Conservation Agriculture Research and Development ICRAF 2014

1. Agroforestry Food Security
Programme: overview of CA
progress
Bruce Sosola
World Agroforestry Centre
Presented at CARWG 2014 at Holiday Inn Hotel,
Bulawayo, 30th -31st October 2014

2. Agroforestry Food Security
Programme
• Sourced funding (Euro 2,400,000) from Irish Aid and FICA to
scale up agroforestry and conservation agriculture
technologies to 40,000 smallholder farmers in Malawi
• AFSP II running from 2012-2015
• Promotes integration of agroforestry in conservation
agriculture cropping system
• Distributes fertilizer tree germplasm (Gliricidia, Faidherbia,
Tephrosia, Pigeon peas)

3. Programme Impacts
• 1. Improved livelihood security of the smallholder farmers
through agroforestry and conservation agriculture
– Maize yield increases to 3 tonnes per ha on plots with fertilizer
trees
– Number of food insecure days reduced to 2 months (60 days) or
less for targeted households
– Amount of reported yearly farm income
• 2. Improved resilience of the farmers and farming systems
to climate change variability through agroforestry and
conservation agriculture.
– Area planted under fertilizer trees increases to 0.2 ha per farmer
– Area under CA increases to 0.2 ha per farmer

4. Baseline Maize Yields
The overall mean yield was 1.4 tonnes per ha

5. What has been done
• Submitted a paper to 1st ACCA symposium in
Zambia on “Assessment of maize productivity
under conservation agriculture with
tephrosia” Njoloma (2014) et al.
• Developed Policy paper on mainstreaming
fertilizer trees in CA cropping system into Farm
Input Subsidy Program to support 10,000
farmers

6. What has been done
• Trained 20,000 farmers in CAWT covering a total of 2500
ha
• Field days are conducted at the CAWT demo sites
(extension workers and farmers)
• Training of Trainers conducted for 97 Government and
NGO extension officers
• Distribute about 30,000 kg of assorted fertilizer tree seed
• Developed a Training Manual on Conservation
Agriculture with Trees (CAWT)
• Developed TV documentary, radio jingles on CA benefits

7. CA Baseline
• The soils are heavily under-nourished in OC,
N, P and K

8. Mzimba Dedza Thyolo Optimal Range
pH Baseline Target Baseline Target Baseline Target
(0-20cm) 4.99 5.14 5.15 5.3 5.5 5.67 pH (5.8 -8.0)
OC (%)
(0-20cm) 0.78 0.82 1.1 1.16 1.16 1.22 OC (1.6 -5%)
Total N (%)
(0-20cm) 0.02 0.02 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 N (2-5%)
Extractable P
(mg/kg)
(0-20cm) 141.63 155.79 43.48 47.83 40.17 44.19 P mg/kg (25-30)
Extractable K
(mg/kg)
(0-20cm) 25.5 28.05 250.45 275.5 155.56 171.12 K mg/kg (60-160)

10. Building a Larger Network for Evergreen Agriculture
Network in Southern Africa (BLENSA)
• Developed national networks in Malawi, Mozambique,
Botswana and South Africa (Limpopo)
– National Agroforestry Research and Development Forum
(NARDERF) in Malawi
– Botswana Evergreen Agriculture and Agroforestry Network
(BEAAN) in Botswana.
– Limpopo Conservation Agriculture and Agroforestry Forum
(LiCAAF) in South Africa.
– National Steering Committee for Agroforestry Research
and Development (CONDENSA) in Mozambique
• Developed BLEANSA website www.blensa.net

11. 2.0 What research lessons
• The third principle has focused on Crop-Tree
association as an alternative to crop rotation
• Community developed by-laws for better
management of livestock and fire control to
foster CA adoption.

12. Inkosi Kachindamoto enforcing fire and
livestock control byelaws