Policy and Decision Making” in general for Africa and Asia, specifically in Brazil, Cameroon, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Philippines, Tanzania and Zambia

2.Carry out and report on “Intervoes” among at least 10 policy and decsion making specialists related to agroforestry in India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Peru and Zambia

3. Carry out at least 4 “National Case Studies” in India, Indonesia, Kenya and Malawi and if possible, China and Brazil too

4. Provide advice to FAO for the 2 National Case Studies in Tanzania and Zambia
5. “Peer review the draft guidelines” to be formulated by the international consultant in line with the peer review process

6. Produce 2 policy briefs on the case studies realized to be distributed by ICRAF and FAO through existing research and development newsletters, journals and networks

7. Participate in the Institutional collaborative task force through virtual communications, when needed and when requested by FAO

In this project, ICRAF will undertake the following activities:
1. Support the secretarial services of the Forum
2. Hire a consultant for the drafting of policy briefs and policy recommendations
3. Organization of seminars

Project outputs are as follows:
1. Policy recommendations and policy briefs
2. Seminar reports
3. Increased awareness on how to achieve competitiveness, profitability and sustainability of smallholder agriculture in East Africa

Project objectives are:
(a) Understand the interactions between crops and livestock in target farming communities and identify opportunities to overcome the constraints to farm productivity in maize-based mixed crop-livestock farming systems in eastern Africa;
(b) Develop and demonstrate efficient, lower risk and more productive farming systems based on the principles of conservation agriculture (CA) that combine increased grain production and the production of sufficient animal feed with improved quality;
(e) Explore, evaluate and demonstrate options for the incorporation of trees and shrubs into smallholder CA-based systems through participatory research in target communities;
(d) Evaluate the benefits of more intensive and diverse farming systems based on the principles of CA on farm family food security, income and livelihoods, and on labour requirements, disaggregated by gender and wealth groups;
(e) Disseminate and scale out Subproject II results to farmers, extension agents and researchers through targeted activities and publications; and
(f) Maintain Subproject 11 Subproject 11 titled “Enhancing total farm productivity in smallholder conservation agriculture based systems in eastern Africa” efficiency and dynamism through capacity building and constant monitoring, evaluation, and reorientation of Subproject 11 activities and outputs.

Project outputs are as follows:
1. Report on the baseline survey findings
2. Annual report on vine retention by farmers and quality of material
3. Evaluation report on the overall efficiency of the two value chains (factory vs. farmer organization based)
4. Evaluation report on the income and equity benefits to farmers from participating in both chains (compared to controlled group)

Drawing on emerging lessons from initiatives currently underway both within and outside of UNDP, the project will:
i) Build on and expand ongoing efforts of helping African governments and institutions to
effectively participate in the international climate negotiations in particular, enhancing their understanding of the crucial Ball Road Map discussions, currently underway and their economic and policy implications within the context of the Convention,

ii) Act as vehicle to create awareness among regional and national partners of the development benefits of and the interface between sustainable development and
Payments for Ecosystem Services and Clean Development Mechanism, and

iii) Contribute to efforts aimed at establishing enabling institutional, legal and regulatory frameworks required for accessing environmental and related carbon finance, needed to sustainably restore and manage natural resources.

Research Themes

Baseline information and site selection
To select sites, collect baseline information, characterize new products, and evaluate data obtained from trials conducted by the private companies.

Screening of new products and technological options
To screen a large number of new products on some key crops such as maize, soybean, cowpea and banana under greenhouse conditions, followed by a field evaluation of effective products and an investigation of their capacity to increase crop yield across target agro-ecozones, land intensification and soil fertility gradients, including fields that are responsive to fertilizer and those are not, as a basis for integrating these into Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) technologies.

Understanding mechanisms and contributions
To unravel mechanisms underlying adaptation and contributions of the two selected products and their combinations to crop performance and yield persistence in various target cropping systems across the target agro-ecozones, land intensification and soil fertility gradients.

Making effective products available at scale
To foster dissemination of effective new agricultural products beyond the experimental sites through a cycle of demonstration and farmer-managed adaptation trials in the target areas. This objective will initiate activities that could potentially be further developed in a Phase II proposal that Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)  may fund at 1.5 – 2 years into the program for expanding commercial scale up, formulations, field development or field dissemination of technologies in different countries. This preliminary activity should be done in accordance with community extension programs associated with development.

Project management, capacity building, and monitoring and evaluation
To operationalize a continuous monitoring and evaluation framework as a basis for ensuring that the desired outputs are produced, and explore and develop pathways for commercialization of effective products. Several students (Master and PhD) will be trained in the field of biological materials, soil inoculants and soil microbiology. Currently, national research capacity is limited but crucial to achieve success. Gender issues will be taken into consideration in the selection of the students for both Master and PhD. This will be done closely in relation with the Project funded by BMGF and coordinated by the Gender & Diversity programme of CGIAR.

1. Four important crop growing areas in Kenya and Zimbabwe which comprise (i) cool/dry, (ii) cool/wet, (iii) warm/dry and (iv) warm/wet growing conditions and their temperature analogue locations, identified and fully characterized.
2. Through the combined use of long-term daily climate data, crop growth simulation models and participatory surveys with farmers, the implications of both current and future (climate change) production risk at the study locations identified and quantified.
3. Through iterative field research both on station and in farmers’ fields over a 2-year period, potential crop, soil and water management and crop genotype adaptation options evaluated and adaptation strategies formulated for the target locations.
4. Through the wide promotion of the project, dissemination of its activities, results and hands-on capacity building, the strengthened institutional capacity (both in understanding climate change impacts and developing effective adaptation responses) will be ensured.

The Project’s objectives shall include the following:
(a) Baseline study- To establish current; agricultural production systems, , policy framework, and on-going programmes. The study will be the benchmark upon which the Evergreen Agriculture investment project will be evaluated;
(b) Establishing sustainable tree seed/seedling supply systems by using the ‘Rural Resource Center’s approach;
(c) Build the capacity of smallholder farmers and partners for effective adoption of Evergreen Agriculture practices;
(d) Development of knowledge and information sharing products.

Project activities include the following:
1. Perform participatory priority species settings for fertilizer and high-value trees together with farmers, extension officers, marketing experts and other key informants at each of the research sites.
2. Compile information about present and potentially suitable tree species for each of the
sites with the help of information available from ICRAF Agroforestry databases, among
other sources.
3. Select a set of at least 5 suitable fertilizer and 10 high-value tree species for each of the sites based on the ecological range of the species now and in the future, as well as on the most recent knowledge on species propagation and husbandry techniques, economic value, marketing potential, value adding possibilities and land health benefits of the species.
4. Assess the domestication status and potential improvement of each of the selected tree species by using a combination of measures such as literature review, provenance trials and participatory domestication techniques.
5. Establishment of RRCs and satellite community nurseries.
6. Establishment of field genebanks and motherblocks at each of the sites for providing and maintaining high quality propagation material of the target species
7. Perform a literature research on available knowledge about genetic diversity, G x E
interactions and agronomy of the target species to help select suitable planting material
for selected sites.
8. Document existing knowledge (including traditional one) of fertilizer tree seed sources
and propagation techniques.
9. Test and improve propagation techniques in RRCs and satellite nurseries
10. Evaluate performance of seedlings in the nurseries and select the best provenances for propagation and dissemination.
11. Publish technical guidelines for fertilizer tree propagation.
12. Train trainers in nursery management (both technical and economical) and vegetative propagation; and use existing networks to disseminate technologies through farmer-tofarmer training.
13. Support for the establishment and strengthening of functional institutional and community based partnerships in target sites.
14. Develop and strengthen an iterative action research process that provides a framework for development of knowledge needed for scaling out/up Evergreen agriculture innovations as well as a participatory monitoring and evaluation process.
15. Establish partnerships for scaling up of Evergreen Agriculture practises.
16. Develop and operationalize knowledge management and communication strategy for
CAWT.
17. Develop appropriate Knowledge and Information Sharing Products (KISP) for different stakeholder groups.
18. Conduct mid and end of project conferences to share results.
19. Prepare bulletins for different electronic media.
20. Establish a web page within the ICRAF and other partner organizations websites.

The Project’s outputs are as follows:
(a) Baseline information on conservation agriculture and agroforestry in target areas
established.
(b) Sustainable tree seed and seedling supply systems developed and promoted.
(c) Capacity of smallholder farmers and partners for effective adoption of Evergreen
Agriculture practices built.
(d) Iterative knowledge management and communication systems needed for scaling out/up of evergreen agriculture innovations developed, documented and disseminated.

Project objectives are as follows:
(a) to enhance the capacity of grass-roots institutions and support the harnessing of broader collective action for rural service delivery;

(b) promote environmentally sustainable enterprise development and community-level asset accumulation; and

(c) build a regional institutional change platform for knowledge sharing, scaling-up and
representation or participation in sustainable land management (SLM) policymaking and
development processes in East Africa linked to the IFAD Africa Knowledge Management Network.

This project has three components namely:
a) Enhance the capacity of grass-roots institutions and support the harnessing of broader collective action for rural service delivery;

(b) Promote environmentally sustainable enterprise development and community-level asset accumulation; and

(c) Build a regional institutional change platform for knowledge sharing, scaling up and participation in SLM policymaking and development processes in East Africa.

Project outputs are as follows:
(a) A dynamic model for grass-roots institutional analysis and strengthening and a platform for rural service delivery and engagement in policy process developed and promoted. This output will be achieved by analysing the typology of grass-roots institutions and their engagement in rural service delivery, policy dialogue; training farmers on various SLM technologies; supporting farming system improvement; and conducting small experiments on or testing promising technologies for enterprise development; and facilitating institutional development activities for socio-economic change.

(b) Enterprise development and community-level asset accumulation increased. This output will be realized through the creation of district and national institutional change platforms with formalized rules of engagement in policy processes related to rural service delivery. The platforms will be enhanced by setting performance targets relating to transparency, accountability and participation.

(c) Institutional change platform for knowledge sharing, scaling up and public-policy
participation established. This output will include the development of knowledge products,a grass-roots institutional mobilization literacy programme, cross-site synthesis of grassroots institutions’ engagement in policy processes related to rural service

Among other things, this project will engage in a study to address the resource and technology constraints of the region and further provide guidance on on-farm measurements, surveys, model development with a special focus on analyzing the cultural and institutional setting for acceptance of the stoves by the farmer population.

Funding: The project is principally funded by the Wellcome Trust, with additional support from the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

One Health places health issues in the broader developmental and ecological context, and can be defined as the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines to attain optimal health for people, animals and environment.

The disciplines of public health and veterinary economics are yet to develop a satisfactory way of dealing with the economics of zoonoses to generate the much needed evidence to inform One Health decisions. Required evidence also includes distribution of control benefits and the institutional arrangements.

This study is generating the evidence needed to inform One Health decisions through an intersectoral assessment of the cost-effectiveness and economic benefits of Rift Valley fever control options, by considering both human and animal health economics from a societal perspective. The study is also evaluating feasible operational frameworks based on the One Health approach.

Specific objectives are to:

• identify and analyze stakeholders for prevention and control of zoonoses;
• identify and analyze suitable operational frameworks and coordination mechanisms for intersectoral planning within the One Health approach and their cost implications;
• identify alternate Rift Valley fever prevention and control strategies including One Health approaches;
• estimate the dual burden of Rift Valley fever epidemics in the human and animal health sectors; and
• assess the cost-effectiveness, cost and benefits of the alternate control options and prioritize them from a multisector perspective.

This work is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and is part of doctoral research by the principal investigator.

Using questionnares, this project will obtain qualitative and quantitative data on farmer perceptions of the interventions. This exercise will explore the expectations of the planned interventions as well as try to understand what they would be willing to pay for the interventions. At the end of the two year period, this project will look at a similar set of questions to evaluate the changes in farmer perceptions and their willingness to pay. The expectation is that the value of the interventions can be estimated which is necessary for upscaling and turning them sustainable (from a business perspectIve).

Miyuki Iiyama (ICRAF) has been collaborating with researchers of ISAR (Institut des Science Agronomique du Rwanda) on Sustainable Land Management (SLM) project in Rwanda, which aims at the national capacity building of disseminating and up-scaling sustainable land management, including radical and progressive terraces.
This training aims at developing capacity of Rwandese researchers
• to design protocols for cost-benefit analysis and valuations of eco-system services
• to apply the tools for data collection, analyses, and compilation
• to develop user-friendly manuals to further disseminate and upscale the system of knowledge to wider national stakeholders.

This project seeks to change this through further development of a scientific approach and comparative analytical assessment of data collected from both arid and semi arid lands (ASAL) of Laikipia district in Kenya and higher potential agricultural land in Kenya’s rift valley province. Field data and samples will be collected from two 100 sq km sentinel sites situated in high agricultural potential areas. The data will be analyzed and compared with existing data and samples taken from two similar sites, situated in the ASAL of Laikipia.

Using satellite technology, undertaking soil carbon stable isotope analyses and examining historical data the analysis will provide detailed assessments of the impacts of land use change on carbon status, and overall soil and ecosystem health of these landscapes. The project will develop a theoretical framework for projecting land use impacts on carbon stock changes and other ecosystem benefits that can be initialized and run from empirical data collected in the field and available satellite imagery. This research will enable credible assessment of existing carbon stocks, provide project developers with reduced monitoring and evaluation costs, provide project financiers with credible and proven carbon/ecosystem resource credits, and offer added value to community implementation in programs to enhance the environment.

Project outputs are as follows:
1. A scientific report giving (i) a theoretical framework for projecting land use impacts on carbon stock changes and other ecosystem benefits that can be initialized and run from empirical data collected in the field and available satellite imagery (ii) illustration of the approach using data from four 100 km2 sentinel sites, two in pastoralist areas and two in agricultural areas.
Geo-referenced databases on carbon stocks and soil health for four sentinel sites in Kenya.

2. Two Kenyan field teams fully trained in the Land Degradation Surveillance framework field protocols. Ten Kenyan scientists trained in data management and statistical analysis techniques for carbon and soil health measurement and monitoring. Training materials in statistical analysis of soil carbon and health data with worked examples.

A combination of growth and migration is resulting in massive increases in the population of urban and peri-urban zones in Africa. The United Nations has estimated that city populations in Africa will rise from 35% of the total population in 2007 to 51% by 2030. The impacts of this on human welfare, healthcare, sanitation, and other policy-oriented fields has received vast attention, but there has not been a substantive effort to integrate across disciplines, particularly with regard to the impacts of these diverse issues on disease transmission.

The focus is on diseases involving livestock reservoirs, using Nairobi, Kenya as a case study. Urban farming and livestock keeping are significant income generators; urbanization has been identified as one of the main drivers of the emergence of human diseases, though with little specific focus. It has been proposed that the processes leading to the emergence of new diseases are likely to be those that also matter for the re-emergence of endemic zoonotic and food-borne infections. Understanding these as models is a tractable problem; this study will therefore (1) improve our ability to predict the occurrence and burden of new diseases and (2) provide an opportunity to understand the biology and social ecology of existing but neglected diseases.

Funding: Medical Research Council (UK) through the UK Government’s Living With Environmental Change Initiative.

Funding: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

The LBr Potato project was initially started in 2007 at the CIP biotech facilities (Applied Biotechnology Laboratory) in Peru. It is, however, targeting important regions of potato production in sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, direct transfer of R genes into African-relevant varieties and subsequent testing has to take place in the targeted countries. We propose to focus on Kenya considering the importance of potato to poor farmers, the operational bio-safety regulation, and the excellent biotechnology facilities at Biosciences east and central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI) Hub.

This was a fellowship grant to foster scientific excellence and build capacity in agriculture and related activities. The project aimed at enhancing the capacity of the proponents in undertaking soil physical studies and have a better understanding of the changes in the soil properties as influenced by tillage operations at field scale.

The aim of this project isto develop the state-of-the-art legume and rhizobial inoculant technologies will be used by African smallholder farmers to triple the inputs of free atmospheric nitrogen by biological nitrogen fixation, thereby improving crop and livestock productivity, human nutrition and farm income, while enhancing soil health.

The expected project outcomes include the Diversification of N₂-fixing legume species that are integrated into smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa;Expansion in cultivation of grain and forage legumes, greater productivity in legume-based farming systems, and enhanced family incomes; Selection of efficient rhizobial inoculant strains and improved grain legume varieties with enhanced BNF capacities adapted to various environmental stresses; Establishment of a state-of-the-art laboratory and culture collection of elite strains of rhizobia for target legumes; and Establishment of rhizobial inoculant production in countries of West, East and Southern Africa, through partnership with the private sector.

The main purpose of this project is to enhance uptake and scaling up of knowledge and technologies for soil fertility management to sustained productivity and competitiveness of smallholder farming systems in East and Central Africa (ECA) sub-region.There are barriers to the effective adoption/adaptation and utilization of sound soil and water management technologies. The project team therefore sets out to develop methodologies for resolving these barriers by developing mechanisms of sharing relevant information on promising soil and water management technologies with all stakeholders. Kenyatta University is the Lead institution in the project and the project activities are coordinated and backstopped by the African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility(AFNET).

The goal of this project is to assist farmers in obtaining increased and stable crop yields that allow them to sustainably generate more income through marketing of their produce. The project is screening and evaluating chemical and biological commercial products with an aim of scaling up these products through partnerships with private companies. This effort hopes to increase crop yield by 30% and directly empower about 175,500 households in targeted agroecological zones in Kenya, Ethiopia, Niger and Nigeria.

Weaknesses in veterinary surveillance systems in Africa have been highlighted during recent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Rift Valley fever and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. Conventional passive surveillance has proven largely ineffective due to poor capacity and compliance, and many countries are not able to sustain active surveillance activities. As the result, public veterinary services and the commercial livestock sector are unable to detect and respond in a timely fashion to outbreaks of new disease threats, nor to manage successfully the control of transboundary diseases, many of which remain endemic in parts of the continent. This situation not only compromises the development of livestock trade, but also creates a continuing threat to human public health since the majority of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, shared by animals and humans. Strategies are needed to ensure that surveillance systems can meet the challenges posed by emerging infectious diseases, while recognizing the context of resource limitations. Identifying appropriate tools and incentives that encourage the full participation of both public and private actors will be critical.

Approach

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Africa Bureau has identified three specific priority areas for strengthening the capacity of African animal health disease surveillance systems to enhance early detection and reporting of infectious animal disease:

• Providing veterinary professionals a toolkit of equipment, materials and information to aid them in detecting disease in the field and collecting samples, together with developing a business strategy for creating and sustaining internationally accredited laboratory capacity for timely processing of samples from the field;
• Engaging private-sector resources and capacity to enhance disease surveillance through public-private partnerships with commercial actors and with private veterinarians; and
• Developing the capacity of AU-IBAR’s (InterAfrican Bureau of Animal Resources of the African Union) animal disease information system to strengthen national disease surveillance capacities through communication strategies providing information and training.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) addressed these priorities through a series of activities implemented in close collaboration with AU-IBAR and other African partners from May to September 2009. Several underlying principles inform the design of the activities as stated in the USAID Africa Bureau strategy. These include:

• Ensuring the interventions are demand-driven, responding to the needs of the targeted beneficiaries, by consulting with the intended users during design and implementation;
• Assessing the feasibility and sustainability of proposed interventions based on a combination of analyses using techniques drawn from business planning and institutional economics; the former highlights the need for financial sustainability through cost-recovery where appropriate, whereas the latter focuses on understanding the incentives that motivate the targeted public and private-sector actors to participate in and sustain the interventions;
• Sustaining the knowledge component of surveillance capacity requires establishing mechanisms that provide continuous access for practitioners in the field to the most up-to-date disease information;
• Public-sector capacity will remain inadequate to ensure surveillance so mechanisms must be established to involve complementary private-sector capacity; and
• African experts are capable of providing many short-term training and technical assistance services at substantial savings of project budget.

From October 2009 to September 2011, funds that had not been spent while implementing the first set of activities were allocated to support the development of AU-IBAR’s disease reporting and knowledge base system: ARIS II. It is also supporting a major workshop in March 2011 bringing together Chief Veterinary Officers and other stakeholders from the Horn of Africa and Gulf states to explore the use of a decision support tool for Rift Valley fever control to help stabilize livestock trade.

The record-high levels of today’s food prices are a blessing for some food producers able to increase their production and profits and a curse for millions of poor net food buyers finding it more and more difficult to feed their families. To make high value and staple food markets work for smallholder farmers while providing affordable food for poor consumers, we know we need better markets. We also need incentives that encourage both a pro-poor and a pro-growth Green Revolution for Africa.

To improve markets and market incentives for the poor, this conference was held to discuss practical strategies for lowering the high transaction costs of food marketing and intra-regional trade; determining appropriate, equitable and safe food standards and grades; and helping small-scale entrepreneurs access good market information and add value to food production processes.

The three-day conference — held on 13-15 May 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya — brought together some 150 market practitioners, investors, private actors, policymakers and researchers to determine how agricultural markets can help stimulate a uniquely African Green Revolution. Evidence will be synthesized to guide new market interventions and experiments by development practitioners and investors.

For more information, please visit the conference website, http://agmarketsafrica.wordpress.com.

MEDIA COVERAGE
Knowledge is power for farmers. By Joyce Mulama, Inter Press Service. 16 May 2009.

New markets to reduce waste of produce. By Jackson Okoth, The Standard. 14 May 2009.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the goal of this project is to help one million people – 179,000 families living on small 1-5 acre farms – lift themselves out of poverty through more profitable production and marketing of milk.

The project addresses the problem of cysticercosis (cysts by the tapeworm Taenia solium in pigs and humans ), involving a multidisciplinary coalition of researchers from veterinary, agricultural, human medical and social sciences in Tanzania, Mozambique and Denmark that will address four major obstacles for combating cysticercosis:

• Characterizing the disease and its risk factors and societal impact
• Increasing capacity for identifying and managing cysticercosis cases
• Identifying appropriate and sustainable “best bet” prevention and control strategies
• Promoting collaboration among the various relevant stakeholder groups

At its conclusion, the project will have raised awareness among policymakers and community leaders as well as within the affected populations and scientific, health professional and agricultural development communities in the selected countries and eastern and southern Africa region about the true extent of the problem and appropriate responses to it. These activities are intended to result in a sustainable coordinated control strategy in the form of full-fledged national and regional campaigns. This will lead to reduced incidence of cysticercosis and improved livelihoods of poor farming communities and consumers.

The project is coordinated from Denmark but all field work done by 1 post doc, 3 PhD and 6 MSc students in the partner countries Tanzania and Mozambique in close collaboration with Universities in Kenya and South Africa.

The project is funded by the Danish International Developing Agency (DANIDA) under the Danish Foreign Ministry.

Objectives

1. Improve national, sub-regional and regional capacity for evidence-based risk assessment approaches to enable rapid response for HPAI.
2. Improve national surveillance and reporting capacity.
3. Increase sub-regional cooperation and coordination, with regional support to undertake HPAI investigations, report disease and manage HPAI relevant information.

Summary of activities

The project objectives are addressed through a series of activities for each project location.  While the project activities have been tailored to each location, they contain a number of common elements as follows:

1. Rapidly assess existing HPAI surveillance systems
2. Develop, disseminate and train in the use of effective tools for targeting HPAI surveillance resources
3. Train in HPAI surveillance techniques, tools and approaches, including outbreak reporting and data analysis
4. Develop linkages with sub-regional and regional surveillance, disease investigation and learning networks

Expected outputs

1. HPAI surveillance systems assessed and training needs identified
2. Effective evidence-based tools for targeting HPAI surveillance resources based on risk developed
3. HPAI surveillance practitioners trained in surveillance techniques, tools and approaches
4. Knowledge base with regard to HPAI expanded through regional and sub-regional linkages

The objective of the project is to strengthen and sustain African researchers capacities to harvest, generate, document, share and apply knowledge and skills in ISFM practices, fertilizer recommendations and cropping systems management in order to improve the sustainability of food production and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa.

This project aims at promoting widespread adoption of conservation agriculture by smallholder farmers while protecting and improving soil conditions to achieve higher yields and enhanced environmental services in East Africa. Specific interventions were to develop effective development pathways” or road maps on the practice of CA at the target benchmark sites. The smallholder farmers who form the majority of land users need to be convinced on the effectiveness of CA, to enable them adopt and adapt it as a sustainable agricultural practice. The goal is to bring the farmers out of poverty with no further impoverishment of soils and other natural resources.

The objective of the project is to deploy legume-based ISFM options targeting low soil fertility and Striga to alleviate constraints to high crop productivity in the Lake Victoria Basin in Kenya and Tanzania. It also aims to strengthen the capacity of farmer associations and agro-input dealers in above areas to identify major constraints and engage the knowledge and inputs needed to address these jointly and economically.

Program components

IMPROVED QUALITY AND RANGE OF AVAILABLE VARIETIES

The focus of this component is on breeding a wide range of varieties with the combinations of traits suited to agro-ecological conditions and to consumer and producer demands. The point is to create an integrated breeding system akin to the one that exists for cereal breeding, but focused on the producer and consumer preferences of resource-poor women and children.

BREEDING WEEVIL-RESISTANT SWEETPOTATOES

This component draws on biotechnology to develop weevil-resistant sweetpotato varieties for Sub-Saharan Africa. Sweetpotato weevils are the most important sweetpotato pest in the world – responsible for crop losses ranging from 60 to nearly 100% during pronounced drought. This situation may be critical during dry periods when sweetpotato is sometimes the only food available. With climate change predictions of an expanding dry season in Sub-Saharan Africa, the urgency of developing resistance to weevils will likely intensify.

DEVELOPING SUSTAINABLE SEED SYSTEMS

The access to and maintenance of quality planting material is a struggle for smallholder farmers. This component involves developing and testing strategies to ensure effective multiplication, dissemination, and exchange of disease-free vines from which new plants will be propagated. It involves strategies to more efficiently link farmers with public sector distribution programs and integrate those with for-profit nurseries. It will examine which strategies assure women the best access to vines and whether women are as successful as men at commercially-oriented vine production.

PROOF-OF-CONCEPT PROJECTS

This series of projects will examine broader institutional or market level issues affecting crop production, markets, potential market expansion (e.g., use of sweetpotato as animal feed), and scalable approaches for improving nutrition with sweetpotato. These projects will evaluate options that influence the capacity to scale up and achieve the outcomes on poverty and nutrition that are planned for the years following SASHA, in the longer, ten-year initiative.

Objective 1: Assess the potential for the implementation of the metal silo approach within the ESA maize belt (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe)

Objective 2: In two countries, select pilot areas for the implementation of metal silo manufacturing to assess scale-out potential of the technology

Objective 3: Identify in-country lead organizations (NGO, private sector) to implement training of instructors/manufacturers and manufacturing of silos in pilot areas

Objective 4 : In collaboration with SDC, support South-South knowledge transfer from Central America to pilot areas

Objective 5: Assess the economics of maize storage and storage pest control measures in pilot areas

Objective 6: Assess micro-economics of metal silo production (among manufacturers) and purchase (among farmers) in pilot areas

Objective 7: Advise on scale-out potential of technology to other areas and countries in ESA

Running from 2009–2013, this phase is funded by the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, and will focus on developing and deploying conventional maize that is resistant to field and storage insect pests, for East and Southern Africa (ESA).

Objective 1: Develop insect resistant maize varieties for the major Kenyan production systems and insect pests;
Objective 2: Establish procedures to provide insect resistant maize to resource- poor farmers in Kenya;
Objective 3: Assess the impact of insect resistant maize varieties in Kenyan agricultural systems;
Objective 4: Transfer technologies to and Kenya to develop, evaluate, disseminate, and monitor insect resistant maize varieties; and
Objective 5: Plan, monitor, and document project processes and achievements for dissemination to other developing countries.

The project will concentrate on ESA countries where insect pests have the greatest impact on maize production, food and income security, and livelihoods. It will give a relative greater emphasis of post-harvest pests (70%) over stem borers (30%) and will focus on the major maize producing countries with significant areas in affected zones. Of particular interest are Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. These countries have a total population of more than 190 million people, which is projected to rise to 230 million by 2015.

This training aims at developing capacity of Rwandese researchers: • to design protocols for cost-benefit analysis and valuations of eco-system services• to apply the tools for data collection, analyses, and compilation • to develop user-friendly manuals to further disseminate and upscale the system of knowledge to wider national stakeholders.

There is considerable uncertainty about timing, extent, and severity of a potential animal disease outbreak such as HPAI, yet developing countries must make critical decisions about ways to defend against a potential outbreak. Disease and control measures can have differential economic impacts on different income groups and sectors. Not all stakeholders may have the same incentive to implement/pay for control strategies for a variety of reasons. The question then is how do we choose optimal risk management efforts to reduce the risk?

The aim of this project is to increase knowledge of available methods and technologies to reduce the risk of HPAI, their effectiveness, costs, benefits, and to identify constraints to their adoption and appropriate incentives needed to ensure their use along the poultry value chains. The project has 5 workstreams: disease risk, livelihood impacts, institutional mechanism, evaluation of risk management options, and risk communication.

Over the past year, ILRI in collaboration with various partners has pursued a comprehensive research agenda aimed at designing, developing and implementing market mediated index-based insurance products to protect livestock keepers from drought related asset losses they face, particularly those in the drought prone Arid and Semi Arid Lands(ASAL). For pastoralists whose livelihoods rely solely or partly on livestock, the resulting high livestock mortality rate has devastating effects on asset levels, rendering them amongst vulnerable populations in Kenya.

Index-based insurance products represent a promising and exciting innovation that could allow the benefits of insurance to protect the climate-related risks that vulnerable rural smallholder farmers and livestock keepers face. Because index insurance is based on the realization of an outcome that cannot be influenced by insurers or policy holders (such as the amount and distribution of rainfall over a season), it has relatively simple and transparent structure. This makes such products easier to administer and consequently to more cost-effective to develop, and trade. Indeed the success of several pilot programs conducted in India, and various countries in Africa and Latin America, have proven the feasibility and affordability of such products.

Much of the initial phase of the project, which included an extensive program of field work and stakeholder consultation, is now complete. The research has generated useful insights that have been used in the design of index-based livestock insurance(IBLI) products that is better targeted to the various needs of the expected clientele. Currently, an IBLI contract has been modelled, priced, tested among the target clientele and is now ready for implementation. ILRI in collaboration with partners from the public, private and non-profit sectors now plans to pilot IBLI contracts for the long rain/long dry season scanning March 2010 to September 2010 in Marsabit district.

Objectives:

• To effectively introduce index-based livestock insurance products to pastoral and agro-pastoral populations to help them manage drought-related livestock mortality.
• To learn and document the effectiveness of use of index-based livestock insurance as a tool for managing weather related perils and to incorporate lessons-learned in efforts to upscale the pilot for national rollout.

Duration: 5 Years

Location: Marsabit district, Kenya

Expected Outputs:

The expected outputs, aimed at catalyzing a commercially sustainable market for index-based livestock insurance, and understanding its possible role as a productive safety net within a larger social protection program are:

• Publications that offer insight into the conditions in which market-mediated IBLI products are possible
• IBLI products designed and related publications detailing design methods
• IBLI product piloted in Marsabit district
• The impact of IBLI adoption studied and detailed in publications.

Expected Outcome

The economic and social returns to an effective program that insures pastoral and agro-patoral population against drought-induced livestock losses can be substantial as it is expected to:

• Stabilize asset accumulation and enhance economic growth
• Crowd-in finance for ancillary investment and growth
• Stem the downward spiral of vulnerable household into poverty

Technical Partners:

• Cornell University
• Index Insurance Innovation Initiative (I4)
• Syracuse University (Maxwell School)
• University of Wisconsin (BASIS Research Program)

Implementing Partners:

• Equity Insurance Agency
• UAP Insurance Limited
• Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya
• Kenya Meteorological Department
• Ministry of Development of Northen Kenya and other Arid Lands
• Ministry of Livestock

Donors:

• Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya / DFID
• USAID
• World Bank

• Institutional innovations for improving markets and reducing transaction costs for small holder farmers
• Market-preferred low-risk varieties and complementary management practices
• Institutional innovations for improving access toand utilization of quality seeds of improved varieties and complementary inputs
• Decision support tools for better targeting of improved varieties and management practices
• Capacity strengthening for service providers and agro-enterprises to better utilize legume innovations

This will involve developing cultivars tolerant to drought and the major pests and diseases using modern plant-breeding techniques such as marker-aided selection (which will be developed under the Tropical Legumes I Project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). A major thrust will be to develop and operationalize sustainable seed production and delivery systems in project countries, to enhance the access of farmers, especially those who are resource-poor, to improved cultivars.

Social science research will be used to analyze and provide advice concerning the social and cultural environments that influence the sustainable adoption and spread of promising varieties, technologies and innovations, and the scaling-up and scaling-out work done amongst farm communities. Social science inputs will also support research developments in breeding through a feedback process, policy dialogue, and by identifying lessons learnt for technology dissemination. Ensuring capacity building and infrastructure development among national program partners involved in breeding and seed delivery systems will be a major activity, in order to ensure the sustainability of legume breeding efforts in the project countries.

The project is designed to bring insights and expertise from emerging fields of science, technology, and innovation to help improve efficiencies in agricultural value chains in Africa.

Meridian Institute, which leads the process, has brought together a select group of scientists and innovators from emerging fields of science and technology with African experts livestock value chains (alongside maize, cassava) to:

• identify the core bottlenecks along the target value chains,
• prioritize the importance of overcoming particular bottlenecks (based on impact on smallholder incomes, and technical, economic, and market feasibility), and
• generate and prioritize ideas for overcoming those specific constraints through innovative technology.

The project focuses primarily on technology and engineering components of the three target value chains, in particular post-harvest technologies. For livestock, the project focuses on technological enhancements and innovations that will help smallholder farmers overcome key constraints or inefficiencies in the dairy value chain, namely:

• Animal health and disease
• Milk production
• Milk quality
• Milk preservation, sanitation and transport

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is engaged in this process as a key partner with expertise and experience within respect to the dairy value chain. One of the project’s output goals is to develop business plans for highly promising technologies.

This new extended project goes beyond the initial one that mainly involved consumer demand analysis and takes a value chain approach starting from smallholder dairy and meat production and marketing, value addition and processing and demand in the three countries, and extends geographical coverage to Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda. Within each country the project collaborates with various stakeholder organizations, both public and private, to meet the objectives of the project.

The four specific objectives of the project are to:

• Facilitate the generation and uptake of demand driven dairy and meat value chain technologies and innovations
• Promote enabling policies for enhancing value addition in the dairy and meat sub-sectors
• Facilitate policy options for enhancing the performance of the agricultural sector in the eastern and central Africa sub-region
• Strengthen capacity of smallholders and small and medium enterprises to exploit dairy and meat markets in the eastern and central Africa sub-region

Mixed crop-livestock systems are very dynamic and are evolving rapidly in response to external drivers such as demographic pressure, development of urban markets and increased demand for crop and livestock products, climate variability and change. In addition, the recent interest for bio-fuel production exacerbates further the pressure on biomass in production systems.

This study aims at better understanding the tradeoffs in crop residue uses in cereal based systems in Eastern Africa region on maize based systems.  The major tradeoff in most systems is the short term benefits of using crop residues to feed livestock versus leaving the crop residues in the field to improve soil productivity (nutrient balance, erosion control, and soil health).

The study focuses on the decision making processes at the farm/household level and will capture the diversity/contrasts and recent changes in CR uses at various scales in order to better target technical, institutional and policy options to improve livelihood without compromising long term system sustainability.

The over-arching project is led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in collaboration with Bioversity International; Georg-August-University Gottingen, Germany, Institute de Recherche Agronomique et Zootechnique, Burundi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya, National Agricultural Research Organization, Uganda and the University of Höhenheim, Germany.

The project focuses on: ensuring sustainable small-scale banana production in Eastern and Southern Africa, and optimizing use and preservation of banana biodiversity; to generate efficient market pathways to supply, cultivate and market high quality planting material to small-scale farmers through the promotion of novel and sustainable partnerships between farmers and private enterprises, which are supported by improved institutional policies.

Bioversity International was invited to contribute to the information dissemination aspects of the project, although due to delays this will be completed during the soon to be formally extended period to 30 Nov 2011.

In response to this threat, the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantains (INIBAP) (now part of Bioversity International), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) convened a regional stakeholders’ meeting (February 2005) to develop a mitigating strategy. This envisioned multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral approaches in a coherent regional response, taking into account the countries/regions that were Xanthomonas wilt-free but threatened; the frontline areas where the disease had just arrived; and the endemic areas where the disease was already established.  It also sought to raise the awareness of all stakeholders along the production-consumption chains by empowering them with knowledge and skills for the diagnosis and management of the disease.  Hence, awareness-raising and associated training were seen as an integral component of the intervention strategy to control the epidemic and restore productivity in the banana-based farming systems.

Arising from this,the BXW project is being implemented by Bioversity International/Banana Research Network for East and Southern Africa (BARNESA) through collaboration with the NARS and other stakeholders from Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, and later on from DR Congo, Kenya and Uganda. It is being funded under three sub-grant agreements. This first (of three) sub-grant is supported by USAID funds through the staple crops programme of ASARECA.  During 2010, the ASARECA funding mechanism was realigned, and the grant manager has reduced the original scope of the work to align with significantly reduced funding.

In order to contribute to increased economic growth and improve livelihoods in ECA, while enhancing the quality of the environment, the overall goal of the project is to enhance sustainable productivity, added-value and competitiveness of the banana sub sector in ECA. This will enable a purpose of increased utilization of innovations for sustainable management of BXW in ECA. The project aims at achieving the following results:

• Novel and efficient BXW management strategies generated
• BXW management innovations refined, validated and scaled out with value chain actors
• Capacity of value-chain actors mobilized and strengthened to manage BXW in ECA
• New markets to accommodate increased post-BXW banana production to reduce poverty among the disadvantaged developed
• Development and harmonization of cross–border supportive BXW management policies facilitated.

 For 2009:

In pre-inception stakeholder consultations, we identified the current BXW status; assessed local capacity; identified current players and their roles, and developed the programme for the subsequent project planning workshop. In this workshop we discussed country-specific activities, methods and approaches, partners and their roles, and the framework for data collection. This also enabled us to refine a previously developed BXW survey tool, to catalogue BXW control options and to identify effective communication tools. Coordination visits were also made.

For the first half of 2010:

• Baseline surveys in all participating countries to assess disease distribution, incidence, as well as the current opportunities and constraints farmers are facing in the fight against the disease;
• The development of a tool for establishing national level strategies or National Action Plans (NAPs) to mobilize resources and devise strategies for the management of the disease in each country;
• Updating the BXW management guide to include the latest information on the disease management;

These results and progress will help partners to better plan and coordinate regional efforts to management the disease on farm and to strengthen their capacity to recognize and manage the disease more effectively, curtailing yield losses and improving household food security.  The results will also pave the way for on farm and on-station research to generate epidemiological information that will further strengthen the targeting and effectiveness of management strategies.

However, the banana system adapted to a slowly-changing, village-based economy is under stress.  Throughout the basin, farm size has declined, the area under annual cropping has increased, natural grazing lands have been converted to agriculture and production has become increasingly market-oriented.  The result is a decline in soil fertility, particularly for poor-resource households, and nutrient mining.  Pest problems have also increased, especially at lower altitudes. This is a serious challenge for future generations of rural households who face, in addition, increasing costs of fossil fuel, increased temperatures and more irregular rainfall due to climate change, on-going impacts of HIV-AIDS and outmigration of youth in search of more interesting career challenges.

The purpose of this grant, funded by the Austrian Development Association (ADA), is to improve food security, income and natural resource quality of resource-poor young households through banana agroforests, associated animal production and carbon accumulation adapted to changing climates and social conditions.  Austrian and Ugandan scientists and students in collaboration with Bioversity International have begun an action research partnership with field organizations and rural communities in three pilot sites in Central Uganda with the following outputs:

• Methods piloted for strengthening young farmer groups organized for improved production and marketing of bananas, small ruminants and trees;
• Prototype for banana agroforests linked to small ruminant production developed and validated by young farmers in collaboration with field technicians and scientists;
• Biological interactions identified for designing and managing more efficient, resilient and resistant banana agroforests linked to small ruminant production
• Experiences of banana agroforest prototypes reviewed, adapted and extrapolated by farmers, field technicians, scientists and policy-makers

Project stakeholders have ratified issues of common interest, identified scientists and begun to develop partnership approaches for working effectively with local farmer experimentation groups.This was achieved through an initial diagnostic field visit and an inaugural workshop with the participation of over 25 scientists, field technicians and research and development directors. The work has facilitated detailed activity planning for 2010 in all four outputs, which will include: a baseline characterization of household livelihood strategies; a participatory market study; the establishment of farmer experimentation and learning groups with their respective ruminant and fodder modules and banana mother gardens; field studies of soil microbiology and resource partitioning among bananas and trees; a follow-up training and planning workshop, and the design of a grant website.

In response to this threat, the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantains (INIBAP) (now part of Bioversity International), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) convened a regional stakeholders’ meeting (February 2005) to develop a mitigating strategy. This envisioned multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral approaches in a coherent regional response, taking into account the countries/regions that were Xanthomonas wilt-free but threatened; the frontline areas where the disease had just arrived; and the endemic areas where the disease was already established.  It also sought to raise the awareness of all stakeholders along the production-consumption chains by empowering them with knowledge and skills for the diagnosis and management of the disease.  Hence, awareness-raising and associated training were seen as an integral component of the intervention strategy to control the epidemic and restore productivity in the banana-based farming systems.

Arising from this, the BXW project is being implemented by Bioversity International/Banana Research Network for East and Southern Africa (BARNESA) through collaboration with the NARS and other stakeholders from Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, and later on from DR Congo, Kenya and Uganda. It is being funded under three sub-grant agreements. This second sub-grant is supported by World Bank funds through the staple crops programme of ASARECA. During 2010, the ASARECA funding mechanism was realigned, and the grant manager has reduced the original scope of the work to align with significantly reduced funding.

In order to contribute to increased economic growth and improve livelihoods in ECA, while enhancing the quality of the environment, the overall goal of the project is to enhance sustainable productivity, added-value and competitiveness of the banana sub sector in ECA. This will enable a purpose of increased utilization of innovations for sustainable management of BXW in ECA. The project aims at achieving the following results:

• Novel and efficient BXW management strategies generated
• BXW management innovations refined, validated and scaled out with value chain actors
• Capacity of value-chain actors mobilized and strengthened to manage BXW in ECA
• New markets to accommodate increased post-BXW banana production to reduce poverty among the disadvantaged developed
• Development and harmonization of cross–border supportive BXW management policies facilitated.

 For 2009:

Coordination visits were made; BXW pathogen variability was comprehensively sampled; material transfer agreements for BXW escaping cultivars were drafted; a BXW survey tool was developed and a BXW diagnostic training course  was conductedProceedings of the training course are to be used to prepare a BXW diagnostic manual.

For 2010 we have:

conducted a project review workshop and BXW survey, data from which has been subsequently analysed for reporting; mapped the distribution of  BXW in the three countries based on the survey data; conducted further BXW surveillance in Burundi; developed BXW sensitization tools (revising the banana management guide, preparing posters and brochures); completed drafting  a model National Action Plan for BXW control; hardened and weaned  selected Musa germplasm for evaluation against BXW; initiated on-farm demonstration activities, and established the project monitoring  and evaluation process.

In response to this threat, the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantains (INIBAP) (now part of Bioversity International), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) convened a regional stakeholders’ meeting (February 2005) to develop a mitigating strategy. This envisioned multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral approaches in a coherent regional response, taking into account the countries/regions that were Xanthomonas wilt-free but threatened; the frontline areas where the disease had just arrived; and the endemic areas where the disease was already established.  It also sought to raise the awareness of all stakeholders along the production-consumption chains by empowering them with knowledge and skills for the diagnosis and management of the disease.  Hence, awareness-raising and associated training were seen as an integral component of the intervention strategy to control the epidemic and restore productivity in the banana-based farming systems.

Arising from this, the BXW project is being implemented by Bioversity International/Banana Research Network for East and Southern Africa (BARNESA) through collaboration with the NARS and other stakeholders from Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, and later on from DR Congo, Kenya and Uganda. It is being funded under three sub-grant agreements. This third sub-grant is supported by USAID and World Bank funds through the staple crops programme of ASARECA. During 2010, the ASARECA funding mechanism was realigned, and the grant manager has reduced the original scope of the work to align with significantly reduced funding.

In order to contribute to increased economic growth and improve livelihoods in ECA, while enhancing the quality of the environment, the overall goal of the project is to enhance sustainable productivity, added-value and competitiveness of the banana sub sector in ECA. This will enable a purpose of increased utilization of innovations for sustainable management of BXW in ECA. The project aims at achieving the following results:

• Novel and efficient BXW management strategies generated
• BXW management innovations refined, validated and scaled out with value chain actors
• Capacity of value-chain actors mobilized and strengthened to manage BXW in ECA
• New markets to accommodate increased post-BXW banana production to reduce poverty among the disadvantaged developed
• Development and harmonization of cross–border supportive BXW management policies facilitated.

The inception meeting was successfully conducted in Kigali, the project monitoring and evaluation tool was designed and revised, and the existing Banana Xanthomonas Wilt diagnostic management guide wasthoroughly reviewed. We have also: initiated the proposed Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW)-systemicity studies and the participatory monitoring and learning process; conducted a review workshop; further revised our BXW diagnostic management guide, processed and printed the project posters and brochures, and participated in the project.

This work, funded by the McKnight Foundation is elucidating the vector-disease-host plant relationships in order to understand the survival strategies of the disease under a range of environments; developing appropriate technologies to curb long distance disease transmission and arrest intra-farm disease transmission; conducting multi-location evaluation of germplasm linked to clean seed production systems and grass-roots  platforms; and establishing the environmental effects of control measures on soil fauna and flora and soil conservation. Disease surveillance approaches linked to GIS, and feeding into strategies for raising public awareness, will strengthen the frameworks for mobilizing and empowering banana-chain actors to own the BXW problem and adopt approaches that will deliver quality bananas and banana products to the market. Institutional frameworks (quarantine, bye-laws) exploiting trans-boundary synergies and cooperation against the disease will be strengthened. The project will develop tools/technologies, methods and approaches to address the challenges above and test and validate them through linkages within the banana chains. Participatory planning and execution of agreed priorities will strengthen the ownership of project outputs. Information collected will be packaged into policy briefs targeting local and national policy makers to assist in decision making and resource allocation. Stakeholders will benefit from new tools and technologies and enhanced capacities for managing diseases, and from better quality raw materials and steadier markets.

Overall goal: to strengthen East-African food and income security. Immediate objective: to mitigate Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) threats to banana production through: developing and validating management strategies and piloting the best-bet options to increase their adoption by stakeholder-platforms along the production-consumption continuum; preparing new knowledge and lessons into policy briefs to inform policy processes locally and nationally; using information obtained to revise the current public awareness tools, including BXW web sites and the banana Xanthomonas wilt Diagnostic and Management Guide. At the regional level, the information and technologies will be disseminated through bi-annual regional meetings like the BARNESA where both Kenya and Uganda are members. It is estimated that messages will reach over 200,000 farmers during the project period. A participatory monitoring and learning approach will ensure timely activities and shared learning.

During the first 6-months period: a planning workshop was held; benchmark sites were selected, based on developed selection criteria; baseline survey tools were developed, tested and adapted; studies on vector-disease-host plant relationships and the development of a Xanthomonas wilt (Xw) detection tool have been designed for implementation; and work continues in developing methods for decontaminating field tools and in germplasm evaluation. In developing or improving access to Xw management information / messages, 4700 posters and 1500 brochures were translated into different local languages, to be imminently distributed, and a public awareness workshop was organized in each of the benchmark sites.

Regarding project monitoring, a planning workshop was held in February 2010 which reviewed the work, and clarified roles and responsibilities. This was followed by site-visits and workshops to engage the communities battling the Xw disease on-farm. A review workshop was held in September to discuss Year 1 implementation and plans for 2011. In addition, the integrated monitoring and evaluation plan was discussed. In our innovative learning and experimentation approach for farmers (LEAFF) participatory approach, learning remains reciprocal between project scientists and farmers. 

During first 6 months: a planning workshop was held; benchmark sites were selected, based on developed selection criteria; baseline survey tools were developed, tested and adapted; studies on vector-disease-host plant relationships and the development of a Xanthomonas wilt (Xw) detection tool have been designed for implementation; and work continues in developing methods for decontaminating field tools and in germplasm evaluation. In developing or improving access to Xw management information / messages, 4700 posters and 1500 brochures were translated into different local languages, to be imminently distributed, and a public awareness workshop was organized in each of the benchmark sites.

Regarding project monitoring, a planning workshop was held in February 2010 which reviewed the work, and clarified roles and responsibilities. This was followed by site-visits and workshops to engage the communities battling the Xw disease on-farm. A review workshop was held in September to discuss Year 1 implementation and plans for 2011. In addition, the integrated monitoring and evaluation plan was discussed. In our innovative learning and experimentation approach for farmers (LEAFF) participatory approach, learning remains reciprocal between project scientists and farmers.

Furthermore, the objective of this project is three-fold: (a) to disseminate information on the theory of traditional and modern methods of risk management, (b) draw lessons from experiences with both types of risk management methods by conducting country case studies, and (c) support the World Bank-managed training course on modern risk management to be carried out by Julie Dana under separate funding. The training will concentrate on the use of futures contracts, warehouse receipts systems, and weather-based insurance. 

The outputs of the project are the following:

1. Set of alternative global change scenarios, based on projected changes in climate, land use, socio-economic factors, and alternative policies.

2. Typology of production systems that integrates biophysical and socio-economic factors, including intensity of production, land use, cropping/livestock systems, and a range of food security indicators.

3. Household-level impact and response matrix by production system under alternative global change scenarios.

4. Micro-level adaptation analysis to support regional/meso-level analysis (selected ASARECA and FANRPAN member countries).

5. Robust framework to support policy decisions, which indicates regions and groups to be targeted as well as the appropriate adaptation strategies for target groups/regions based on the matrix of household-level impacts and responses, and associated investment requirements. 6. Synthesis reports and manuals for policymakers, outreach, and capacity development. 

Proposed Outcomes: Deliver a series of databases, tools, analyses, and syntheses designed to improve strategic investment and policy decisions. “Bottom-line” deliverables are spatially (and socio-economically) explicit estimates of the potential welfare benefits of a range of interventions (e.g., at on-farm, market and national policy scale) aimed at improving the production and profitability of specific crops and cropping systems. These materials (maps, tables, graphs, and text) provide information of direct relevance to agricultural development investors and policymakers.

The overall project objectives are as follows: (i) Mycotoxin severity evaluated at key points in the selected maize and groundnuts value chains in East and West Africa. (ii) Identify and adapt low cost mycotoxin control methods that can be scaled and commercialized by traders for reducing mycotoxin contamination along the food and feed chain; (iii) Evaluate the cost-effectiveness of these mycotoxin control methods for reducing risk at critical control points for different actors along the crop food value chain using a risk analysis framework; (iv) Overcome market, institutional and policy failures which inhibit adoption of cost-effective mycotoxin control methods; (v) Chain actor and consumer awareness of mycotoxin risks raised in maize and ground nut market chains in East and West Africa (vi) Promote the adoption of effective mycotoxin testing and control strategies. These objectives provide the foundation for meeting our vision of success by combining targeted applied research with pilot testing and participatory approaches to ensure that we can identify the critical control points along the whole feed/food value chain and that we understand what is needed to provide incentives to the actors along the value chain, including poor smallholders, to adopt effective control measures for reducing mycotoxins in maize and groundnuts.  

1. Initial situation

Potato and sweet potato based agricultural systems in East Africa are predicted to experience considerable negative impacts of climate change. The IPCC Fourth Assessment emphasizes that adaptation strategies are essential. However, addressing adaptation in the context of small-scale, semi-subsistence agriculture raises special challenges. An important constraint is that data demands are high, because site-specific bio-physical and economic data are required. The development of relatively simple methods for ex ante evaluation of adaptation at the household and system levels is therefore needed.

2. Approach of the project

This project is using the Tradeoff Analysis methodology to evaluate the impacts of new potato and sweet potato technologies and enabling policies to help East African farmers to adapt to climate change. In a multi disciplinary collaboration between CIP scientists, stakeholders and collaborators in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Europe and the US, the project will develop climate change adaptation strategies using innovations in potato- and sweet potato technologies that have been shown to increase resilience of agricultural systems and reduce vulnerability of poor farm households to climate change.

3. Major results achieved

Stakeholder workshops in the three project countries revealed the most important vulnerability indicators of the agricultural systems at hand. Farmers, scientists and local policy makers furthermore identified already existing or possible future adaptation strategies in the context of climate change. The multi disciplinary research teams in the project have been trained in using the Tradeoff Analysis methodology and the first available datasets are currently being analyzed.

4. Expected impact

Specific outputs include:
1) Regionally-specific technology and policy strategies to reduce vulnerability of poor farm households to climate change;
2) Enhanced national and international capacity to utilize new research methods for analyzing impacts of technologies and policies affecting farmers’ adaptation to climate change;
3) Policy impact pathways identified and actual and expected policy changes assessed.

Websites:

www.cipotato.org/regions/CIP-SSA/Home.html

www.tradeoffs.oregonstate.edu

The overall objective is to sustainably increase the productivity of selected maize-legume systems in eastern and southern Africa by 30% from the 2009 average for each target country by the year 2020.and at the same time reduce seasonal down-side risks by 30%.

The specific objectives are:

Objective 1: To characterize maize-legume production and input and output value chain systems and impact pathways, and identify broad systemic constraints and options for field testing.
Objective 2: To test and develop productive, resilient and sustainable smallholder maize-legume cropping systems and innovation systems for local scaling out.
Objective 3: To increase the range of maize and legume varieties available for smallholders through accelerated breeding, regional testing and release, and availability of performance data.
Objective 4: To support the development of regional and local innovations systems.
Objective 5: Capacity building to increase the efficiency of agricultural research today and in the future.

1. Contribute to the overall design of data analyses for Kenyan and Ugandan data,backstop for the analyses,
2. Review of results and country studies and synthesis of findings for the FORD. Data analysis will be focused on analysis based on poverty levels, social groups, access to markets as well as market opportunities from the data.

The charitable purpose of the project is to decrease hunger and increase food and income security of resource-poor farm families in sub-Saharan Africa through the development and dissemination of drought tolerant, well-adapted maize varieties.

Developing, distributing and cultivating drought tolerant maize varieties is one highly relevant intervention to reduce vulnerability, food insecurity and the damage to local markets accompanying food aid in SSA.

The project pursues nine objectives for maximizing impact from drought tolerant (DT) maize:

Objective 1: Optimized pipeline for identifying new sources of drought tolerance – Identify new DT sources and develop molecular markers for DT genes of major effect.

Objective 2: New tools and methodologies for drought tolerance breeding – Develop and invest in technology-assisted tools and improved breeding methodologies that greatly enhance the speed, cost effectiveness and precision of breeding progress for drought and complementary traits for smallholder conditions.

Objective 3: Focused and effective product development – Generate DT hybrids and open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) adapted to the main drought-affected agro-ecologies and small farmer production conditions in SSA, in particular the mid-altitude and lowland ecologies.

Objective 4: Involvement and capacity building of breeders from NARS and seed companies – Enhance the success of public national agricultural research systems (NARS; particularly those supported by the Gates Foundation through PASS) and private sector breeders for developing their own DT maize varieties with good performance and acceptance under smallholder farmers’ conditions.

Objective 5: Variety testing and release – Improve and accelerate the variety testing and release process for new DT varieties through NARS, seed companies and regulatory agencies.

Objective 6: Scale up seed production – Increase the capacity of local seed companies to disseminate DT maize varieties to a greater number of farmers in SSA.

Objective 7: Advocacy and promotion – Inform policy makers and farmer support groups about new DT varieties, and support interventions which increase smallholder farmers’ learning about and access to DT maize.

Objective 8: Impact assessment and targeting – Assess and draw lessons from past impact and project activities. Inform investors of the payoff of DT maize research and distribution strategies for greatest impact on poverty reduction of smallholder farmers in drought prone zones of Africa, and assess trends and changes in adoptions and livelihood impacts.

Objective 9: Project management and communication – Effectively implement and review project objectives with appropriate stakeholder representation, while keeping stakeholders, the public and policymakers in both south and north informed about project progress.

Focus:  The project will achieve its purpose through research activities that produce the following three research results:-

1.  Knowledge synthesized and disseminated to researchers and planners to guide managers in making optimal choices with respect to the direct and indirect impacts of climate variability and change for the agricultural sector in ECA.

 2. An innovation system that will enable the Meteorological and Agricultural research and extension systems to jointly realize their potential through the formation of learning alliances and knowledge exchange systems for mainstreaming climate risk management research established and promoted.

3. Tested and proven strategies and tools that address priority ASARECA Programme concerns and provide an enhanced understanding of climate induced risks demonstrated and promoted through “Proof of Concept” projects in selected ASARECA countries.

1. Estimate and model Carbon (C) stocks and flows and GHG emissions; and

2. To measure, monitor and manage carbon in GEF and similar projects across an inclusive range of land use systems.

1. Establish interventions that mitigate land degradation.

2. Evaluate and document the potential of different tree species to sequester carbon on degraded land.

3. Establish interventions that sequester carbon on agricultural systems.

4. Establish Participatory Action Plans (PAP’s) intervention plots at several sites. The following activities will be undertaken:

1. Identify and recommend relevant meetings that would further enhance the capacity and increase exposure of the project through participation and/or linkages to carbon finance fora.

2. Maintain the already established tree species screening trial in the lower blocks of Nyando and Yala

3. Establish and document the impacts of project interventions on the set quantitative parameters as given in the Biophysical and Socioeconomic Monitoring and Evaluation Plan.

4. Identify and map out the areas under degradation risk within all nine blocks as reference and proof for applicability of the chosen classification approach under integration of data provided by Kenya Soil Survey in the Nyando, Yala and Nzoia river basins.

5. Maintain demonstration fields/plots to be used as project/community learning sites on mitigation measures for increasing tree cover on severely degraded sites in selected micro catchments in the two operational blocks of Nyando and Yala basins. The project aims at generating the following outputs as per the above activities.

1. Clearance guidelines for facilitating PCO/KARI staff to participate in carbon finance forums.

2. Final technical reports covering all aspects of the trials including, trial objectives, rationale, methodology, achievements, experiences, lessons learnt and tentative tree species suitablitity for the various agro ecological zones within both operational blocks.

3. Block based technical reports detailing the project impacts on the quantitative parameters measured during baseline status survey and an analysis of how the observed impacts are or have contributed to the Project Sevelopment Objective (PDO).

4. Block based maps of classified risk to degradation on five blocks (lower Nzoia, lower Yala and all 3 blocks of Nyando) with recommendations for appropriate mitigation measures for each risk class for both operational blocks in the Nyando and Nzoia.

5. Final technical reports covering all aspects on the rehabilitation of severely degraded sites detailing objectives, rationale, methodology, achievements, experiences, lessons learnt, and tentative recommendations for the rehabilitation of other similar degraded areas with both operational blocks.

CIMMYT is in a unique position to enhance this project through its well established, successful conventional breeding program that has improved the drought tolerant phenotype in maize specifically adapted to sub-Saharan conditions.

Specific CIMMYT Project Objectives within the Technical Component

Objective 1: Establish capacity in Africa to enable technical work, including materials, people and plans for analysis, back crossing, mapping, breeding and field testing.
Objective 2: Conduct molecular analysis of existing CIMMYT maize lines entering the breeding program in sub-Saharan Africa to enable objectives #3 and #4.
Objective 3: Improve CIMMYT lines by incorporating relevant QTLs using state-of-the-art marker assisted breeding system.
Objective 4: (Monsanto) Conduct marker assisted breeding using Monsanto’s proprietary marker and bioinformatics systems to improve CIMMYT drought tolerant germplasm and identify Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs) in CIMMYT drought tolerant germplasm.
Objective 5: Develop tropical hybrids containing drought tolerance transgenes for testing in sub-Saharan Africa.
Objective 6: Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and conduct rigorous field tests in compliance with all regulations.

Groundwater is vastly underdeveloped across SSA and there exist large untapped reserves that can contribute significantly towards offsetting the effects of CC and MDGs. Development of groundwater requires key policy and technical constraints that first need to be identified and addressed.  This study seeks to address the key challenges and plug some of the major gaps.

The project charitable purpose is to improve the lives of subsistence and smallholder farmers on nutritionally deprived soils in Sub-Saharan Africa by developing and deploying improved maize varieties with enhanced nitrogen use efficiency.

The Project has five Objectives:

Objective 1: Improving the efficiency of direct selection for yield in severely N-deficient soils

Objective 2:Identification and deployment of native trait alleles to enhance yield under severe N-depletion in elite varieties adapted to Sub-Saharan Africa

Objective 3:Delivery of transgenic varieties with increased yield under severe N-limitation:  a potential step-change in plant productivity for SSA.

Objective 4:Managing N-efficient varieties for sustainability in African maize cropping systems

Objective 5:Communications and capacity building



The Goal of QPMD is to contribute to improved food security, nutrition (and thus health) and farm income of resource-poor farming families by developing and facilitating adoption of stress-tolerant QPM cultivars adapted to the major ecologies of The Horn and Eastern Africa region.

 The Purpose is to improve the availability, production and utilization of protein-quality enhanced open-pollinated and hybrid maize varieties, and to facilitate transfer of the technology package to farmers in the four target countries of the region: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

This QPMD Project has an Ethiopian focus but maintains a regional perspective. 

The expected long-term impact of the QPMD Project is increased food security, improved nutrition (and thus health), and increased farm income of resource-poor farming families through adoption and utilization of stress-tolerant QPM cultivars in the major maize producing agro-ecologies of The Horn and Eastern Africa.

Project Outcomes:

 ·         Increased utilization of QPM (particularly by children and female members of farm families).

·         Increased QPM grain production, processing and marketing.

·         Strengthened institutional and organizational capacity of seed growers, CBOs and private institutions to produce, maintain quality and distribute QPM seed on a sustainable basis.

Project outputs

·         Increased knowledge and awareness of QPM technologies and nutritional benefits, and adoption of QPM by farm families.

·         Increased utilization of QPM by farm families, and the food and poultry feed industry.

·         Improved productivity and adaptation of QPM germplasm to biotic and abiotic stresses in major ECA agro-ecologies.

·         Increased quantities of high quality QPM breeders’ and foundation seed available and accessible to seed producers.

The goal of this project is to investigate the potential of dual-purpose maize to enhance the livelihoods of resource poor crop-livestock farmers of East Africa where the concentration of mixed smallholders is highest and agricultural systems are undergoing further intensification. The purpose is to contribute to smallholder food security and benefits from livestock through superior dual-purpose maize cultivars providing both food and feed.

The outputs of the project will be:

1. Influence of livestock related factors on farmers choice of maize cultivars assessed in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania

2. Superior dual-purpose maize cultivars identified from existing maize germplasm for diverse agroecological zones in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania

3. Opportunities and strategies for further genetic enhancement towards dual-purpose maize for diverse agro-ecological zones in East Africa defined

4. New tools for quick and economical on-field assessments of stover fodder value in crop improvement work

5. Additional selection criteria for variety releasing agents and public and private seed industry

Output 1: Greater number of cultivar releases of abiotic stress tolerant, nutritionally enhanced maize varieties and hybrids adapted to the most important agro-ecologies of ECA.

Output 2: Accelerated development of new stress tolerant maize cultivars.

Output 3: Increased availability of breeder and foundation seed of stress tolerant, nutritionally enhanced maize varieties and mechanisms for scaling up certified seed production, especially in stress prone-environments.

Output 4: Policy recommendations which increase maize seed availability in stress-prone environments.

The  project intends to bring the IR-maize technology to the point where a greater number of IR-maize varieties (OPVs and hybrids) have been released and a wider range of seed companies are engaged in IR-maize seed production, essentially for the technology to successfully be devolved to in-country capacities of selected target countries, in particular Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda (IR-maize pilot countries).

Objective 1: Support interested NARS and seed company breeders to evaluate and register adapted IR-maize varieties and hybrids in SSA countries where Striga is endemic, leading to their commercialization

Objective 2: Develop, package and disseminate information on Striga management using IR-maize technology for use by seed producers, farmers and farmers support groups (stockists, NGOs, extension, community based organizations)

Objective 3: backstop NARS and seed companies on handling, quality control and general management of IR-maize technology.

]]> http://ongoing-research.cgiar.org/factsheets/deployment-of-ir-maize-technology-for-reduction-of-striga-infestation/feed/ 5 130 English Kenya Malawi Tanzania Uganda http://ongoing-research.cgiar.org/factsheets/wealth-creation-through-integrated-development-of-the-potato-production-and-marketing-sector-in-kenya-uganda-and-ethiopia/ http://ongoing-research.cgiar.org/factsheets/wealth-creation-through-integrated-development-of-the-potato-production-and-marketing-sector-in-kenya-uganda-and-ethiopia/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:54:36 +0000 Evelyn Katingi http://or-test.cgiar.org/?post_type=or_fact_sheet&p=321 The purpose of this project is to demonstrate poverty reduction among target smallholder potato farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda through parallel interventions in seed potato production and marketing on one hand, as well as implementing improvements in the ware potato production and marketing chains on the other. As outputs, such integrated sectoral development is expected to result in the establishment of potato stakeholder forums at local, national and regional levels; the establishment of direct specialized potato marketing linkages between producers and processors / retailers; economically sustainable seed potato enterprises; improved production and marketing of seed and ware potato both in terms of quality and quantity; a proper assessment of opportunities and constraints for the potato sector on the national, regional and international markets; the development and presentation of national potato development plans to policy makers; and the exchange/sharing of information among potato sector representatives within and out of the three pilot countries. Moreover, lessons learnt will constitute valuable information that will help to shape up scaling up the approach to other sub- Saharan potato producing countries and beyond. The approach of implementation will emphasize public-private-partnership (PPP)

This project has been developed by a consortium of research and implementation organizations spanning the health, veterinary, wildlife and vector communities in Kenya. Our organizations have experienced challenges in the prediction and prevention of emerging diseases and believe that our performance can be improved by better integration of surveillance, research and response. In developing such an integrated system, we plan to focus on the surveillance, research and response to Rift Valley fever (RVF) as an initial concrete example. RVF prediction and prevention has involved all key actors in this consortium and has the attention of the public and senior decision makers in East Africa. Our consortium plans to develop a network of surveillance, diagnostic, knowledge management and decision making platforms linked by key tasks. This network will be effective at improving the prediction and prevention of RVF and other arboviruses as well as serving as a model that can be applied and expanded to other emerging diseases in Kenya and more broadly in East Africa and elsewhere.

Research status
Genetic Diversity: NLRI has worked a project of genetic diversity of Korean native chicken using molecular markers since 2002. The comparison of genetic diversity among indigenous livestock was performed during last RDA and ILRI collaboration project.  The AVIADIV project in European Union performed studied 52 populations join Europe, Africa and China.  Nine MS- marker for population test and 147 MS-marker for comprehensive mapping were announced in US poultry genomic project.

Disease Resistance: Mx gene was identified to regulate post transcriptional viral protein synthesis in mice (Haller et al. 1987).  Various cellular regulatory enzymes were reported to affect viral replication (Mellen et al. 1994).  In chicken, 631^{s t} position base of Mx gene has been associated with increased to influenza infection (Ko et al. 2002).  To reduce the impact of AI epidemics in domestic chicken, ILRI made international research consortium to identify the chicken innate genetic factors that influence AI infection, pathogenesis and transmission.

Gaps in Korean research
Genetic Diversity: Classification of Korean native chicken is based on morphology while characterization base on genetic information is missing.

Disease Resistance: Migratory birds have supposedly plaid an important role in the expansion of current avian influenza virus such as H5N1 epidemics, but very limited research has been carried out to understand these diseases in Korea.  There is little research projects to discover the genetic factors to affecting virus resistance and susceptibility of host animal.

The outputs that the partners of QPM project in Kenya, DRCongo, Tanzania and Uganda will deliver are:

Output 1: QPM technologies made available to uptake pathways in DRCongo, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda

Output 2: Best bet approaches for scaling up QPM technologies  generated and promoted

Output 3: Capacities for disseminating and scaling up QPM technologies in the production-to-consumption continuum strengthened.

Output 4: Information on QPM technologies and uptake approaches made available to intermediate and end users in ECA .

The main purpose of this assessment will be to examine the nature and extent of the problem posed by Striga infestation in East Africa, to provide the rationale and focus for the associated PUPP initiative. A conceptual framework will be required to link the Striga threat to agricultural productivity, food security, and poverty alleviation. The success of this programme will depend on accelerated uptake of available, viable and affordable technology. This will require building scenarios of how different levels of uptake can be achieved and where, and the resources required to implement the scenarios.

This approach will then be used to examine the future impacts of candidate technologies, e.g., Push-Pull and IR-maize as successful Striga elimination programmes.

The specific objectives, include:

a) Estimate the extent and intensity of Striga problem in East Africa.

b) Estimate cereal crop losses due to Striga threat and their effect on food supply.

c) Assess the impact of Striga problem on household food security and incomes.

d) Conduct a feasibility analysis of available Striga control technologies in different agro
ecological zones in East Africa.

e) Conduct an economic analysis to predict the likelihood and impact of adoption of

candidate technologies across the study region.

f) Assess investment needs/options by farmers and institutions for adoption and scaling-up
of main Striga control technologies.

The goal of the project is to enhance food security and raise incomes of resource-poor farming families and consumers in southern Asia (Thailand and South China) and eastern Africa (Kenya) by strengthening breeding capacities of NARS and local seed companies.

The purpose of the project is to provide poor farmers with maize more tolerant to diverse abiotic (mainly drought and low fertility) stresses by offering breeders of national programs and seed companies appropriate phenotyping technologies.

The project will generate the following outputs:

Output 1: New phenotyping platforms developed to speed breeding for drought and other abiotic stresses.

Output 2: Selection indices developed.

Output 3: Genes enhancing drought adaptation mapped.

Output 4: Strengthening capacity of southern Asian and eastern Africa breeding programs and local seed companies to serve stressed maize production environments.

Output 5: In the medium term (but obviously beyond the three years time of this project) maize varieties better adapted to drought and other abiotic stresses developed.

Evidence shows that formal milk markets will grow only as household incomes increase, and they are therefore expected to predominate for many years to come, given trends in demand. Besides the price advantage, other factors underlying the high demand are the income and relatively high-value employment.

Pro-actively engaging actors in the informal dairy sector to integrate it into the formal dairy value chain requires both appropriate changes in policy (mind-set and/or written), and developing appropriate policy implementation instruments for relevant institutions. This is necessary because whereas concerned institutions may appreciate the change needed, how to go about it is usually a bottleneck.

This project proposes to develop appropriate milk quality assurance standards and institutional approaches towards integrating informal milk markets into the formal value chains. These approaches will be piloted in the East African Community member countries first before adapting them for other countries covered by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa.

The specific approach proposed here involves piloting a training and certification scheme as a dairy business development service. Some countries (e.g. Kenya) have made some progress in this area while others require support to enable them develop and/or adapt such instruments.

The pilot testing is being complemented by dialogue mainly through the East Africa Dairy Regulatory Authorities Council to pursue options for rationalization and harmonization of dairy policies throughout the region, learning symposia to exchange lessons and assessment of impacts of policy changes.

There are commercial feeds that farmers could use to feed their pigs but these are expensive and thus unaffordable by many farmers. Alternative feedstuffs are available locally that farmers could use as pig feeds. The challenge, therefore, is how to formulate cheaper alternative pig feeds that combine commercial and local ingredients to improve the overall performance of the animals.

Local pork butchers are the main market channels for pigs, but farmers are often exploited by these buyers. There is no system in place for farmers to accurately determine the weight of the pigs at sale and thus get better value for their pigs. The commonly used method of estimating the weight by “just looking” at the pig is highly unreliable and provides biased weight estimates.

The project is led by the University of Guelph, and work is being implemented as PhD research projects for Florence Mutua, a graduate fellow with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) who is registered at the University of Nairobi, and a student at the University of Guelph.

Specific objectives

• Describe rural pig management practices in western Kenya and explore farmers’ beliefs, perceptions and attitudes towards rural pig keeping.
• Develop and validate weight estimation models for pigs using length and girth body measurements.
• Describe productivity indices for rural sows.
• Investigate the potential sources of pig feed, seasonal effects on feeding and feeding limitations.
• Compare the efficiency of the different pig feeding regimes (sources and frequencies) used by farmers.
• Develop a manual for training of farmers and local livestock and health officers.
• Assess farmer post-training uptake of knowledge on pig management, sow productivity and the pork tapeworm.

Anticipated outcomes

• Development of a weight estimation tool
• Capacity strengthening of local livestock extension staff
• Knowledge on feed sources and weight performance of rural pigs
• Baseline information on the reproductive performance of sows raised in western Kenya

Under the leadership and guidance of the CCI-CPR; ICRAF as leader of the Agriculture Forestry Land Use Design Team (AFOLU-DT); will work with host governments and other organizations to help ensure that the prototype projects are scientifically and economically sound. The AFOLU-DT will help in the creation of the full range of land use biosequestration projects selected by project developers; including avoided deforestation; aforestation, reforestation; agroforestry ; and other agricultural and rangeland components; partnering with organizations with complementary skill sets as necessary.

In this project, The AFOLU-DT will work directly with CCI country teams in priority target countries; Tanzania; Kenya; Cambodia; .Indonesia; Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Guyana, to help them to design and implement projects or improve on existing projects. This will be accomplished by selecting the appropriate support and communication modalities including; electronic means, and site visits as well as on-going collaboration by designated ICRAF personnel.

The Programme’s objectives shall include:

i) Fostering the development, implementation and assessment of environmental service agreements in three core landscapes and four associate landscapes in the highlands of Eastern and Western Africa;

ii) Catalyzing policy support and private-sector participation in environmental service agreements in Guinea, Kenya, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania; and

iii) Providing proactive support to the dissemination and application of assessment tools, negotiation methodologies, prototype reward mechanisms and monitoring tools among a PRESA9 Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa) community of practice, including other IFAD projects, regional and national Katoomba Group4 networks, NGOs and national organizations.

Among others, project activities will include:

a) Compiling an inventory of baseline information, design and monitoring methods, and institutional innovation in all landscapes;

b) Compiling a set of scoping, negotiation support and prototype payment tools from Rewarding the Upland Poor of Asia for Environmental Services (RUPES) and other Payment for Environmental Services (PES) projects;

c) Conducting training in the PRESA assessment, negotiation support and prototype payment tools for project teams in all PRESA landscapes;

d) Supporting partners to adopt PRESA assessment and negotiation tools to fill in key knowledge gaps and frame dialogue among stakeholders;

e) Developing and refining a decision support tool for targeting promising technologies and land use options in different environmental and market conditions;

f) Establishing and monitoring participants’ responses to prototype environmental service contracts; and

g) Engaging with utilities, private firms and industry groups with interests in ecosystem services, and with public agencies concerned with environmental services in the target landscapes.

The programme shall deliver the following outputs; inter alia:

a) Baseline reports for all the core and associate landscapes;

b) Programme teams in all landscapes introduced to and supported in the application of a toolkit of methods for scoping, negotiation support and assessment;

c) Technology targeting tool developed

d) Prototype reward mechanisms developed and tested with at least 100 farmers in every core landscape;

e) Workable reward mechanisms operational in at least four of the project landscapes; f) Monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment of working RES mechanisms;

g) Technical reports and synthesis documents that clarify the business case for ecosystem management in the highlands of Eastern and Western Africa;

h) Technical reports and synthesis documents that identify policy and institutional options for enhancing environmental service reward mechanisms; and

i) Technical advisory notes, field and training manuals, PRESA website, and workshop summaries.

The program has the following objectives:

1. To develop robust methods and tools for advancing opportunity cost analysis of foregone land use change in forest landscapes, acknowledging and including the wide range of forests and other land use types in those landscapes.

2. To support professionals working in relevant national organizations (governmental, university, non-governmental) to understand, adapt and use the analytical methods and interpret the results.

The project aims to:1. To strengthen the capacity of research partners within the existing Pro-Poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa Programme (PRESA) to conduct interdisciplinary research, ecosystem services valuation, trade-off and policy impact studies with training of early-career scientists.

2. To enhance links between the PRESA community and UK research institutions with expertise in natural resource valuation, assessment of ecosystem service trade offs, life cycle analysis, and carbon accounting. This will raise awareness of ecosystem issues and help to create a demand for relevant research.

3. To further develop the evidence base for PRESA through selected studies of the carbon sequestration, water use, and economic profiles of selected land use systems, and use that evidence base to assess ecosystem service trade offs and the impacts of various financial and regulatory instruments.

4. To identify future research needs in this area and progress a proposal for future funding. This will address:

(a) a programme for future research to address knowledge gaps and improve the capacity to deliver ecosystem services research;

(b) a plan for how the programme could be delivered, from a single network to a series of smaller projects and relevant funding opportunities;

(c) information on available expertise and skills for future networking.

5. To submit a journal article reviewing approaches and the limitations to capacity building in ecosystem services research.

(i) the risks posed by climate variability and change in relation to land resource dependent livelihoods in SSA;

(ii) the impact of land use practices on carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions; and

(iii) to provide practical guidance and tools about sustainable land management (SLM) approaches and practices that are best suited to meet development objectives while also addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation concerns.

This analytical work is divided into three main pillars which can be summarized as follows:

(i) under Pillar One, climate change and variability as well as land management data will be collected and presented in one integrated information system at a regional level with some specific sub-regional focuses;

(ii) under Pillar Two, case studies will provide context specific and operational recommendations; and

(iii) under Pillar Three, the information and knowledge collected and generated will be presented in a format designed for broad dissemination. The case studies will draw upon the information generated under Pillar One, combined with specific information collected in selected case study sites to draw practical, context-specific lessons and recommendations for SLM approaches and practices to improve adaptation to and mitigation of climate variability and change.

The overall objective of the case studies is to generate practical, context specific recommendations of sustainable land management approaches and practices which are suited to improve food security and economic prospects while reducing climate related risks and greenhouse gas emissions. The case studies are expected to answer the following questions:

• What types, modalities and conditions of SLM investments are the most relevant in terms of adaptation to current variability and future climate change?

• What context specific actions can improve the contribution of SLM investments to adaptation and mitigation, considering improved information, institutions, and policy, program and regulatory instruments?

• What are the best synergies between water and land resource management to generate mitigation and adaptation benefits?

The project will also update and improve soil management recommendations for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to help increase agricultural production, food security and environmental benefits.

The following are the intended outputs.1. Generalizable indicators of soil fertility capability and soil constraints to crop production in sub-Saharan Africa based on rapid infrared spectral analysis of soils.2. Demonstration of use of soil fertility indicators based on infrared spectroscopy for targeting soil management recommendations in three pilot countries (Kenya, Mali, Mozambique);3. Improved data on prevalence of key soil fertility constraints in the three pilot countries; and 4. Capacity building of national agricultural research institutes in the three pilot countries and awareness creation among public and private advisory services in ten Sub-Saharan African countries.

Naturally African is a Pan-African Innovation Platform that seeks to link research, information and policy geared towards promoting opportunities for small scale African Natural Products Enterprises.

The platform gives priority to the creation of new market opportunities; equitable returns to producers, technology transfer, and development of international standards.

This first stakeholders consultative meeting will seek their opinion on the challenges, lessons learnt and the way forward. The meeting seeks to: – Introduce the platform to the stakeholders – Nominate the interim management board – Develop the platform’s agenda – Discuss and outline the scope, mandate and spirit of the platform – Discuss and approve the rolling work plan – Nominate stakeholders to several special task forces to be created – Create a vibrant Pan-African natural products advocacy and lobby group.

This platform is expected to produce the following outputs and milestones. – Establishing a vibrant Natural products leveraging entity in the continent – Creating workable natural products models while scaling up and out success stories through lARD, NAR’s, NGOs and the private sector. – Consolidating and facilitating the utilization of tree and natural products research findings. – Intervening as one voice in the areas of trade regulations and acceptance criteria for the products in the international market. – Coordinating information resources between the sub regional natural products stakeholders. – Facilitating and revitalizing capacity building and training on natural product by scientists in Africa. – Strengthening cropping protocols for natural products to enable good collection practices and sustainable production. 

The VECEA project will produce the following 5 outputs:

Output 1: A high resolution model for the 7 countries and an accompanying database with descriptions of the nomenclature and criteria used to define the potential vegetation types, including key (vegetation and environmental niche) characteristics that define and distinguish the vegetation types.

Output 2: Field verification of vegetation in Kenya and Uganda.

Output 3: High resolution scenarios for present day natural resources management and conservation (Kenya and Uganda).

Output 4: High resolution scenarios for natural resources management and conservation under climate change and land use changes (Kenya and Uganda).

Output 5: Document and publish the potential vegetation map and database

2. To develop partnership mechanisms for linking grassroots planning with district level decision making and policy implementation for landscape level adoption and impact of integrated natural resources management innovations.

3. To provide insights for evidence-based policy options that address key barriers and opportunities for wide scale adoption of integrated natural resources management innovations in the selected districts.

4. To develop,implement and evaluate a systematic strategy for devolution of structures and action research responsibilities to national partners in the selected countries.

5. To promote and adapt iterative knowledge management and communication systems needed for scaling out and up sustainable land management innovations.

The objectives of the project are:

1. To provide local and synchronized access to data and analysis tools independent of network resources

2. To establish a system for automatic update of genomics databases

3. To organize courses and training material to support ‘training of trainers’ activities at national and regional levels

The proposed project will be based on identified priority needs of African scientists. An important output of the project will be the development of linkages between African scientists with a global bioinformatics network.

This work, funded by the McKnight Foundation is elucidating the vector-disease-host plant relationships in order to understand the survival strategies of the disease under a range of environments; developing appropriate technologies to curb long distance disease transmission and arrest intra-farm disease transmission; conducting multi-location evaluation of germplasm linked to clean seed production systems and grass-roots  platforms; and establishing the environmental effects of control measures on soil fauna and flora and soil conservation. Disease surveillance approaches linked to GIS, and feeding into strategies for raising public awareness, will strengthen the frameworks for mobilizing and empowering banana-chain actors to own the BXW problem and adopt approaches that will deliver quality bananas and banana products to the market. Institutional frameworks (quarantine, bye-laws) exploiting trans-boundary synergies and cooperation against the disease will be strengthened. The project will develop tools/technologies, methods and approaches to address the challenges above and test and validate them through linkages within the banana chains. Participatory planning and execution of agreed priorities will strengthen the ownership of project outputs. Information collected will be packaged into policy briefs targeting local and national policy makers to assist in decision making and resource allocation. Stakeholders will benefit from new tools and technologies and enhanced capacities for managing diseases, and from better quality raw materials and steadier markets.

Overall goal: to strengthen East-African food and income security. Immediate objective: to mitigate Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) threats to banana production through: developing and validating management strategies and piloting the best-bet options to increase their adoption by stakeholder-platforms along the production-consumption continuum; preparing new knowledge and lessons into policy briefs to inform policy processes locally and nationally; using information obtained to revise the current public awareness tools, including BXW web sites and the banana Xanthomonas wilt Diagnostic and Management Guide. At the regional level, the information and technologies will be disseminated through bi-annual regional meetings like the BARNESA where both Kenya and Uganda are members. It is estimated that messages will reach over 200,000 farmers during the project period. A participatory monitoring and learning approach will ensure timely activities and shared learning.

During these first months: a planning workshop was held; benchmark sites were selected, based on developed selection criteria; baseline survey tools were developed, tested and adapted; studies on vector-disease-host plant relationships and the development of a Xanthomonas wilt (Xw) detection tool have been designed for implementation; and work continues in developing methods for decontaminating field tools and in germplasm evaluation. In developing or improving access to Xw management information / messages, 4700 posters and 1500 brochures were translated into different local languages, to be imminently distributed, and a public awareness workshop was organized in each of the benchmark sites.

Regarding project monitoring, a planning workshop was held in February 2010 which reviewed the work, and clarified roles and responsibilities. This was followed by site-visits and workshops to engage the communities battling the Xw disease on-farm. A review workshop was held in September to discuss Year 1 implementation and plans for 2011. In addition, the integrated monitoring and evaluation plan was discussed. In our innovative learning and experimentation approach for farmers (LEAFF) participatory approach, learning remains reciprocal between project scientists and farmers.

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), has been nominated by COMESA as the lead institution. ICRAF objective in this assignment is to assemble the scientific evidence in support of the unified African position on Bio-Carbon.

More specifically, ICRAF will perform various activities which will include the following:

1. Create a consortium of national, regional and international research institutions including CIFOR and ASARECA.

2. Independently verify and confirm the statistics and facts contained in the draft submission for the unified African position.

3. Produce GIS maps and tables of the distribution of current bio-carbon stocks in Africa and as a proportion of global stocks.

4. Assess and report on the potential capacity to sequester additional carbon by region and country, and as a proportion of global capacity.

5. Develop a system of monitoring, measuring, verifying and reporting carbon losses, land and forest degradation and deforestation.

6. Create a database of all forestry and agricultural carbon projects in Eastern and Southern Africa and document the best practices in community-based programmes and framework for benefits sharing.

7. Assess the potential of Non Timber Forest Products (NTFP) and new agroforestry products to contribute to African Biocarbon Initiative.

8. Provide technical assistance to East African Community and South African Development Cooperation on their master plan and forest initiative.

9. Prepare a framework for revising Clean Development Mechanism and recommend revisions.

10. Review and recommend modifications to the COMESA comprehensive forestry strategy to include the African Biocarbon Initiative.

The project will also build on recent advances in digital soil mapping, infrared spectroscopy, remote sensing, statistics and integrated soil fertility management to improve the way that soils are evaluated, mapped and monitored, while significantly reducing the costs to do so, and to disseminate innovative soil management methods such as the combination of inorganic fertilizers with organic inputs that improve crop yields while enhancing the environment. Dissemination and training will make the project’s outcomes highly accessible to farm communities, public and private extension services, national agricultural research and soil survey organizations, the fertilizer sector, project and local planners, national and regional policymakers, and scientists. The efforts in Africa are part of a wider, global effort to digitally map the world soil resources, and this project will help catalyze the global effort. This project falls under the “Develop and Apply New Technologies” of the Grant making Priori-ties for Agricultural Development.

The project has five objectives as follows. 1. Establish the Global Digital Soil Map Consortium 2. Create data management systems for the Internet-based African Soil Information Service and the Global Soil Information Service by expanding existing Cyberinfrastructure for the global effort 3. Develop digital soil maps and a establish soil health surveillance system in SSA 4. Provide evidence-based, spatially explicit soil management recommendations 5. Build capacity, serve end users, monitoring and evaluation, and management support.

This project will be carried out in the frame of the foreseen Challenge programme: ‘ High Value Crops- Fruits and Vegetables’. As part of this programme, the study will contribute to increased smallholder agricultural production, livelihood opportunities, and incomes in Eastern and Southern Africa through the development of intensive fruit-based agroforestry systems.

The above study will compile basic data and knowledge about small-scale fruit based agroforestry systems and selected fruit tree species.

Specific project objectives include the following. 1. To analyze and compare function and characteristics of existing garden-like agroforestry systems in India and Eastern Africa (particularly Kenya and Uganda). 2. To study potential and constraints for intensifying fruit garden systems in different climatic regions of Kenya and Uganda. 3. To gather data on genetic and nutritional variability of selected underutilized fruit tree species and varieties from India.

Expected project outputs are as follows. 1. Knowledge about function and characteristics of existing intensive small-scale fruit garden agroforestry systems in India. 2. Improved data on the practicability and constraints of high intensity fruit garden agroforestry systems in three pilot sites of Eastern Africa including GIS-based maps. 3. Qualitative and genetic characterization of selected fruit tree species and varieties. 4. Capacity building of national agricultural research institutes in the three pilot sites and awareness creation among public and private advisory services in at least five countries of Eastern and Southern Africa.

In the three East African countries (Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda), CAFNET focuses in watersheds that have a major national importance in terms of area and volume of coffee grown in the country, where coffee growing is mostly a smallholder enterprise, and which have a marked potential to respond to market demand for high quality, sustainable coffee.

This project seeks to promote the extensive adoption of tree shade in farming systems for enhancing coffee quality, as well as the diversification and environmental sustainability of smallholder farming systems of the Gisenyi area in the Lake Kivu region. The following four set of activities have been proposed for the project.

1) Development of sustainable Tree seed supply and Distribution system

2) Dissemination of Agroforestry practices

3) Strengthening capacity of Agroforestry coffee trainers, extensionists and COOPAC

4) On-farm Applied research. The project aims to achieve both development and research outputs. Development outputs include: Tree shade management guidelines developed including recommendations on tree species and spacing; extension brochure on tree shade establishment and management produced; and seed sources established for several indigenous tree species and commercial linkages created between seed producers/collectors and producers group. Outputs of research activities include: Coffee yields and quality determined in contrasted shade treatments; influence of tree shade on coffee and soils determined in sites of varying soil quality, altitude, and slope, and; effectiveness of tree species in enhancing productivity and quality of coffee and non-coffee components of the production systems ranked.

The initiative has established successful collaborations with numerous regional and subregional organizations in Africa as well as Asia, Middle East, and Latin America to facilitate the initiation of national surveys. Since 2001, ASTI has published a broad set of country briefs and regional synthesis reports, which have been cited widely in national and international agricultural research policy documents. See the ASTI website at www.asti.cgiar.org