[Soil Fertility] [Strategies for Systems Intensification]

Soil Fertility

One of the most pressing problems of African agriculture is the widespread decline in soil fertility. About a half billion hectares of the continent's agricultural land are already moderately or severely degraded, greatly undermining the efforts of African farmers to improve their livelihoods through more intensive production. CIAT has done much to help reverse the soil fertility decline and has recently embarked on new initiatives with international and national partners that promise to deliver much more.

New Practices and Tools

Since the early 1990s, CIAT scientists have been identifying and testing new soil management practices, using participatory approaches, with farmers in several eastern African countries. This work has demonstrated the value of various legumes-canavalia, mucuna, lablab, crotalaria, tephrosia, and vetch-for improving soil fertility, among other uses.

In order for farmers to make sound decisions about when and where to employ new soil management technologies, they need a reliable way to monitor soil quality. To help them do that, CIAT and various national partners have developed a new decision-support tool in the form of a training guide. The guide explains how to elicit, organise, and rank farmers' perspectives on soil quality and integrate them with those of soil scientists.

Developed originally in Latin America, this and other decision-support tools have been adapted to conditions in eastern Africa through training events held in Uganda and Tanzania. These events were conducted jointly by CIAT; the African Highlands Initiative (AHI), coordinated by the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF); the CGIAR Systemwide Soil, Water, and Nutrient Management (SWNM) Program; and the Kenya-based Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Programme (TSBF).

An Open Alliance

On the foundation of that and other collaborative efforts, CIAT, the TSBF Programme, and ICRAF recently established the Alliance for Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) in Africa. In a prior step toward forming the alliance, the TSBF Institute of CIAT was created under an agreement signed in December 2001. Subsequently, CIAT and ICRAF agreed on terms for a wider arrangement that will fully integrate the soils research of the three organisations.

Scientists from the alliance's three founding partners met in early March 2002 with technical advisers from interested donor agencies for a 3-day strategy-development workshop. The event was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation at its Bellagio Study and Conference Centre in Italy. Afterwards, a working group produced a synthesis of the workshop presentations, entitled "Soil Fertility Degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Leveraging Lasting Solutions to a Long-Term Problem." Workshop participants identified a series of actions that need to be taken, organised under five headings:

1. Empowering farmers to apply ISFM practices on a larger scale-from individual farm plots and households to entire landscapes and communities.
2. Finding ways to translate new knowledge from strategic research on soil carbon and nutrient cycles into practical soil management measures that boost and sustain agricultural productivity.
3. Devising new management practices that enhance the soil's ecosystem functions, such as carbon storage, which reduces emissions of greenhouse gases.
4. Managing soil organisms and monitoring their valuable contributions to human welfare and agroecosystem health.
5. Strengthening networks of scientists, development professionals, and farmers through training, partnerships, and information sharing.

To achieve rapid advances on all of these fronts, the three founding members of the alliance will combine their R&D experience, networks, and partnerships for joint implementation of ISFM approaches. The alliance will also serve as a hub for effective collaboration with regional networks and major development programmes in Africa.

Contact

Robert Delve
E-mail: r.delve@cgiar.org

Strategies for Systems Intensification

Poverty and food insecurity in the African highlands are strongly linked to the deterioration of land–based resources. Land is subject to various constraints such as the decline in soil fertility, crop and livestock productivity, poor soil water management, and increased incidence of pests and diseases. Research carried out with farmer research groups to identify different forces that may influence subsistence farming systems identified the following: market; climate; land quality; and access to knowledge. In areas where market access was relatively poor, farmers depended on internal resources. For example, resource-rich farmers were willing to invest in inorganic fertilisers, but farmers shifted to using composting and other integrated soil fertility management options when they did not have access to markets.

Understanding systems

In CIAT/AHI we understand a systems approach as a holistic undertaking of appropriate practices that could increase agricultural productivity but are also ecologically protective, economically productive, and effective in reducing risks and addressing the different needs of various social groups. CIAT/AHI has been working with researchers and development actors to promote a change of “mind-sets” through use of a systems perspective to achieve multiple outputs by strategic combinations of technologies, which results in increased social and economic inputs.

Participatory approaches for system intensification

There is a clear evidence from CIAT/AHI championing work that technologies developed using the conventional research approach, with limited involvement of farmers were not always effective to address farmers’ constraints because there are few avenues to consider the socio-economic and agro-ecological circumstances of the end-users. Inclusion of farmers in the research process is a positive step towards increasing adoption. In addition, research methods have been changed.

Researchers adopted a “team” and multidisciplinary approach towards solving the farmer-felt problems. They introduced numerous technologies targeted towards solving soil fertility, income, food and feed problems simultaneously. They incorporated the needs of men, women and various wealth-endowed categories, and fully involved them in an open process for designing trials, choosing and evaluating technologies, and evaluating the programme.

Examples of successful participatory research on site included a shift from raw application to spot application of inorganic fertilisers, establishment of forage crops on marginal lands, rejection of early sweet potato variety due to their own selection criteria such as low biomass above ground, high moisture retention capacity and ground cover and too little vines for vegetative propagation. Farmers actively participated in decision-making and implementation from the stage of identification of problems through experimentation to utilisation and dissemination of research results. In this case, the process is building farmer capacity in intensifying their respective systems and is empowering them to continue on their own beyond the scope of a project. Farmers’ decision -making power in the benchmark sites is now improved.

Improving component system linkages

Problems of the highlands are complex and require a multi-institution, interdisciplinary approach. There is a pressure for quick results as NRM requires long-term investment. Commitments of researchers, extension and heads of institutions to further promote partnership and system linkages in the area of participatory technology integration, effective extension and policy support are essential ingredients to achieve the desired objectives.

In the pilot sites of CIAT/AHI farmers were able to choose and combine useful technologies. Those that were chosen by farmers include crop varieties, forages, high value trees, soil fertility management option, soil conservation, and integrated pest management which were implemented in a step-wise approach to fit into the respective systems. Forages and high value trees were grown on soil bunds to stabilise structures and reduce soil erosion. After gaining experience in use of the new technology options, farmers were able to modify these technologies to suit their own conditions and used them as entry points to address complex natural resource management concerns at farm and watershed level.

Other step-wise integration of system components from the sites includes concentration of water and nutrients in conservation ditches for growing marketable crops (e.g. Banana in Lushoto highlands and Hops in Areka). Farmers in the benchmark sites and beyond are now aware of which technology should come first and which one should follow to get the maximum benefits. Interestingly, farmers now discuss beyond varieties on issues like land resources, intensification and income-generating technologies. Site teams are challenged by the fact that they have now created demand for new technologies through building the capacity of farmers.

Tilahun Amede
E-mail: t.amede@cgiar.org