Evidence-based scaling-up of evergreen agriculture for increasing crop productivity, fodder supply and resilience of the maize-mixed and agro-pastoral farming systems in Tanzania and Malawi

Declining soil fertility, climatic extremes, high costs of inputs and poor extension services are critical problems in Sub-Saharan Africa and are strongly associated with declining agricultural productivity and increasing rural poverty.Increasing population has also led to conflicts between farmers and pastoralists as crop production continues to encroach on tradition grazing areas.Intensification of agriculture is one of the options to address these problems.Development of a sustainable agro-ecosystem requires an integration of productive (e.g.crop yield & fuelwood supply) and ecological functions of agro-ecosystems as well as enabling policies and markets.Trees/shrubs are an integral component of small-scale farming systems in the region, often retained or planted by farmers and thus contributing to increase production and resilience of farming systems.However, the contribution of tree/shrub-based technologies to sustainable agricultural intensification has not received due attention.To fill this gap, this project was conducted to evaluate Evergreen Agriculture as an agroforestry model for the integration of sustainable farming practice to increase and maintain food crop production under the Africa RISING research program in Eastern and Southern Africa.The goals of the project were to generate research-based information to demonstrate the role of trees/shrub in sustaining increasing food crop production, fodder and biomass energy supply, and for reduced land degradation, and to identify evidences for scaling up evergreen agriculture technologies to provide these benefits.Major findings of this work are summarized below using the format proposed by the Africa RISING Research Coordinator. 1.Purpose, objectives, planned outputs Research ObjectivesThe objectives of this project were to: 1) carry out socio-economic and biophysical baselines of Evergreen Agriculture practices, 2) establish the infrastructure for supplying tree seed and seedlings to be integrated into maize-legume-livestock systems based on farmers' needs, and 3) strengthen the capacity of farmers to use Evergreen Agriculture technologies for sustaining maize and livestock production, and to collect, interpret and use weather information to make climate smart farming decisions.1.2.Planned Outputs  Socio-economic, cultural, and policy factors influencing the success of Evergreen Agriculture evaluated. Biophysical factors underpinning the success of EGA documented  Models to sustainable tree seed and seedling supply systems analysed  The capacity of farmers to practice EGA and use weather information analysed 2. Project Partners  ICRAF: Overall coordination of the projects, collect baseline information to identify constraints and opportunities for agricultural intensifications, conduct tree inventory and document ecological and socio-economic values of trees in the agricultural landscape.ICRAF Malawi office led the analysis of models for supplying tree/shrub seed and seedlings to farmers based on their on-going work in the country. SUA (Sokoine University of Agriculture): Analysis of Land cover and land use change to indicate land degradation and possible interventions for addressing the problem. ARI (Agriculture Research Institute)-Hombolo: Carried out the baseline in collaboration and prepared the report in collaboration with ICRAF-Tanzania. IRA (Institute of Resource Assessment, University) of Dar-es-Salaam: Analyzed access and use of use weather information by farmers in making farming decisions. Others: The field visit to select site for this jumpstart identified the following partners who will be actively involved during data collection: District Agricultural and Livestock officers (DALDOs) and extension officers in Kongwa, Kiteto and Babati. Achievements and deliverables against planThis research focused on identifying constraints to sustainable agricultural production and evaluated the potential of evergreen agriculture to address the problems in the context of maize mixed and agro-pastoral farming systems in Eastern and Southern Africa.Key deliverable for each research outputs are summarized below and detailed in the appended technical report. Output 1: Socio-economic and Policy factors:It was established that 50% of the population has large families, with 5-8 people per family.Similarly a greater proportion (60%) of the population owns small land holdings (1-4 ha per household) which produce (1-1.5t/ha)below the farmer-estimated maize yield potential of 4.5t/ha.Current maize yield as estimated by farmers (1-1.5t/ha) was in line with the long-term maize yield data from FAO for Tanzania and Malawi.Low productivity, small land holdings and large family size are one of the major factors contributing to food insecurity in the study site, as noted by 60% of respondents who experience food deficit in 1-9 months in a year.The impacts of these factors on crop productivity are exaggerated further by low levels of inputs, especially fertilizer and/or manure, despite high percentage (60%) of individuals who keep livestock.Only 17% of respondent use fertilizer or manure and less than 10% indicated that they use improved seeds obtained from agrodealers or quality declared seed (QDS) sources.This analysis suggests that, the focus of sustainable intensification research under the Africa RISING would be to minimize the identified crop yield gap as a one of the pathways out of higher.Both Tanzania and Malawi have enabling policy environment for scaling up evergreen agriculture and other sustainable intensification options for this research program.Thus evergreen agriculture technologies, utilizing tree/shrub-based options have the potential role to play as highlighted in subsequent outputs.