Goals of this project are:-

1. The domestication and use of the best “germplasm” for agroforestry
2. Making trees more productive on farms
3. Improving tree-product marketing for smallholder farmers
4. Making land healthier through agroforestry
5. Using agroforestry to reduce the impact of, and help people and landscapes adapt to, climate change
6. Developing policies and reward systems for multi-use landscapes that provide “environmental services”

Expected outcomes include:-
1) Securing community-based land and forest tenure over large areas of nine community territories in Jambi (led by WARSI)

2) Integrate all Geo-referenced communities’ territories into provincial spatial planning

3) Landscape analysis of biodiversity, watershed functions and carbon

4) Livelihoods’ analyses that support environmental services

5) The maintenance and improvement of multiple environmental services, that is, biodiversity, hydrology and climate regulation in a sustainable landscape, are promoted through integrated, inclusive and informed land-use planning at district level

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.

Activities are:

1. Purchase all equipment required for field work.
2. Organize field work in five ecoregions of India using paired plot design to assess their degree of recovery from degradation in Forest Ecosystems FES ecosystem rehabilitation sites.
3. Work with Ecosystems FES teams and other partners as appropriate, to collect data in all sites.
4. Subcontract with a local labaratory to analyze soils for total Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, (C, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, CEC,) exchangeables bases, Al toxicity and pH.
5. Compile all data into database.
6. Deliver a report with analysis of the dataset.

Deliverables.

1. A wokplan for the postdoctoral scientist
2. A summary report on the implementation of the work in India.

Activities expected of ICRAF include :-

1. Assess availability and quality of remote sensing baseline data for countries in which ASAP interventions are being designed, and provide existing, readily available maps which can be used by project design team, starting with an initial 15 countries.

2. Develop a realistic operational plan that reconciles spatial data, information and knowledge (including models) availability with the relevant needs of IFAD projects and the necessary capacities required to serve those needs, based on an initial list of countries  and projects. This operational plan will be developed in consultative manner with IFAD and based on actual programming need.

3. Implement the operational plan with the wider range of countries and projects contingent on available capacities.

4. Research opportunities and limitations of remote sensing and GIS based data for smallholder climate change adaptation planning and summarise them in at least one knowledge product that can be published and disseminated by IFAD in support of practical programming purposes.

5. Contribute towards the development of a near-real time geoscience labaratory at ICRAF that utilizes remote sensing and rigorous statistical approaches for smallholder adaptation planning under different scenarios.

6. Liase with IFAD and ICRAF staff to assess the effectiveness of the institutional partnership between ICRAF and IFAD and , as appropriate, develop a grant proposal for follow up institutional cooperation.

Activities under W2

The project will address the following research questions.

1) How can forestry and agroforestry management practices be improved to enhance integrated timber and non-timber forest product (NTFP) management and production?

2) What are suitable strategies for effective integrated marketing of timber and NTFPs for smallholders?

3) What policy factors significantly hinder smallholders’ production and competitiveness in timber and NTFPs and how can those factors be addressed?

4) What are the key characteristics of an extension program that can deliver information on best practices for timber and NTFP management, production and value-added marketing?

Activities will be organized in four objectives/components:

• Development and implementation of integrated timber and NTFP production systems to enhance local livelihoods.
• Identification and implementation of enhanced marketing strategies and value chains to improve timber and NTFP market links for smallholders.
• Analysis and improvement of policy frameworks to facilitate smallholders’ production and integrated marketing of timber and NTFPs.
• Enhance expansion of smallholder-managed integrated timber and NTFP production systems.

The Green Prosperity, GP Project, one of three projects included in MCC Compact with the GOI, seeks to promote sustained growth and poverty reduction in Indonesia through investments in renewable energy and sustainable management and use of natural resources. Project activities, which will include both technical and financial assistance for low-carbon development projects will be based on the GOI’s medium- to long-term development plan, its National Action Plan for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Regional Spatial Plans, and intensive participatory land-use planning involving local communities and governments in provinces and districts selected based on their potential for poverty reduction and the attainment of environmental objectives. The tasks included in this assignment are intended to facilitate the launch of the project in the starter districts, document lessons learned in order to inform the project rollout in additional districts throughout the country, and develop and apply a rigorous methodology for selecting the additional districts.

More specifically, in addition to the development of an inception and a final report, this activity will undertake the following main tasks with relation to the start-up of project activities in each of the four starter districts:

1. Land Use and Spatial Planning Needs Assessment
2. Preparation of district guidelines for village boundary setting
3. Facilitation of multi-stakeholder fora
4.  SEA

Expected Project Outputs

1. Recommendation for activities to be carried out under the Participatory Land Use Planning (PLUP) Activity

2.  Guidelines for participatory administrative boundary setting that will be utilized for implementation of the PLUP Activity

These new technologies are expected not only to maintain, but enhance productivity and the production levels. The scaling –up of high potential agricultural technologies would increase productivity of crops and livestock to meet the growing demand for food and improving food and nutrition security of the poor and vulnerable residing in the remote rural areas of the country. Additionally, it is envisaged that the transfer of high potential technologies would also make agriculture attractive to rural youth and create more livelihood opportunities resulting in less distress migration.

Goal:

The selection of appropriate ready to scale innovative and high potential technologies is the most vital aspect of this event.

ICRAF tasks

1) Developing an analytical framework and a set of technical, economic and social filters for identifying the best practices and prioritizing their cultural acceptability, familiarity, effectiveness, “sustainability” and scalability,

2) Using the framework, review the technologies under key themes (areas), such as the resource management, climate change resilient (smart) practices, knowledge management based applications and market linkage in relation to productivity gains and economies of scale,

3) Develop a scaling up process and implementation road map by involving various stakeholders, and

4) Package the scaling up of flagship technologies / practices in ecologically well characterized “technology fit matched – delineated” areas at scales, especially in external development portfolio supported states

Deliverables

1. Identification of 4-6 best “technologies” (technology models, packages, practices /concepts / processes) from a basket comprising different commodities, systems, methods & processes, etc. and screening them through various biophysical, socio-economic and cultural diversity filters via a task force composed of specialists in these disciplines,

2. Presenting the selected scalable “technologies” in a “Share Fair Workshop” having about 50-60 participants for critiquing and buy in in them and for supporting the scaling up efforts. This group will comprise of the representatives from the Department of Agriculture as well as relevant research institutions, State Governments and line departments, Financial Institutions, Knowledge Commission, CGIAR centers, UN nod other selected international organizations. Officials from other relevant ministries and the Planning Commission will also be invited.
The 2 day “Share Fair Workshop” will set a template for at least an annual workshop to be held each year to take stock and promote the potential technologies, particularly those that have been generated through the support of financial institutions, so that they can be built in the development portfolios of such institutions and provide benefits to a larger pool of clientele,

3. Determine the application domains of the “flagship technologies” by matching the profile of the technologies (technology utilization requirements) with the potential target area qualities and the utilizers (farmers in case of agri. technologies) resource base,

4. Package the scalable (smart agricultural) technologies and prepare a template for their scaling up and provide it to various stakeholders for wider clientele use.

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 smallholder sector produces most of Botswana’s meat and over 70% of the country’s agricultural gross domestic product. Although past policy and research have focused on the beef export sector, rather little information has been generated on the circumstances and potential of the 80,000 smallholders who own most of the country’s cattle, and the 100,000 households that earn livelihoods from sheep and goats.  This leaves strategies and investments for rural development and livelihood generation without a basis in data and analysis.

For both cattle and small ruminants, more competitive smallholder systems can improve livelihoods.  Several factors constrain the production and marketing of surpluses by smallholders: poor animal is one example, that is often made worse by the complexities of communal grazing, and by limited access to services.

This 3-year research project asks the following questions, and engages partners in research industry and government to help answer them:

• What are the characteristics of smallholder livestock producers in Botswana and what factors constrain their livelihoods?
• How can livestock-related marketing systems in Botswana be improved for the benefit of smallholders and the rural population?

The project has three objectives:

• To better define smallholder livestock production systems and to identify the factors affecting the productivity of smallholder livestock producers and assess their competitiveness
• To understand and improve conditions for market participation and value addition in markets for livestock, livestock products and inputs
• To strengthen the capacity of agricultural education and extension

Project activities centre on:

• Data collection and analysis
• New thinking arising from new knowledge
• Regular communication of results
• Packaging of results into training and extension materials

Some of the project’s first steps are to:

• Define and measure competitiveness
• Select project sites for a baseline survey
• Identify animal diseases and measure their prevalence

The outcomes from this project will be improved and more sustainable livelihoods amongst smallholder livestock keepers, and increased uptake and use of scientific and economic knowledge by those providing services to smallholders.

Partners

• Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
• Botswana Ministry of Agriculture

Funder

Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research

• Predict suitability changes in the most important high-value and staple crops (50 species) considering different scenarios of progressive climate change
• Evaluate the socio-economic impact of climate change on farmers’ livelihoods and the level of vulnerability of production systems
• Develop climate change adaptation strategies for the most important production systems and mitigation measures to offset or minimize the adverse effects of climate change to ensure food security.

• Identification, characterization, and collection of coconut germplasm with local farmers.
• Optimization of somatic embryogenesis methodologies (multiplication) and early infestation evaluation focused on the nematode causing the red-ring disease.
• Definition of the entomological complex that affects coconuts, and development of control strategies based on population studies.

• Generate climate change data for the short and long terms and different scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions
• Predict future availability of coffee-growing areas
• Assess the impact of climate change on coffee quality and production
• Identify alternative crops under foreseen climate change scenarios
• Evaluate the effects of climate change under socio-economic parameters
• Design adaptation strategies for the coffee-growing sector

• To avail to partners a set of previously tested soil, crop, and water management options for maize-based farming systems with potential for sustainably intensifying agricultural production and reducing climate-related risk in the target areas

• To identify land degradation hotspots and soil health constraint envelopes and their implications for crop response characteristics to fertilizer application and soil improvement
• To evaluate the availability to smallholder farmers of inputs required to implement above options in the target areas
• To assess the conduciveness of the political, extension, and economic environment for the dissemination of tested soil, crop, and water management options

• To identify QTL for Nitrogen Use Efficiency trait, particularly biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) in Brachiaria and to assess the benefit of BNI trait in cropping system
• To develop a cassava network in Asia to strengthen collaborative research on molecular beeding, seed sytem and capacity building for cassava improvement

• To improve regional dissemination and accessibility of the report entitle “Pathways to Agroecological Intensification of Soil Management by Smallholder Farmers in the Andean Highlands” developed for the Andes Community of Practice of the McKnight foundation.
• To address questions and gather feedback from regional stakeholders on the report and define the next steps for promoting sustainable soil fertility management in the region.

• Identification of methods for developing habitat loss predictions based on statistical analysis of past habitat change using Terra-I
• Provision to The Nature Conservancy of updated continental gridded datasets on habitat loss every 3 months. Website for Terra-I reports, news and methodological information
• Production of a policy brief on habitat loss for Colombia and Paraguay

The project will provide an improved evidence base on the value of ecosystem services for food security and health, leading to the development of better policies and practices to manage ecosystem services and food security, in turn leading to healthier, more food secure indigenous people who are better able to contribute to economic activity, thus reducing poverty.

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.

• Overal support in the identification of promising mitigation interventions in the agricultural sector
• Calculation of the baseline mitigation scenario based on the Cool Farm Tool.
• Provide cost-effectives analysis for the following mitigation interventions in the agricultural sector.

• Contributing to the work on Banana-Legume Integration
• Finalize tthe work on AMF innoculation for Banana Tissue Culture Plants
• Carrying out Plant and Soil Analyses in the context of the above

Previously, it has been difficult to quantitatively access the socio-economic performance of the different dairy breed-types within in-situ (peri-urban or village) settings, as the breed-mix of individual animals cannot be determined from phenotypic observation and pedigree records are lacking. New genomic approaches, however, provide a solution to this problem as they enable the breed composition of individual animals to be determined from DNA information. By combining genomic-based breed information with economic and performance information from on-farm monitoring of the same animals (obtained from both baseline and longitudional surveys), the most appropriate breed / cross-breed type for a particular production environment can be identified. Utilisation of the most appropriate breed -type is critical to sustainably increasing the productivity of the dairy sector.

The objectives of this project are to:

• Determine the most appropriate dairy breed/ cross-breed types for peri-urban dairy production systems in Mali, and disseminate this information;
• Characterise the dairy germplasm production chain, and related policies, and use this information to develop a strategy for strengthened dairy germplasm production and delivery systems;
• Enhance local human, institutional and organizational capacity on accessing and promoting different breeds/cross-breeds of livestock.

The project is embedded in the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish

The project is funded by the the Finnish Government’s Food Africa Programme

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health is developing an impact pathway by which agriculture can enhance nutrition and mitigate health risks through value chain research. This requires new tools and approaches to prioritize which can be applied to informal markets in which quality and safety are diverse and where there can be trade-offs between income, employment, nutritional benefits and disease risks.

For these informal and emerging value chains, market access and income are as much an objective as the quality and safety of foods produced and consumed. Key questions to be answered include:

• Among the wide range of potential hazards associated with animal source foods products in informal systems, which are likely to have the greatest risks to human health?
• Which have the most impact in terms of limiting the availability of food critical to the nutritional security of the poor and constraining development of the value chain, particularly livelihood opportunities of the poor who produce or handle those products?
• What are the key constraints to supply and demand of safe and nutritious foods?
• What are the potential health and nutrition benefits of research that seeks to overcome these risks and constraints?

Research objectives

1. Development of tools and approaches for assessing value chains in relation to nutrition and health
2. Assessment of food quality and safety research priorities in value chains with high potential for pro-poor transformation and of interest to the CGIAR and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

The value chains have been chosen for their ability to generate information to inform research and development. They are pig meat in Vietnam, dairy in Tanzania and fish in Egypt, together comprising one third of the value chains targeted by the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish.

Research partners

• Central Laboratory for Aquaculture Research, Egypt
• Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
• Vietnam School of Public Health

Funding

Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research

CSISA will focus initially on 9 delivery hubs and 4 research platforms in areas of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal that represent key intensive cereal production systems. The hubs provide a basis for active learning about mechanisms for rapid adoption and intensification of improved cereal seed and crop management practices, for understanding critical components of public-private sector partnerships, and for developing business plans and supporting policies to stimulate private-sector investments. Improved cultivars and hybrids of maize, rice, and wheat selected under conservation agriculture practices will be developed and management concepts for future cereal systems will be designed and evaluated, alongside policy analysis and advocacy, and capacity building at all levels. By the end of year, 40,000 farmers will achieve a yield increase of at least 0.5 t/ha on 50,000 ha and an aditional 20,000 farmers achieve a yield increase of at least 1.0 t/ha on 20,000 ha. In its second phase the project will expand through Project-Related Investment models driven by the key project partners and reaching up to 500 hubs across the region within a decade.

Project objectives:

1. Widespread delivery and adaptation of production and postharvest technologies to increase  cereal production and raise incomes.
2. Crop and resource management practices for sustainable future cereal-based systems.
3. High-yielding, abiotic stress-tolerant, and disease- and insect-resistant rice varieties and hybrids for current and future cereal and mixed crop-livestock systems.
4. High-yielding, abiotic stress-tolerant, disease-resistant wheat varieties for current and future cereal and mixed crop-livestock systems.
5. High-yielding, heat-tolerant and disease-resistant maize inbred lines and hybrids for current and future cereal and mixed crop-livestock systems.
6. Technology targeting and improved policies for inclusive agricultural growth.
7. Creating a new generation of scientists and professional agronomists for cereal systems research and management.
8. Project management, communication and impact assessment

The project forms an important part of the  CGIAR Research Programs on livestock and fish

India is presently the largest milk producer in the world: 75% of rural households have bovines, 60% of dairy animals are owned by small farmers, and two thirds of marketed milk goes through the informal sector.

However, despite the importance of the informal milk sector, policy towards it is generally hostile. Informality leaves actors vulnerable to extortion, decreases investment in technology, chills the flow of innovation, and, paradoxically, makes foods less safe.

The huge burden of food-borne disease and the high level of pathogens in informal sector milk are well documented, as are the substantial, yet avoidable, milk losses from spoilage and spillage.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners have developed an action research approach to help poor people get more from the traditional dairy sector. This involves engaging with policymakers, assessing health risks and improving standards of informal sector producers and value chain agents through training and certification. The approach has been very successful in East Africa and more recently has been extended to India.

General objective
To evaluate the impact of a self-sustaining model for improving the performance traditional dairy through certification and training in order to generate evidence for scaling-up and scaling-out as well as provide recommendations that will help continue to improve performance of the traditional dairy in Assam.

Specific objectives

• To rigorously evaluate a model for improving the traditional dairy sector (based on training and certification of informal value chain actors) by assessing the impacts on capacity of value chain actors and net benefits accruing to milk value chains and consumers.
• To understand and document the process of policy influence and change which supports local ownership and sustainability of this model for improving the traditional dairy sector.
• To assess the economic impact and cost-benefit of the model for improving the traditional dairy sector.
• To gather lessons from the Assam experience to inform dairy development in other parts of India and in Bangladesh.

Funder: OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

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)

A previous project in Vietnam (Improving the competitiveness of pig producers in an adjusting Vietnam market) comprehensively characterized the smallholder pig sector; the project found that pork comprises three-quarters of meat consumed and is supplied mainly by smallholders, mostly women; pork production delivers substantial benefits to poor households; and smallholders are efficient producers.

However, pork contains high levels of pathogens and there is growing concern about food safety and animal disease among consumers and national policymakers alike. These concerns have already led to policy that favours industrialization and threatens smallholder access to markets.

Yet research by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners has shown that smallholder value chains are not only efficient, but safe. Research has a key role in generating evidence on the real impacts of pig disease and better ways of managing disease risks that are based on incentives rather than regulations.

This project addresses the evidence gaps that lead to unsupportive policy and through partnerships, capacity building and communication provides a pathway by which evidence can influence policy and practice, enhancing and safeguarding the smallholder pig sector in Vietnam.

The project forms an important part of two CGIAR Research Programs: one on livestock and fish and the other on agriculture for improved nutrition and health.

Objectives

• To assess impacts of pork-borne diseases on human health and the livestock sector.
• To develop and test market-based innovations to improve management of human and animal health risks.
• To communicate the lessons learned to sustainably improve capacity to assess and manage risks in the pork value chain.

Research questions

• What are the health risks and economic costs of pork-borne diseases in Vietnam?
• What is the added utility of risk-based approaches to food safety and pig disease over current hazard-based management?
• What is the role of market-based innovations to improve management of human and animal health risks in the smallholder pig value chains?

Partners

• Hanoi School of Public Health
• Hanoi University of Agriculture
• Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development
• National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Vietnam
• National Institute of Veterinary Research, Vietnam
• Oxfam
• Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
• Vietnam Ministry of Health

Funding: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research

The workshop, organized by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in conjunction with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), saw government ministry representatives, scientists and specialists in pig health, animal health, public health, economics and ecology, discuss their research on public health innovations and how they can be best implemented through the CGIAR Research Programs on livestock and fish and agriculture for improved nutrition and health.

These two programs have identified improvements in pork production, productivity and safety in the smallholder-dominated pig markets of Vietnam, Uganda and the northeast Indian state of Nagaland as initial areas of focus.

With pig markets in the three locations heavily weighted towards smallholder producers, the workshop paid particular attention to the challenges facing the informal pig sector.

The three-day gathering saw participants share short papers and presentations on the lessons learnt from the following key areas:

• Food safety in informal markets
• Integrated assessment and management of pig health risks in Laos
• Veterinary public health research in SE Asia
• Market-based approaches to food safety
• Sharing lessons from pig production between SE Asia and NE India
• Managing pig risks from a farming systems perspective
• Best practices for value chain upgrading for food safety: some examples for selected livestock commodities

View photos from the symposium and field trip

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).

Unlike most crop and livestock enterprises, its benefits throughout the value chain are generated daily rather than seasonally. In many cases especially in short value chains, benefits flow disproportionately to women, the landless, and other marginalized groups, an issue that has to be addressed with increasing commercialization.

The goal of this project is to achieve inclusive growth and reduced poverty and vulnerability among dairy dependent livelihoods in relevant rural areas in Tanzania.

The one-year inception phase of this project (January to December 2012) aims to provide proof of concept that pre-commercialized, marginalized smallholder men and women can be targeted successfully.

If the project successfully establishes a proof of concept for this type of pro-poor strategy based on dairy market hubs, it will guide and accelerate implementation of future larger scale dairy development projects over a further four-year period.

The project is designed to support the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish for the Tanzania dairy value chain.

Activities during the inception phase (2012)

• Assess the current status of the Tanzanian dairy sector and identify appropriate entry points and partners for promoting a more pro-poor development orientation.
• Develop a strategy for strengthening the policy environment to better support pro-poor dairy development, capitalizing on ongoing engagement with key policy actors and previous successes in Kenya and Uganda.
• Identify sites appropriate for piloting pro-poor dairy development interventions that have been successful elsewhere in East Africa, and assess how those interventions need to be adapted to the Tanzanian context.

Funding: Irish Aid

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

• developing an inventory of marketing chains, institutions and agents from primary markets to export,
• defining grading standards for Somali livestock and livestock products to promote export, and
• assisting rural institutions to disseminate information related to livestock marketing at local and national levels.

Objectives The key result that ILRI is contributing to delivering is in understanding and pilot testing quality control systems for livestock and livestock products. This will be done through:

1. Identifying critical intervention points along livestock market chains for strengthening capacity of actors and quality assurance services.
2. Identifying options for building the capacity of rural institutions for planning livestock marketing services. These include:

• Strategies to monitor flow of export quality livestock through district and regional markets
• Approaches to developing a common understanding among stakeholders of different grades and quality standards of Somali breeds for export
• Options for viable livestock marketing information systems

Study sites: Four zones in Somalia (Somaliland, Puntland, central and southern Somalia)

Partner organization: Terra Nuova

Funding: European Commission and the Government of Denmark

Since 2005, IPMS has helped to create in its pilot areas an enabling environment in which the public sector, smallholder farmers and private-sector agents are empowered to increase the production and productivity of crops and livestock through participatory, market-oriented development. The successes resulted from applying innovation systems approaches to identify and exploit opportunities in commodity value chains.

LIVES will not only build on these lessons but also introduce new approaches and interventions, and will scale up and out, focusing on a more limited number of value chains, and emphasizing the development of sustained capacity that will continue to have impact beyond the life of the project.

Goal

To contribute to enhanced income and gender equitable wealth creation for smallholders and other value chain actors through increased and sustained market offtake of high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities.

Purpose

To improve competitiveness, sustainability and equity in value chains for selected high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities in target areas of four regions of Ethiopia.

Objectives

• To facilitate the identification, targeting and promotion of improved technologies and organizational and institutional innovations to develop the value chains of selected high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities;
• To improve the capacity of the value chain actors and the support services at the different administrative levels (from kebele [neighbourhood] to national level) to develop the selected value chains and respond to emerging challenges and opportunities;
• To improve generation, access, flow and use of knowledge relevant to the value chains within and amongst the different administrative levels (from kebele to national level);
• To generate knowledge through action-oriented research on and synthesis of lessons learnt about value-chain development; and
• To facilitate the promotion and dissemination of principles and good practices for the development of value chains.

Funding: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

While the presence of food safety hazards (such as microbial pathogens and residues) in informally-marketed food is high, the risk to human health is mostly unknown and current food safety management is both ineffective and inequitable. Risk-based approaches for assessing and managing food safety offer a powerful new method for reducing the enormous health burden imposed by food-borne disease, while taking into account other societal goals such as pro-poor agri-food sector development and food and nutritional security.

The ultimate goal of this second phase of the Safe Food, Fair Food project (Safe Food, Fair Food 2) is the improvement of livelihoods of poor producers and consumers by reducing the health risks and increasing the livelihood benefits associated with meat, milk and fish value chains.

Its purpose is furthering research into the practical application of risk analysis and economic and social methods by food safety stakeholders and value chain actors, improving food safety and market participation of the poor in informal markets for livestock products in sub-Saharan Africa.

The project contributes to this with outputs at two scales:

1. At the level of meat, milk and fish value chains, it will pioneer and test a practical, whole-value-chain application of risk-based approaches to food safety in selected countries which are the focus of the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish. It will develop, test and communicate the technologies and methods to improve food safety and enhance smallholder market access.
2. At regional scale, it will work through the food safety ‘champions’ supported in the completed phase to better incorporate risk analysis and economic valuation methods into food safety policy, commercial practice and veterinary education.

The project will work in four countries (Ethiopia, Mali, Tanzania and Uganda) and with university and research networks and economic communities in East, West and southern Africa. It will build directly on previous work supported by the BMZ-funded Safe Food, Fair Food project that increased capacity and generated evidence for improving food safety in eight African countries, training over 50 food safety stakeholders and supporting 20 post-graduate research projects.

Funding: Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

Project coordinator: Kristina Roesel

This aim will be achieved through the following objectives:

1. Develop and apply efficient methods to characterise the Cabulig (Misamis Oriental), Inabanga (Bohol) and Billabong watersheds (NSW) to include biophysical and socio-economic information, with particular emphasis on mapping land and soil attributes using digital technology.

2. Develop improved approaches to analysing the suitability of sloping land for agricultural intensification within a watershed context.

3. Inform and enhance local land use planning processes at both the watershed and community scales in Cabulig and Inabanga watersheds.

4. Design and implement on-going monitoring programs in the Philippine watersheds that allows critical assessment of the adoption and impacts of land use planning.

To be able to do this the proposed action will have eight specific components directly addressing the three themes indicated above namely:
1: Understanding material transfers from watersheds and reducing ‘downstream’ effects of agriculture and forestry on coastal aquatic ecosystems
2: Addressing non-optimal use of resources through valuation and “environmental payments”
3: Identifying, mapping and strengthening management of critical coastal habitats
4: Understanding the factors determining livelihoods for poor coastal people and facilitate the application of ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF)
5: Restoring production from capture fisheries
6: Developing technologies for alternative or supplementary livelihoods for coastal people
7: Resource mapping (Biodiversity Information System) for effective resource management and monitoring
8: Capacity Building in Biodiversity Conservation and Natural Resources Management

The primary aim of the project is to quantify the economic benefits and identify other socio-cultural benefits from farmer managed natural regeneration process in the Sahel. The specific research questions to be answered are:
1. Economic benefits: what is the level of economic benefits that communities and households obtain from FMNR?
2. Variations in benefits: how do these benefits differ across different contexts, such as aridity, access to markets and dominant system and across different communities and household types?
3. Constraints to expansion: In the presence of FMNR transformation, why is FMNR not found in some neighboring communities and village territories?

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.

Aim of the project:
The present project aims at improving the technique of root cuttings for Detarium microcarpum by enhancing sprouting efficiency and new root formation of root segments from mature and juvenile plants.

The specific objectives are:
1. To examine the effect of season on the sprouting ability of root segments from mature trees,
2. To determine the effects of fertilizers on root development of seedlings and their sprouting ability, and
3. To determine the effects of plant growth regulators; cytokinin on sprouting and new root formation from root segments from juvenile plants and auxin on the rooting ability of new sprouts in four experiments.

Project  2. Impacts of organic and conservation farming practices on soil fauna and weed dynamics in Chongwe District, Zambia
Goal: To contribute to the understanding of soil macrofauna and weed dynamics in organic and conservation farming systems in Zambia
Objective are as follows:

1 : Evaluate the effect of organic and conservation farming practices on the soil macrofauna

2: Determine the effect of green fertilizer cover crops on weed infestation

Objectives are as follows:
1.Scientific evidence is provided to stakeholders to assist with negotiations, reduce conflict and assist with compliance with Indonesia’s legal and sustainability criteria and international biofuel sustainability initiatives (EU Renewable Energy Sources Directive, US Energy Directive, Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil).

2.Existing information is analysed to identify land allocations to oil palm plantations at the expense of local communities’ agriculture and agroforestry, specifically, information from the local taskforce on land conflict at district level (TP4K Sanggau) and the participatory spatial planning units of each district.

3. Ways are identified of incorporating community mapping into participatory spatial zoning to ensure that local communities’ histories and agency in mapping are respected and their participation in planning decision-making is enhanced.

4. A manual is published on how to incorporate community mapping into participatory spatial planning.

5. Local stakeholders in Sekadau district are supported to adopt the lessons from Sanggau district.

The objective of project 2 is to enhance MPs and other stakeholders’ dialogue through meetings at local and national levels and o capitalize on their understanding of the importance of community rights through a white paper on land and forest tenure advocating for land and forest tenure’s inclusion in the upcoming forestry and land laws.

The objective of project 3 is to advocate for the active involvement of the Cameroon coalition members in Cameroon’s REDD-RPP to ensure that issues of tenure and rights are mainstreamed into REDD and climate change mechanisms while empowering local stakeholders via meetings on REDD concepts and processes to benefit the poor.

The review will cover all five natural regions of Colombia and, while focusing on research with trees that Corpoica has done, is doing and plans to do, will place this within a national context, including consideration of key expertise and ongoing research by other organizations.

The subject focus will include all Corpoica research with trees – from non-timber forest products, timber tree and perennial tree crop plantations through to trees on pastures and in agricultural fields and landscapes for productive and environmentally protective purposes.

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.

Project outputs are as follows:
1. A detailed report including analysis results of historical deforestation and driver identification, future land use change via scenario analysis, carbon in land uses, carbon credit process, opportunity cost of a REDD program and flow of REDD program funds.
2. A full compilation of primary and secondary data used in the analysis
3. A full description of the protocol used in the analysis for independent replication by third parties

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

2.Explore adaptive livestock management options to sequester and avoid emissions of carbon from rangelands through collaborative research with local livestock keeping communities in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.

3. Assess the effects of changes in livestock and rangeland management on GHG emissions and land surface albedo.

4. Synthesize the research, combining the impact of livestock and rangeland management practices aimed at sequestration and avoidance of carbon emissions while taking taking into account the combined radiative forcing of GHG emissions and albedo, and assess the potential of PES scenarios to diversify pastoral livelihoods.

The aim of these Carbon studies is to collect information on soil and land surface characteristics for experimental sites and larger areas in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso. This work will be done so as to

i) Assess the impact of grazing and fire on soil Carbon stocks, and

ii) Sample soil Carbon and land surface characteristics to allow production of maps revealing spatial variation on soil Carbon across a larger area.

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

This project places feed in a broader context and acknowledges that enhancing feed supply has both technical and institutional dimensions. The project tackles feed scarcity from a value chain perspective and employs innovation system principles. The emphasis on value chain and innovation approaches will necessarily involve consideration of issues beyond feed including enhancing breed quality and health status of dairy cows.

The overall goal of the project is to contribute to improved dairy-derived livelihoods in India and Tanzania via intensification of smallholder production focusing on enhancement of feeds and feeding using innovation and value chain approaches.

The objectives of the project are three-fold:

1. Institutional strengthening: To strengthen use of value chain and innovation approaches among dairy stakeholders to improve feeding strategies for dairy cows.
2. Productivity enhancement: To develop options for improved feeding strategies leading to yield enhancement with potential income benefits.
3. Knowledge sharing: To strengthen knowledge sharing mechanisms on feed development strategies at local, regional and international levels

The project is embedded in the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish.

A second phase of the project, if funded, would focus on piloting interventions designed around research findings (e.g. environmental hotspots, institutional design principles) and policy realities (e.g. political and economic viability of alternatives) in an action research mode. In addition to generating “proof of concept”, this experience would aid in crystallizing the contextual factors and actions required for solutions to be effective.

The main aim of the project is to develop groundnut varieties with high yield, high oil content and enhanced O/L ratio to increase oil production in rainfed, drought-prone environments and oil stability (shelf life) of groundnut using both, conventional and molecular tools.

 The  project is significant as it aims to boost production of high quality groundnut oil in India, which is a net importer of edible oils. With enhanced oil content and O/L ratio in new groundnut varieties, the proposed project envisages increase in health benefits to consumers and a reduction in the importation of edible oil thus reducing the burden on India’s exchequer. In addition, the high oil recovery from new groundnut varieties will catalyze oil processing industry and as a consequence bring in additional incomes to poor groundnut farmers of the SAT regions in the country.

1. To identify best-bet crop management options (soil, crop and water management) including improved varieties to enhance productivity of the selected crops in targeted seven districts by 25%.
2. To undertake representative soil sampling (stratified sampling method forfarmers in villages in a district) to prepare GIS-based soil maps depicting micro- and macro- nutrient status of the soils.
3. To assess the likely impacts of climate change in the target seven districts and identify suitable adaptation strategies to cope with the climate change
4. To build capacity of the stakeholders (farmers and consortium partners) in sustainable management of natural resources, enhancing crop productivity in dryland areas and adaptation strategies to cope with climate change.

The specific objectives of this project are:

1.  To consolidate the science-led farmer-centric community watershed approach at nucleus benchmark watersheds for enhancing productivity and reducing land degradation in three districts, and to use these sites as sites of learning for scaling-out benefits in the three target districts;
2. To scale-out the benefits of productivity enhancement and community watershed management with technical backstopping in the target agro-ecoregion of M.P. (10+2 districts) and Rajasthan (9+1 districts); and
3. Capacity building of lead farmers, development workers, and consortium partners in the target region and provide technical support to development agencies in the area of Community Watersheds through establishment of a national support group for community watershed development (NSGCWD).

Project G5 is the “Coordination and Change-Enabling” project for the Ganges Basin Development Challenge. The Project G5 objective is “To enhance impacts in Bangladesh and India through stakeholder participation, policy dialogue and effective coordination among other Government, NGO’s, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and donors sponsored projects and programs in the Ganges Basin Develpment Challange (BDC)  research Program” There are two major, inter-related activities: (i) coordination with our partners in Project G1-G4; and (ii) enabling change.

Project G5 is responsible for maintaining the coherence, integration and focus with our partners leading Projects G1 to G4, through active leadership and ensuring effective communication among projects. Building upon the Ganges BDC impact pathways, Project G5 will lead and coordinate monitoring and evaluation of project progress and integration, with close attention to the quality of implementation, and research products emerging from individual projects.

Project G5 will utilize tools of Results Based Management (RBM) to ensure that Projects 1-4 are well integrated into a program of research that ultimately delivers change – development outcomes and impacts. RBM is an approach to adaptive management that strongly emphasizes participation and learning. Learning depends on good information and feedback that will be derived from and delivered by an effective Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system. G5 connects the research under each project across topics and scales, from household agriculture-aquaculture farming systems to community polder water management through to broader land use planning. The project is also an interface between the program and a variety of existing and potential stakeholders and works towards scaling out of research results to multiple stakeholders with common interest in achieving the BDC.

Project G5 outputs are knowledge sharing products such as: (i) policy briefs and other interventions tailored for policy makers; (ii) capacity building tools; (iii) demonstrated approaches for scaling out; (iv) scenarios for climate and hydrological change; and (v) outputs from innovation research. These will be achieved in various ways through activities involving coordination, identifying and enabling partnerships for change; innovation research; development and implementation of a communications strategy; operation of an adaptive management system; support to capacity building; and more generally serving in a leadership and team building role for the Ganges BDC. Impacts will include reduced poverty, improved food security and strengthened livelihood resilience for people in coastal Bangladesh and India.

Given the complexity of issues, we will adopt a three phase research approach. In Phase I, we will conduct situation analysis in six selected polders. This will enable us to understand the different uses of water in polders, the conflicting interests arising thereof and the different governance mechanisms that are in place to manage these conflicts and their comparative advantage and disadvantages. In Phase II, we will zoom into community governance issues of two polders and do a detailed study on pros and cons of community management of polders. Phase III will run concurrently with Phase I and Phase II and we will do training and capacity activities in this phase. The main output of the project will be generation of knowledge aimed at sustaining high levels of polder governance through community participation.

The project has five specific objectives, and each will produce an output contributing to the above overall objectives:

validate new germplasm suitable for various agricultural cropping systems and establish seed distribution networks in target zones;

develop and disseminate more productive, profitable, resilient, and diversified rice-based cropping systems (including rice-aquaculture);

enhance the productivity of homestead production systems;

develop novel brackish-water aquatic production systems for zones too saline for agricultural crops; and

produce technology and policy recommendations for up- and out-scaling.

The project maintains strong linkages with other projects in the Ganges BDC, builds on the success of the Phase 1Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) projects in the Ganges, notably PN 10 and PN 7, and will leverage the ongoing work of other projects in the coastal zones of Bangladesh and India, especially Stress Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA), USAID-Cereals Systems Initiative for South Asia (USAID-CSISA), and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)’s agricultural program.

It will use two complementary approaches:

farmer participatory validation/demonstration of promising crops, cropping patterns, homestead farming, and aquacultural technologies; and

in-depth process analysis of new crop/aquaculture systems—using on-station experiments and simulation modeling.

The expected outcomes of the project include

decision-makers/policymakers endorse the use of modern varieties, technologies, and homestead and cropping systems and provide policies/support that enable widespread adaptation of research findings;

seed producers will produce adequate validated varieties for farmers; and

large-scale adaptation of the more productive, profitable, and stable cropping systems in fields and in homesteads.

Before a technology can be disseminated beyond the study site where it is developed, it is important to identify its “extrapolation domain.” This requires matching the resource profile of an area with the resource requirements of a technology. The goals of these technologies—increased resilience, improved livelihoods, increased production—also require an understanding of how can the land in the coastal zones best be zoned and used to meet different goals and objectives? And, how should land use change for anticipated hydrological change scenarios? This project aims to answer the question of “what works where” now and under climate change scenarios.

The G1 project has four activities, each with one output.

Compilation of a geodatabase covering all spatial information related to the project.

Characterization of the test sites and study areas from projects G2 and G3.

Mapping extrapolation domains for each technology from G2.

Development of future land-use plans based on historical land-use trends, assumed changes, constraints, and interventions from future scenarios.

The likely impacts of G1 are

Better targeting information for local government and extension services, which in turn leads to a higher likelihood of adoption of new crop intensification and water governance strategies.

Better decision making at the local government level due to improved awareness of land-use options.

L3 will define the interplay between market access, crop and livestock technologies, and investment risks in water- and market-scarce environments that lead to technology adoption by farm families, enabling them to enhance food security and incomes through more efficient water use.

Innovation Platforms: The main entry point for the project will be the Innovation Platform (IP), which brings together value chain actors: input suppliers, farmers, traders, processors, etc in a shared forum to explore their challenges and opportunities. From this, the IP proposes site-specific solutions to align production and market requirements around food and cash crop production, dry season feed, animal health, and poor market performance.

Crop and Livestock Modelling: Participatory modelling will be an entry point to develop scenarios based on local knowledge, to be tested with farmers using on-farm participatory trials. Model testing and calibration will be done using on-farm trials then the model will be used to develop scenarios and extrapolate management effects to other soil types and rainfall regimes across time. Technology interventions linked to market development: This project targets private sector, NGO and CBO agents to bring about market-related changes for smallholder farmers. Such initiatives may include contract farming for groundnut production and a voucherbased input (seed and fertilizer) distribution scheme for smallholder farmers.

1. Develop a framework with concrete response pathways for collective, supply chain inclusive adaptation to progressive climate change.
2.  Produce a set of methodologies and tools that will enable Oxfam and partners to scale-out the approach across projects globally.
3.  Determine specific results for three different supply chains.

Donor: Oxfam Great Britain

Water valuation means expressing the value of water-related goods and services so as to inform sharing and allocation decisions. It covers both use and non-use values, extractive and in situ use values, and consumptive and non-consumptive use values. It features quantitative and qualitative approaches and considers relationships between interconnected and interdependent water uses. Project outputs will take the form of valuation estimates that reflect the distribution of costs and benefits: across uses and users (considering gender differentiation), across scales (in the reservoir and across the catchment area considering other WSI).

Valuation is seen as essential to well-informed water resource management. Valuation will support a structured mechanism of multi-stakeholder dialogues, helping stakeholders to express their values and perceptions on the use and management of water resources. Assessing and communicating these values is the basis on which stakeholders will seek well-informed decisions in multi-stakeholder platforms.

This project will explore ways in which riparian communities can improve their livelihoods by taking advantage of agricultural, fisheries and other opportunities afforded by WSI development. Suitable strategies will broaden the uses of reservoir water to support livelihoods, benefit riparian and downstream communities alike, increase the lifespan of reservoirs, and maintain hydropower generating capacity. Research will also seek to minimize negative down-stream impacts.

Research on water use and livelihoods will take account of different needs (agriculture, fisheries, hydropower, and the environment – for example, wetlands preservation) for different user groups (including gender differentiation). These needs can be direct or indirect (for example, health related issues), or for consumptive or non-consumptive use of water (for example, fisheries). In addition, water requirements may vary seasonally, annually or in the long-term (e.g. under the effects of global drivers such as climate change).

1.Water efficient farm enterprises and climate risk management

2.Investment choices matched to farmer capacities and climatic risk environment

3. Market-led technologies for smallholder farmers developed and tested

The objectives of this research are to: 

1. To elucidate the molecular genetic basis of phenotypic variation for symbiotic nitrogen fixation efficiency in Cicer spp, including C. ariteinum (cultivated chickpea) and C. reticulatum (the wild progenitor).

2. To quantify the impact of domestication on symbiotic nitrogen fixation in chickpea.

3. To initiate purpose-driven populations and association genetics to examine genetic potential for efficient nitrogen fixation in elite genotypes of chickpea.

 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.

Benefits are many. Landowners increased their income with these profitable land uses, while CVS recovered their initial investment in helping to establish the land use systems. The payments for environmental services enabled these benefits. The BioCarbon Fund of the World Bank acted as a broker for the certified Carbon Emission Reductions (CERs). More farmers can benefit from expanded environmental conservation efforts.

Since 2006, the project has met numerous stringent requirements of the CERs negotiation and certification process. This was the first reforestation project negotiated in Colombia with the BioCarbon Fund.

Donor: The World Bank through Corporación Autónoma Regional de los Valles del Sinú y del San Jorge (CVS)

(i)       Diagnosis of the current and future agricultural sector.

(ii)     Identification of adaptation and mitigation measures for the agricultural sector.

(iii)    Evaluation of investment and finance flows.

(iv)    Synthesis of previous activities and establishment of the necessary agenda for facilitating the implementation of the proposed measures.
__________________________________
Spanish Version:

Evaluación de Flujos de Inversion y Financiamiento para Acciones de Mitigacion y Adaptacion en el Sector Agropecuario

Específicamente, proponemos 4 actividades dentro de las cuales tratamos todos los temas requeridos en los términos de referencia:

• Actividad 1: Diagnóstico del sector actual y futuro.
• Actividad 2: Identificación de medidas de adaptación y mitigación para el sector agropecuario.
• Actividad 3: Evaluación de flujos de inversión y financiamiento.
• Actividad 4: Síntesis de actividades anteriores y establecimiento de agenda requerida para facilitar la implementación de las medidas propuestas.

Donor: Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD)

• Create a map of agroecological zones using climate data and soil analysis results from the Agustin Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC) of Colombia.
• Perform an exploratory assisted selection analysis of varieties by agroecological zone.
• Determine the phreatic level throughout the zone in order to establish improved criteria for the design of drainage systems.
• Conduct exploratory prognostic analyses of Black Sigatoka attacks and its effects on production.

___________________
Spanish Version:

Hacia un sistema de información geográfica de fincas bananeras en Urabá para monitoreo, control y optimización de la producción.

• Crear un mapa de zonas agroecológicas usando datos climáticos y resultados de análisis de suelos del IGAC.
• Realizar un análisis exploratorio de selección asistida de variedades por zona agroecológica.
• Determinar el nivel freático a traves de la zona para establecimiento de mejor criterio para diseño de sistemas de drenaje.
• Análisis exploratorio de pronóstico de ataque de Sigatoka Negra y sus posibles efectos en la producción.

Partner: Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi (IGAC)

Donor: Unión de Bananeros de Urabá – UNIBAN

——————————————
Spanish Version:

Cuencas de Medellin

Identificar zonas prioritarias para la conservacion en las cuencas de los embalses La Fe, Rio Grande II y Piedras Blancas en el departamento de Antioquia de acuerdo a criterios de calidad de agua, rendimiento de agua y retencion de sedimentos.

Donor: The Nature Conservancy

————————————–
Spanish Version:

Desarrollar un análisis de vulnerabilidad frente a escenarios de cambio climático de cuatro cuencas involucradas en el fondo agua por la Vida, que sirva como insumo para desarrollar estrategias de adaptación de cambio climático para las 9 cuencas de influencia de Agua por la Vida: Tuluá-Morales, Nima, Amaime, Bolo, Desbaratado,Frayle, Guabas, Palo y Zabaletas.

Donor: The Nature Conservancy

1. To finalize and implement a Java-based algorithm to cross-check coordinates of IABIN’s terrestrial biodiversity data.
2. To finalize and implement Java-based algorithm to add value to non-georeferenced records within the IABIN network.
3. To assess all the primary data using the algorithms in (1) and (2) and provide IABIN with a detailed evaluation of all its primary biodiversity data.
4. To finalize and implement a Java-based algorithm for the training of niche models (using a maximum entropy approach) and apply it to plant taxa with enough data located in South America.
5. To overlay the developed geographic distributions with ecosystem threat, and protected areas layers, generate analysis metrics to provide the necessary background data for scenario assessment and policy making for South America.
6. The development of an interactive Google maps-based interface to navigate through the biodiversity data and the modeling and overlaying results.
7. To generate the appropriate documentation and reports on the developed tools.

For more information, visit http://code.google.com/p/iabin-threats/
Donor: The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States

———————————————
Spanish Version:

RENATA aplicada en la generacion de soluciones de informacion ambiental, coberturas vegetales y cambio de uso de suelo para Colombia, accediendo a bases de datos especiales distribuidas y su manejo con aplicativos remotos.

Desarrollar una metodología integrando RENATA con una herramienta de informática que permita el acceso en forma remota tanto a bases de datos distribuidos espaciales geográficos como también a aplicativos de modelación espacial, para la comunidad científica y al pueblo en general, para generar información actualizada y permanente en los temas de coberturas vegetales y cambio de uso del suelo e información ambiental para Colombia, con base en datos MODIS y GOES y con procesos de modelación climática y ambiental.

Donor: Colciencias

Donor: Wageningen Agricultural University

Donor: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

1. A business portfolio alighned with the Climate , Community and Biodiversity standards (CCBS)
2. Conduct an Environmental Service (ES) market fair/ES Buyers forum organized in Manila, the Philippines promoting the Kalahan people’s potential for inclusion in a carbon-offset scheme as well as other ES such as water and agro-biodiversity
3. Build local capacities in negotiation and facilitate the negotiations with potential buyers of environmental services

Key project outputs are:

Project outputs are as follows:
1. A forestry and environmental services voluntary carbon market business portfolio alighed with the CLimate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS), Carbon Fix Standard (CFS) and Voluntary Carbon Standards (VCS). The portfolio should include scientific data of professional standards on carbon sequestration, biodiversity, watershed, and the socioeconomic conditions of the Kalahan forest reserve and the peoples within.
2. Both secondary and primary data on community benefit to be derived from afforestation/reaforestation (A/R) efforts in addition to possible payments from the Voluntary Carbon Market.
3. A written report on the conducted environmental service market fair and awareness building forum

The project aims to demonstrate a successful model for up and out scaling the sweet sorghum cultivation for ethanol production to increase the farmers’ incomes, without compromising the food or fodder needs of farmers. This paves way for most efficient whole plant utilization of sweet sorghum, a promising crop for the tropics particularly in the light of climate change. The project aims to increase the area of sweet sorghum from negligible area at present to 1500 ha by the end of the project directly benefiting at least 2000 farmers in each participating country (India, Thailand and China) through centralized model (within 50 km radius) and additional 200 ha each in India and Thailand through decentralized model (beyond 50 km radius) benefiting 200 farmers additionally in each country.

The overall goal of this project is to enhance food and nutritional security and income generation for the under privileged farmers of rainfed areas of Orissa

Objectives

• To evaluate and identify newly developed high yielding disease resistant varieties and hybrids of pigeonpea for further introduction and expansion
•  Promote cultivation of high yielding pigeonpea varieties in the marginal soils.
• To develop village-level seed systems to achieve self-sufficiency in seed of farmer-preferred improved varieties of pigeonpea.
• Capacity building of farmers, NGOs, and Self Help Groups in sustainable pigeonpea production technology components.
• Enhance profitability by linking production with dal processing and marketing.
• To provide research backstopping for refinement and research on pigeonpea components as identified by researchers and farmers in the target area

The proposed strategy will address specific supply-and-demand problems in the groundnut sub-sector in the Eastern Province of Zambia that may provide lessons for other provinces in which this crop is produced.

The project will utilize the products of crop improvement to increase productivity and to endow groundnuts with market-acceptable traits and with better quality to tap into regional and international markets. The project will promote marketing innovations that emphasize efficiency and reduce transaction costs. Grain marketing will be improved by the strengthening of farmer organizations to establish rural collection points to enhance collective marketing and serve as mechanisms for grain assembly and grading. The gains in market efficiency and reduced transactions costs will be translated into higher grain prices for producers, and will result in increased incomes for rural households.

Project activities involving training will strengthen the capacity of national agricultural research systems (NARES) and the University of Zambia in demand-driven technology development. The capacity of farmer organizations and entrepreneurs in collective marketing, enterprise development and negotiation will also be strengthened. The combination of increased productivity and better linkages to markets will strengthen the competitive position of farmer organizations and traders.

 The specific objectives are as follows: 

1. To form a multi-institution consortium comprising ICRISAT, AVDRC,  NGOs, private sector industries, University of Horticulture, SAUs, and Department of Horticulture to implement e Suvarna Bhoomi Yojane in 25 selected districts.
2. To understand input and output market value chains and identify market linkages for high-volume fruits and vegetable crops for farmers under SBY.
3. To implement a  science-based strategy for sustainable production of high-value crops
4. To build capacity of the consortium partners to manage  the  SBY project and undertake capacity building of stakeholders  in the value chain, especially farmers.
5. To monitor, evaluate and document progress, impacts  and lessons learnt on consortium formation and  functionfor strengthening the SBY.

• 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

Develop a sector model for Syrian Agriculture (Agro-Syria Model)
• Apply the developed model for analysis of selected policy scenarios
In achieving these objectives ICARDA will invite the relevant experts from the University of Naples, Italy to participate in the various research activities and cover their costs.Conduct a study on agricultural risk management utilizing the outcomes of
the following side studies:
- Study on the rural funding institutions
- Study on the institutions working in the rural areas in Syria and their role in development
- Study on the social security network

CIAT is colaborating YPARD through the following activities:

• Developing content for the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) section on www.ypard.net
• Identifying potential new members.
• Promoting YPARD when attending workshops and events in the course of ongoing work.
• Exploring and actively seeking funding at the regional level.
• Engaging in a brainstorming process with regional and national representatives and YPARD LAC members on areas of focus and ways ahead for the region.
• Ensuring YPARD representation at the regional FORAGRO meeting to discuss about YPARD and distribute promotional materials.
• Facilitating YPARD LAC relevant participation in virtual and face-to-face regional events.
• Designing and publications of a printed media regarding the YPARD LAC experience

Donor: Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

• Construct a database of soils, climate and land use for the watershed of Corpoguavio, for the purpose of hydrological modeling with SWAT.
• Develop the hydrological baseline for the watersheds that form part of the Corpoguavio jurisdiction using hydrological modeling with SWAT.
• Calibrate and validate the SWAT model using available depth-measuring data (and where possible, sediments).
• Prioritize the most important areas for their water yield and for their potential for improving the flow of hydrological environmental services to the jurisdiction.
• Recommend what type of information should currently be improved in order to strengthen hydrological modeling in the future.
• Carry out meetings for exchanging experiences between institutions about the design and implementation of financial or economic mechanisms for the provision of environmental services, in order to generate recommendations for decision makers working in the area of study at the national level.

Donor: Patrimonio Natural

1. Downscaled global and regional climate models to local levels (increased resolution).
2. Predicted impact of climate change on the maize and bean production systems in Central America including yield, quality, pests and diseases, and their interactions.
3. Quantified impacts on maize-bean production systems and their consequences on socio-economic indicators such as farmers’ livelihoods, income and gender and also on food safety, migration patterns, human health and water/land conflicts.
4. Adaptation hot spots identified.
5. Local adaptation and mitigation strategies developed using participatory methods.
6. To achieve the above outputs we plan to work along two main activity lines: A) the analyses of climate change impact and B) the targeting of future interventions.

Donor: Howard Buffet Foundation

Donor: Fontagro (through INIA, Chile)

Donor: German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ-BMZ)

Researchers will analyze the state of the art conceptual approaches to participation, intervention strategies and institutional arrangements that encourage or limit the development of market-led participatory methodologies, as well as the extent to which these have contributed to the social inclusion of smallholder farmers.

The project will also analyze and describe the role and the processes carried out by the support organizations (private and public) in each one of the selected cases to influence more socially inclusive results in development projects when applying market-led participatory methodologies.

Finally we will determine the successful factors, the obstacles, and lessons learnt in the application of the market-led participatory approaches used in the selected case studies and suggest strategies and methodologies that permit social inclusion of smallholder and marginalized actors (women and indigenous people) in Bolivia.

Donor: The McKnight Foundation

Donor: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

Spatial analyses, based on geographical information systems (GIS), are used as tools to identify taxonomic, geographic and environmental gaps in ex situ collections, easing the process of taxon prioritization (based in identified gaps and threats to biodiversity) and producing information for guiding future collecting missions. These analyses require environmental variables and known presence registers as inputs, they also use modeling algorithms where reliability and performance will depend on the amount of data available and its quality. Despite the global effort to make biological information publicly available (i.e. GBIF), information is still lacking for some CWR taxon, leading to low performance models unsuitable for the gap analysis.

Under the current project, three different stages are planned:

1. Gathering data from alternative sources to ensure robust and reliable models
2. Improving gap analysis methodology, including threat assessment, and
3. Making final results available for final users (NARS) through a website.

Donor: Global Crop Diversity Trust

1. Hydrological modeling to simulate the effects of conservation agriculture on the environmental services provided by the hydrological basin, based on existing information.
2. Install plots with prioritized livestock and farming systems.
3. Determine soil loss using USLE, rainfall simulators, and runoff plots.
4. Measurement of soil characteristics in plots with and without conservation agriculture and with different types of coverage.
5. Conduct socio-economic surveys of producers in the Fuquene basin to assess impacts on income and poverty.
6. Hydrological modeling to simulate effects of conservation agriculture on the environmental services provided by the hydrological basin, based on new information gathered in the field.
7. Determine environmental indicators for monitoring soil and water resources.
8. Design a benefit distribution system that puts value on the environmental services that the well-managed areas in the basin provide.

Donor: Corporacion Autonoma de Cundinamarca (CAR)

Local and regional governance will also benefit because resources and efforts can be redirected to other urgent problems. Social organization will become more inclusive and focused to deal with peoples’ demands in closer contact with policy-makers at local scales.

Finally, downstream water users will have a more abundant and reliable supply of clean water while upstream communities will benefit from investments that improve the productivity of their agroecosystems. In return, upstream communities should agree to cease the unsustainable exploitation of catchment areas that are key to downstream water supply.

Donor: Challenge Program on Water and Food (through King’s College London)

Donor: National University of Engineering, Nicaragua

Donor: European Commission (through Macaulay Land Use Research Institute)

Objectives include:

1. To measure project performance according to the project aims, and to evaluate the impact of activities on the target population, identifying the catalysts and obstacles to supporting timely decision making.
2. To support the development and strengthening of local capacity for monitoring their own conditions and situation, and making decisions consistent with their objectives of improving the quality and standard of living.

Donor: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Donor: Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

• Predict the future suitability and distribution of GMCR coffee sourcing areas.
• Evaluate possible impacts of climate change on coffee quality and quantity.
• Identify alternative crops suitable under predicted climate change scenarios for key regions.
• Evaluate the implications of changes in coffee quality and quantity in three case study sites on social parameters (income, poverty, equity etc).
• Accompany farmer organizations and engage with supply chain actors to design adequate adaptation scenarios.

Donor: Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR)

Donor: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

Donor: Ford Foundation

1. The innovation of agricultural production systems for food security for the benefit of participants of the project.
2. Productive diversication strategies oriented towards markets, facilitation with business and organization building for rural businesses and organizations, and support in marketing strategies.
3. Soil quality and fertility analysis.
4. Economic analysis.
5. Capacity building regarding all themes of CIAT’s work.

Donor: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Donor: Catholic Relief Services

Donor: Generation Challenge Program

Local and regional governance will also benefit from this project because resources and efforts can be redirected to other urgent problems. Social organization will become more inclusive and focused to deal with peoples’ demands in closer contact with policy-makers at local scales. Finally, downstream water users will have a more abundant and reliable supply of clean water while upstream communities will benefit from investments that improve the productivity of their agroecosystems. In return, upstream communities will agree to cease the unsustainable exploitation of catchment areas key to downstream water supply.

Donor: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food

1. Technically characterize two successful organic production systems with economic potential for each participating country.
2. Identify and recommend critical points and success factors of  organic production and management technologies.
3. Develop proposals for economically viable technologies for the production of agricultural goods for the organic market.
4. Disseminate proposals tending to the incorporation of new areas of organic production.

Donor: Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) Chile
___________________________
Spanish Version:

Identificación y validación de sistemas productivos orgánicos exitosos con potencial de adopción en la agricultura familiar en países del Cono Sur.

Identificar, sistematizar y validar procesos productivos hortícolas y frutícolas orgánicos exitosos y que tengan potencial de mercado. Objetivos ESPECÍFICOS:

1. Caracterizar técnicamente dos sistemas productivos orgánicao exitosos en rubros agrícolas con potencial económico por cada país participante.
2. Identificar puntos críticos y factores de éxito de las tecnologías de producción orgánica y gestión, más recomendable.
3. Elaborar propuestas tecnologías económicamente viables para la producción de bienes agrícolas orientados a mercados de productos orgánicos.
4. Difundir las propuestas desarrolladas propendiendo la incorporación de nueva superficie a la producción orgánica.

Donor:

• Fondo Nacional de Fomento Hortofrutícola (FNFH)
• Association of Fruit and Vegetable Growers in Colombia (ASOHOFRUCOL)

1) To develop a set of business models that support sustainable smallholder and rural laborer inclusion in high-value, formal export, and domestic markets in four distinct product clusters.

2) To apply these new business models (through value chain analysis and upgrading) in sub-Saharan Africa.

3) To expand these validated business models through existing and new supply chain partnerships that provide direct benefits to 158,000 smallholders and 301,000 laborers while using project results to influence existing standards.

CIAT specifically helped to establish a fine flavor cocoa supply chain in Ghana, which will help to increase income and improve smallholders’ livelihoods.

Donor: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (through the Rainforest Alliance)

• poor economies of scale
• inadequate productive and post-harvest infrastructure
• inadequate technologies
• lack of access to market intelligence, and
• weak organizational structures of cooperatives.

This will be achieved through the establishment and strengthening of 85 worker-based cooperatives and six second-level cooperative societies, and the development of production and value chains.

Donor: Catholic Relief Services

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)

The project aims to train staff from government agencies (Agricultural research and Rural Extension), but also include selected staff from other relevant local institutions through the conduction in participatory workshops in Mozambique. Further, this project  will develop a network between Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), ICRAF and agricultural professionals from Mozambique for long-term collaborative research.

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.

This project seeks to better understand the reasons for the limited adoption of CA in Africa. A better understanding of the extent and in which techno-institutional conditions CA strengthens the socio-economic position of landholders, is a pre-requisite to know where and how to promote large-scale CA adoption. The goal is, therefore, to examine the agro-ecological, socioeconomic and institutional conditions that determine success or failure of CA. This knowledge will contribute significantly to successful (re)design of CA practices to better adapt them to African farming systems and their context. The project brings together the major research players involved with CA in Africa to share, assess and learn together with practitioners from past and ongoing experiences on CA in five regions across the continent. With the five regions the project covers the major agro-ecological zones and farming systems of Africa. It will draw on a number of selected case studies from these regions to identify lessons and priorities for future research, practice and policy on CA in Africa. The integrated assessment of these case studies will be done mostly through the use of carefully selected bio-physical, socio-economic and innovation systems models.

A main outcome of the project will be a better understanding by stakeholders involved in CA research and development across Africa of the impact and adoption of CA. With such understanding, formal research and development actors in Africa and their international partners will be in a better position to target CA technologies to the diverse African farming systems. This is one of the necessary conditions to have a profound impact on rural livelihoods.

• The importance of livestock in the Lao economy and to the livelihoods of village households, with   specific poverty, gender, and ethnicity implications.
• The limitations of the current village-based systems in terms of feeding regimes and reproductive management for locally bred pigs.
• The potential for village pig production to become a better financial contributor to community well-being.
• Increasing pressure to confine pigs for hygiene, forage delivery, and other management reasons.
• The constant threat of disease incursions, especially classical swine fever (CSF).
• The risk of zoonotic diseases for animals and humans.

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. Explore tropical japonica germplasm searching for maintainers using test crosses.
2. Produce pure seed of rice AB systems from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). 

Preliminary results are very promising and several interesting hybrid combinations have been identified.

• Deliver 60 sets of five to eight fertile interspecific lines derived from crosses between two O. sativa elite lines and 30 O. glaberrima accessions.
• Establish a high-throughput methodology based on SSR and SFP markers for rapid genome scanning of the introgressions.
• Fine map the chromosome 6 S locus, the major gene acting in the interspecific sterility barrier system, to derive a BC1 population from a cross between an O. sativa and an interspecific CSSL.

• Identifying sources of resistance to Ascochyta and promote their use.
• Generate F1 populations from crosses between sources of Asaochyta resistance and commercial bean varieties, Bola Rojo and Cargamento.
• Evaluate segregating populations produced as a result of the above crosses.
• Conduct phenotypic and genotypic assessments of segregating populations in order to identify molecular markers associated with resistance to Ascochyta and Antracnosis.

The ultimate goal of this project is to improve the nutritional status of the rural and urban poor, particularly children and lactating women, in target regions of Latin America. To achieve this, agronomic superior, micronutrient-dense beans and rice, Quality Protein Maize (QPM), and high vitamin A cassava and sweet-potato will be developed and deployed.

By their perishable nature, bananas must be sold as quickly as they are mature.  This, coupled with the lack of a reliable source of market information and with limited value-addition capacity, forces individual small scale farmers to sell their banana at any price offered by vendors.    This has resulted into constant loss of income and has significantly contributed to the decline in living conditions and increased poverty in small-scale farming-systems-dependent communities in the great lakes region of east Africa.  A frequently proposed alternative is for farmer organizations to consolidate greater volumes of production, to strengthen local negotiating power and to improve understanding of markets and prices.  The implementation of such strategies is incipient and has often been based specialty crops such as cocoa, essential oils and natural medicinal products. The opportunities for refocusing value-chains for food crops towards greater farmer participation and greater value are abundant, but have not been the focus of most research projects.  In 2009-2010, Bioversity International is undertaking three new research grants with components focused on the marketing of banana biodiversity for increased added value to small-scale farmers and their rural community enterprises. In these new grants the proposed associate expert will work to integrate production technology testing and promoting value-addition and marketing initiatives in banana producing communities in six countries in the region.  The associate expert will have the opportunity to collaborate with Bioversity staff, external consultants and national counterparts in the development of strategies to improve the contribution of banana production and marketing to rural development and to the reduction of rural poverty.  The associate expert will:

- Review relevant methods and experiences on value chain analysis and governance, farmer organization strengthening and market identification and development in east Africa and collaborate with researchers in other regions of the continent;

- Conduct applied research directly and in collaboration with students and collaborators to understand livelihood strategies of banana producing households, to describe current market channels, to identify alternative differentiated and niche markets for banana and banana products, to develop strategies for improving value chain governance mechanisms to the benefit of rural communities and to develop strategies for establishing and strengthening farmer organizations to the benefit of poor households;

- Prepare and carry out training activities based on methods adapted from other projects and incorporating research results in the project directed towards farm households and incipient farmer organizations, actors in value chains and service providers linked to improving chain governance;

- Link project staff and counterparts from national partners to the growing body of experience on value chains, marketing strategies, farmer organizations, entrepreneurship and rural development;

- Participate in other activities contributing to the success of the projects.

 The work plan will address important global questions (food security, income, nutrition), while at the same time contributing to the specific needs of banana farmers in the on-going projects.

The ultimate outcome anticipated from this research project is to develop improved varieties of groundnut and pigeonpea having higher levels of ß-carotene without compromising the yield and other agronomic traits related to farmers and consumers acceptance. This long-term sustainable strategy is expected to prevent/control micronutrient malnutrition in a vast population in the developing countries of the world where these crops are grown, including India, where they form a major component of diet as secondary staple. Such strategies are cost-effective, feasible, and can be sustainably implemented under conditions where supplementation and fortification are currently not practical or economically feasible.

The specific objectives of this project include:

1. Improve women (and men) farmers’ access to seed of new sorghum and pearl millet varieties in targeted regions of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. This project phase will increase women’s involvement in variety evaluation, focusing on traditional and newly formed women’s groups, associations and organizations. Also, women’s engagement in quality seed production and possibly marketing will be initiated. Work on methods and tools for better variety evaluation by farmers and farmer associations, including a reliable assessment of the quantity of food produced per unit area of harvested crop will be pursued. Methods and tools for communicating the results of individual site variety evaluations at an appropriate scale will be developed.
2. Understand and enhance the effectiveness of different activities for enhancing seed availability and knowledge about the new varieties. Monitoring will focus on the variety adoption process, including yearly changes in variety use, and shall contribute to understand farmers’ (female and male) responses to climate variability and other changes in the external environment.

The specific objectives to achieve the above aim are to:

1. Identify and distribute high-yielding chickpea, groundnut and pigeonpea cultivars adapted to the relevant cropping systems ofthe Central Dry Zone of Myanmar, using farmer participatory varietal selection
2. Increase production of high-quality rhizobial inoculants in Myanmar through application of a cost-effective strategy involving equipment and procedural changes, quality assurance, R&D and training
3. Conduct training and extension programs on legume improvement and inoculant technology in order to enhance capacity for research and extension in these disciplines in Myanmar and to facilitate uptake of project outputs.

Objectives:

1. To build, demonstrate and sustain a model agricultural knowledge organization and system in support of extension in India;

1. To develop and manage an online and offline  forum for management of farm level Q&A  and discussions which is integrated with knowledge  generation and organization;

1. To build and demonstrate an online as well as offline multi-modal information delivery arrangement linking online content and expert knowledge  with query services;

1. To build and sustain geospatial data and knowledge organization  systems  to support agricultural research, education  and technology transfer;

1. To build capacity among agricultural experts in the advanced management of highly integrated information services in support of education, research and extension; 

To develop methods for viable integration of back-end digital systems and processes to foster  autonomous, long term  collaboration between the ICT sector and the NARES organizations in India 

Objectives:

1.      To build, demonstrate and sustain a model agricultural knowledge organization and system in support of extension in India;

2.      To develop and manage an online and offline  forum for management of farm level Q&A  and discussions which is integrated with knowledge  generation and organization;

3.      To build and demonstrate an online as well as offline multi-modal information delivery arrangement linking online content and expert knowledge  with query services;

4.      To build and sustain geospatial data and knowledge organization  systems  to support agricultural research, education  and technology transfer;

5.      To build capacity among agricultural experts in the advanced management of highly integrated information services in support of education, research and extension;

To develop methods for viable integration of back-end digital systems and processes to foster  autonomous, long term  collaboration between the ICT sector and the NARES organizations in India

•  To establish a holistic participatory IGNRM model for the convergence of activities in 4 nucleus clusters (five villages in each cluster) encompassing suitable technical, institutional, gender equity, and policy options for enhanced agricultural productivity and crop-livestock management systems to alleviate poverty; and
• To provide technical know-how to farmers, landless rural people in the target districts, and partner NGOs supported by the SRTT in the region through empowerment by bringing together learnings from national and international experience.

1. Assess economic and environmental viability, enabling policies and institutions for promoting cultivation of sweet sorghum for bio-ethanol production and its impact on environment, rural incomes, livelihoods and social capital development.
2. Develop and establish pilot-scale Public Private People Partnership (PPPPs) value chain bio-ethanol enterprise models through “Seed-to-Tank” approach encompassing sweet sorghum production, processing, value addition, marketing and protecting environment.
3. Farmers’ participatory multilocation testing of the improved biomass (stalks and grain) and juice yielding sweet sorghum cultivars under on-farm situations and development of production and seed systems in the targeted area.
4. Fine-tuning of package of practices for increased harvest window, mechanization and development of protocols for by-product utilization.    
5. Capacity building and skill development of all the stakeholders including rural communities in the enhanced sweet sorghum production and value chain for bio-ethanol production.

The main objectives are:

1.  To enhance the productivity and production of legume crops (groundnut, chickpea and pigeonpea) through scaling up of  better adapted  cultivars and crop management technologies in target areas of India and Myanmar;
2.   To evaluate and fine tune the seed production model developed to consolidate the  legume seed requirement of the country; and
3.  To strengthen the capacity of partners (researchers and farmers) to develop, test and disseminate new varieties and crop management technologies that increase crop productivity and production

Water efficient farm enterprises and climate risk management

Innovation Platforms will be established at project sites to bring together all role players necessary to increase investments in farm management strategies to improve productivity of crop and livestock systems through improved fodder production. Outputs of the other two work areas will feed into the innovation platform process. The important outcome here is the development of an understanding that increased investments at farm level will have beneficial returns at the market place that compensate for climate-related production risks.

Investment choices matched to farmer capacities and climatic risk environment

Understanding how the capacity of farmers and their ability to make use of new opportunities is affected by their wealth status, investment priorities and variable climate will assist in the design of new and more target-specific crop-livestock management strategies. Through participatory modeling and scenario analysis we can learn together what the impacts of specific interventions are, which farmers can make use of them, and who may adopt them. On-farm testing will substantiate the efficacy of the technologies and the potential for out-scaling.

Market-led technologies for smallholder farmers developed and tested

The project will use market access as the driver of crop and livestock technology uptake. Market development initiatives such as contract farming, voucher-based input distribution schemes for seed and fertilizer and innovative fertilizer marketing strategies will be implemented by project partners, technically supported by research and extension and monitored for impacts across the value chain.

1. Consolidate and out- and up-scale the gains achieved in IFAD TAG 532-ICRISAT with the required fine-tuning of farmer participatory research outputs for new areas, particularly those covered under the IFAD loan-financed projects

2. Develop seed production, storage and distribution systems to make small and marginal farmers self-reliant and self- sufficient for seed requirements of FPVs of food legumes.

3. Promote forward and backward market linkages and value addition in legumes at local level.

4. Popularize the FPRE approach among NARS, extension officials and farmers, and assess its institutional impact; and

5. Assess the impact of FPVs and integrated crop management technologies (ICM) of grain legumes in rainfed production system on the socio-economic conditions of farmers vis-àvis sustainable increased productivity, food and nutritional security and improved family well being

Legumes form an integral part of rainfed agriculture. Not only do they help in improving the soil fertility and its structure, they also provide food and nutritional security and diversified sources of income for poor farmers and valuable protein-rich fodder to livestock. Legumes bring stability and improvement to rainfed agriculture and to the livelihoods of poor farmers.

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 aim of the project is to gain self sufficiency in chickpea-pulse production through increased productivity by expanding improved pulse production and protection technologies (IPPPT), and establishing village level seed system in the rainfed rice fallow lands (RRFL) of selected regions inIndia.Project objectives include:

•  To enhance capacity at field level for farmer-participatory research and extension (FPRE) in adoption and expansion of improved chickpea-pulse production and protection technologies (IPPPT) in rainfed rice fallow lands
• To multiply and distribute farmer-preferred chickpea varieties along with IPPPT (including IDM, IPM and INM) for sustainable intensification of rainfed rice fallow cropping systems
• Empowerment among farmers and participating local institutions, on FPRE/IPPPT to establish village-based seed system (s) to achieve self-sufficiency in seeds of farmer-preferred, improved varieties of chickpea at the village level
• Research backstopping for further improvement of chickpea varieties for traits and IPPPT components preferred by the farmers and traders in the target area

Nigeria was the first country in Africa to be affected by the H5N1 virus, with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks initially reported in the Kaduna State and confirmed by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development on 8 February 2006. The disease spread rapidly to 97 Local Government Areas in 25 States and the Federal Capital Territory, and some 440,000 birds were culled in the first two months of the outbreak. The country subsequently suffered waves of HPAI outbreaks that peaked twice: in February 2006 and February 2007.

The outbreaks affected 3037 farms causing 1.3 million of the country’s estimated 160 million birds to be destroyed, at a cost of USD 5.4 million paid in compensation by the Government. The last outbreak of the first wave of disease was recorded in the Anambra State in October 2007. The disease was again reported on two farms in July 2008 in Kano and Katsina States, and was quickly brought under control.

The project development objectives were designed to support government efforts to minimize the threat posed by H5N1 to humans and the poultry industry, and prepare the necessary control measures to respond to a possible influenza pandemic.

To achieve these objectives, the project supported three sets of interventions: (1) response and containment, (2) control and prevention and (3) preparedness and planning. The project had four components: (1) animal health, (2) human health, (3) social mobilization and strategic communication, and (4) project management and coordination.

An implementation status and results report prepared in November 2010, and two implementation completion review reports, one by the project and the other by the World Bank, referred to the lack of an end-of-project impact assessment of the success or failure in meeting the intended project outcomes.

It was against this backdrop that an independent impact assessment study was carried out with the objective of understanding better:

1. how and, where possible, how much the project activities and outputs have contributed to the outcomes; and
2. how the outcomes have contributed to the primary impacts of interest, namely, reducing the risk of HPAI to poultry and humans and improving public health preparedness for a pandemic.

districts of Karnataka through increasing average productivity of selected crops by 20% in

four years.

The specific objectives are:

1. To identify and scale-up best-bet options (soil, crop and water management) including

improved cultivars to enhance productivity of the selected crops in selected 20 districts

by 20%.

2. To train DoA staff in stratified soil sampling at villages, analysis of micronutrients,

preparation of GIS-based soil maps, and guide DoA to establish high-quality Soil

Analysis Laboratory at Bangalore.

3. To build capacity of the stake holders (farmers and consortium partners) in the

sustainable management of natural resources and enhancing productivity in dryland

areas.

The specific objectives are:

1. To establish four Model  community watershed Sites of Learning in three target rainfall zones (<700 mm and 700  to 1100 mm, and > 1100 mm rainfall per annum) for demonstrating the potential of rainfed areas by adopting integrated water resource management approach;  and
2. To disseminate best watershed management practices in the areas of integrated watershed management for developing capacity of different stakeholders.

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.

Objectives

• To review and synthesize literature on livestock and meat supply, consumption and trade in Ethiopia and identify information gaps for further research.
• To identify and map the export livestock supply shades and indicate volume of supply from major production areas.
• To assess current off-take rates for cattle and shoats in the highlands and pastoral lowlands and identify the characteristics of these animals.
• To assess the movement of animals and meat through domestic and export market chains, and how various market factors (price, market structure, marketing practices, transaction costs and market infrastructure) influence the movement of animals between market channels.
• To identify factors which affect the marketing behaviour of producers and other market participants.
• To develop alternative export scenarios for increased off-take through breeding, feeding management, disease control and producers’ marketing behaviour.
• To develop policy recommendations for investment in market development, development of quality and safety standards, extension, technology and dissemination of market information to achieve higher off-take rates and meat exports.

Funding: United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Texas A&M University

The two primary impacts expected from this project are:

1. Local people in developing countries are benefiting from sustainable bioenergy development, planned and carried out in such a way that it minimises negative impacts on local livelihoods and the environment, and contributes to local income generation, livelihood improvement and to global climate change mitigation.
2. National governments, civil society organisations and corporations in developing and developed countries having and are using better knowledge, information and tools for designing policies and programmes for sustainable forest-based bioenergy development

The project activities will be carried out by a number of partners with CIFOR taking a lead role. Overall coordination of the project will be carried out by CIFOR. Specifically CIFOR will:
• coordinate the governance and activities of the project;
• lead in the implementation of agreed research activities;
• coordinate participation and inputs of state, private, civil society and local actors;
• coordinate information dissemination;
• prepare overall monitoring and evaluation reports for the project, and coordinate the independent evaluation at the end of the project; and
• provide technical support linked to capacity building activities.

These knowledge and policy inputs will help fill gaps identified in a recent comprehensive study carried out by ILRI and partners, where organized marketing of milk in Assam was found to be relatively insignificant and traditional (or informal) markets for fresh liquid milk and dairy products account for most of the market opportunities for farmers.

Milk and milk products are consumed by most households, both rich and poor, and consumption is increasing; milk sales are an important livelihood strategy for rural households most of which are poor, and 82% of which keep cattle. Milk processing and trading provide a livelihood for large numbers of vendors and processors. Hence, enhancement of the traditional milk value chain can simultaneously improve the welfare of large numbers of poor farmers, intermediaries in the milk chain and consumers. Women have the major role in care of cattle and in making household decisions about purchase and consumption of dairy products; they will be the major beneficiaries of interventions at the start and end of the milk value chain.

The study found that most urban consumers are not satisfied with milk quality and safety, while most producers and milk chain intermediaries are unaware of hygienic milk handling. The high costs of informality and poor linkages between actors further constrain dairy development. Moreover, given increased consumer demand for safer milk combined with potential regulations in the horizon aimed at mandating safety standards, informal sector participants’ livelihoods in the dairy sector are under increased threat.

ANTICIPATED IMPACT
It is anticipated that enhancing dairy quality and capability of supplying milk, while simultaneously improving linkages and decreasing transaction costs, will lead to a demand-driven production system which will further stimulate investment in production technologies (e.g. artificial insemination, feeding, credit and veterinary services) that are available but under-utilized. The initiative aims to overcome the above knowledge, policy and institutional barriers to improving the traditional milk marketing in Assam through two inter-linked strategies clustered around knowledge management (out-scaling) and policy engagement (up-scaling).

The improvement is expected to result in significant livelihood benefits to those engaged in the value chain as more consumers purchase larger quantities of safer and higher quality milk, and farmers and traders see both their markets increase, costs decrease and losses from milk spoilage and wastage go down.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS
Out-scaling: Knowledge management and dissemination outputs
Output 1: Training materials and tools from East Africa adapted to the Assamese context
Output 2: A majority of milk value chain actors have improved skills and incentives for the practice of skills
Output 3: Increased consumer demand for and confidence in milk quality and safety

Up-scaling knowledge to action: Processes, policy and stakeholder engagement outputs
Output 4: Evidence on impact and cost-effectiveness in order to promote continued and extended adoption
Output 5: Attitudes, behaviour and institutions shifted toward pro-poor dairying

PARTNERS

• Department of Dairy Development, Government of Assam
• College of Veterinary Sciences, Assam Agricultural University
• Centre for Humanistic Development
• Fellowship for Agri Resource Management and Entrepreneurship Research (FARMER) – a local NGO
• Brihattar Guwahati Gopalak Sangstha (BGGS) – a dairy producers’ and traders’ association
• Catalyst Management Services – a national-level NGO
• BASICS Limited – a national-level NGO

Funding: UK Department for International Development (DFID)

Fusarium wilt of banana (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc)) has widely been considered as one of the most devastating diseases in agricultural history, until resistant banana cultivars replaced susceptible ones in Central America. New outbreaks of the disease in Asia, caused by the highly virulent Foc Tropical race 4 (TR4), have raised concerns that the disease is once again threatening global banana production.

Supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the overall goal of the project is to improve the livelihoods of small-scale banana farmers in Indonesia and the income of banana producers in Australia by improving banana production practices, including the effective management of banana wilts. Best-bet farm management practices and integrated pest management (IPM) strategies are being piloted. Complementary studies to address knowledge gaps in relation to Fusarium wilt, especially TR4, are improving our understanding and ability to manage wilt diseases. Work focuses on Fusarium wilt and banana blood disease (Pseudomonas celebensi), respectively. Foc is devastating smallholder banana farms in Indonesia because of TR4, which overcomes resistance mechanisms demonstrated by Cavendish to other Fusarium races. In Australia Foc race 1 is a serious constraint to the production of Lady Finger, and as a new disease threat to Australian banana producers effective disease management strategies are required in order to avoid major income losses.

 Mitigation of the threat posed by these diseases has also been the subject of two recent Bioversity/ACIAR projects,

The project is coordinated by the Bioversity International Commodities for Livelihoods Program (CfLP) regional office for the Asia Pacific and implemented through national partners in Indonesia and Australia. Intended impacts include filling of knowledge gaps, community collaboration within Indonesian and Australian pilot communities, improved banana productivity and the stimulation of further research and development related to banana wilt diseases.

By mid 2010 the project had clarified farmer practice and needs, selected appropriate pilot sites and farmer-participants, and developed:

• A list of potential IPM/ICM technologies and practices identified from previous researches such as technologies on seed systems, agronomic practices, cultivar options and mechanism of deployment
• A list of farmers’ knowledge and practices on IPM/ICM
• A consolidated report detailing the status of current knowledge regarding socio-demographic information, current status of disease management, and production systems in banana communities affected by Foc and BBD
• a hazard analysis tool and best management practice (BMP) guidelines from previous and current knowledge of banana wilt management
• a report detailing strategic research areas to be investigated by the project
• protocols in conducting research on suppressive soils, soil health and use of biological control agents

The key areas and research questions that this project seeks to address are as follows:

• What are the important sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements, specifications and demands of targeted export markets at different junctures in the meat export supply chain?
• How is current compliance with these SPS requirements or other international standards achieved and, if not, what gaps remain?
• What specific risks and critical control points identified in the supply chain in Ethiopia need to be identified and improved to enhance livestock and livestock product exports?
• What options are available at each stage of the supply chain to facilitate identification, screening, testing, quarantine, vaccination, inspection, monitoring and other priority requirements from specified export markets?
• What are the costs of establishing an SPS certification system for livestock and meat exports?
• Who picks up these costs and along what part of the supply chain?
• How do these costs and the feasibility of establishing an SPS certification system differ by region?
• Could such a program be further scaled up?
• What are the modalities and policy options for funding an SPS certification system?

Funding: United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Texas A&M University

Partner: Texas Agricultural Experiment Station

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

The specific objectives are to do the following for each of the five priority diseases at national and agroecological levels:

• assess the direct and indirect financial burden of inaction including costs of death of animals; weight loss; lost milk, eggs and draught power; treatment during illness etc.;
• estimate the costs of targeted interventions including treatment, vaccination, surveillance, vector control and sanitary measures;
• determine the additional benefits, additional costs and net benefits associated with baseline interventions;
• evaluate of the BCRs of targeted interventions based on sensitivity analysis; and
• make recommendations on the feasibility of the targeted interventions given the underlying uncertainties permeating the various scenarios.

Funding: The World Bank

Partner: University of Nigeria, Nsukka

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.

The project will take a multi-disciplinary approach integrating a variety of methodologies for socio-economic, institutional and silvicultural analysis: • Participatory rapid appraisal (incl. structured/semi-structured key informant interviews); • Socio-economic surveys at the household and village levels; • Quantitative and qualitative surveys of plantation enterprises; • Pro-poor policy analysis; • Economic modeling of plantation cash flows; • Trade, investment, and policy scenario-building; • Forest mensuration and inventory techniques, and statistical analysis; • Application of SILVIA forest management planning system.

The project outputs will include:

• technical measures and management practices that improve forest management and the quantity and quality of gums and resins produced by smallholders
• options to strengthen local gum and resin producer organizations and their ability to secure more favourable markets
• policy recommendations that ensure more secure access to forests, promote responsible gum and resin management, and enhance livelihood outcomes from gum and resin production.

The proposed work focuses on local action for improving communities’ access to and benefit from dry forests. It brings the key issues from such action into the policy debate at regional, state and federal levels, facilitating informed decisions that will benefit poor farmers and women. Planners and policy makers lack field based information on how forestry can underpin poverty alleviation; the project will provide this information, illustrating that forests make a significant contribution to livelihood improvement and can help achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

There are four project objectives:

1) Develop a robust conceptualization of salinization processes in central and
southern Iraq based on information available on salinization at field and basin level
and quantify salt and water fluxes and areas affected by salinity;

2)Determine appropriate strategic approaches to manage salinity that suit local
environmental and socio-economic conditions;

3)Assessment of key productivity limitations and opportunities to wheat-based
irrigated agricultural systems;

4)Develop investment options for ongoing salinity management in Iraq.