Jonathan Muriuki gave a presentation on evergreen agriculture in East Africa at the Beating Famine Conference at ICRAF in Nairobi. He discussed how conventional farming is not sustainable and leads to soil degradation. Conservation agriculture and agroforestry techniques like planting trees on cropland can help maintain soil cover, fix nitrogen, improve soil structure and water retention. Evergreen agriculture, a form of intensive farming, integrates trees and annual crops to maintain year-round green cover. Examples of evergreen agriculture systems in East Africa include planting fodder shrubs, mango trees, and Faidherbia albida in maize fields. Successful scaling up of evergreen agriculture requires addressing issues like tree species

1. Jonathan Muriuki
Presentation at the Beating Famine Conference
ICRAF, Nairobi 11 April 2012
EVERGREEN AGRICULTURE IN EAST AFRICA

2. Presentation summary
• Farming as usual – is it sustainable?
• CAWT
• Evergreen agriculture
• Characterisation
• Germplasm supply
• Extension approaches
• Knowledge management

3. HUMID
HIGHLANDS
High Pop. Density
(Home to > 50 % of
region’s pop)
Supply > 50 % of
regions staple & cash
crops
Important water
towers
Rainfed & irrigated
agriculture
Major crops: Maize,
potato, banana,
wheat, coffee, tea,
arrow roots
DRYLANDS
81 % of total land
mass
Significant in
Kenya (75 %);
Tanzania &
Ethiopia (50 %)
Pastoralism / Agro-
pastoralism
Irrigated and
rainfed agriculture
Major crops:
Sorghum, millet &
cassava, cotton
Eastern Africa
Main features

4. Conventional Farming – This is how we produce food
Trees are kept off cropland and soil is turned over leading to :-
- Disruption of soil life
- High surface area for moisture loss

5. Intensive Tillage destroys the
biological and ecological
integrity of the soil system.
Before
Primary
Tillage
After
Primary
Tillage
After
Secondary
Tillage
“Earthworms are allergic to cold steel!”
Credit: Mike Bell 15 July, 2003

6. Our high potential land is sloppy and
vulnerable!
Conventional farming on sloppy lands
without conservation leads to
• Huge soil losses due to run-off
• Quick degradation
• Landslides and floods especially
due to lack of tree roots

7. 81% of the land is semi-arid and cycles of floods and droughts
together with overgrazing leads to massive degradation

8. Conservation
Agriculture
Minimum Soil
Disturbance
Permanent
Soil Cover
Crop Rotations
and Associations
CA is a
Concept
about
Inclusiveness
and Integration
Simultaneous
Application of
Practices

9. Conservation Agriculture provides beneficial ecosystem
services:
1. Food, fiber and biofuels
2. Less erosion, less pollution, clean water, fresh air,
healthy soil, natural fertility, higher production, carbon
credits, beautiful landscape, sustainability etc., etc.
……
True Conservation
is
carbon management.
Soil carbon is a priceless key to the planet’s health and our
environmental quality.

10. Agroforestry
A collective name for land use systems and practices in which
woody perennials are deliberately integrated with crops and/or
animals on the same land management unit either in a spatial
mixture or in a temporal sequence resulting in both ecological and
economic interactions between woody and non-woody
components.

11. Types of Agroforestry
1. Agroforests: combinations of perennial species on
arable land
2. Home gardens with perennials
3. Woodlots or farm forests
4. Sylvopastoral systems: Trees in pastures
5. Trees on field and farm boundaries
6. Evergreen Agriculture: Trees intercropped with field
crops

12. What is Evergreen Agriculture?
A form of more intensive
farming that integrates
trees with annual
crops, maintaining a
green cover on the
land throughout the
year.
Evergreen farming
systems are ‘double-
story’ systems that
feature both perennial
and annual species
(food crops and trees).

13. Trees incorporation into crop fields and
agricultural landscapes may contribute to
i. maintaining vegetative soil cover year-round (Boffa,1999),
ii. bolstering nutrient supply through nitrogen fixation and
nutrient cycling (Barnes and Fagg, 2003),
iii. enhanced suppression of insect pests and weeds (Sileshi et
al. 2006),
iv. improved soil structure and water infiltration (Chirwa et al.
2007),
v. greater direct production of food, fodder, fuel, fiber and
income from products produced by the intercropped trees
(Garrity, 2004),
vi. enhanced carbon storage both above-ground and
belowground (Makumba et al. 2007),
vii. greater quantities of organic matter in soil surface residues
(Akinnifesi et al. 2007), and
viii. more effective conservation of above- and belowground
biodiversity (Scherr and McNeeley, 2009).

14. Types of Evergreen Agriculture
Regeneration
method /
practice
Conventional
agriculture
Conservation
agriculture
Deliberate
planting
Planned CoAWT Planned CAWT
Assisted natural
regeneration
Managed
CoAWT
Managed CAWT

15. Some examples of Evergreen Agriculture in EA
• Fodder shrubs for balanced dairy nutrition (eg Caliandra
in the East African Dairy Project)
• Mango and other fruits intercropped in maize systems
• Grevillia robusta intercropped in maize for timber,
fodder & fuel
• Faidherbia albida in maize production systems (CA being
tested)
• Intercropped coppicing leguminous trees in maize
(eg Gliricidia in Malawi tested in Western Kenya and
KIbwezi)
• Relay-cropped leguminous species managed as annual
green manure (eg Tephrosia)
–

16. 1. Minimum soil disturbance. The roots of tree/shrub
species and the soil fauna take over the tillage function, soil
nutrient mobilization and balancing
2. Adequate soil cover. The trees add biomass, which
protects the soil and feeds the soil biota (i.e. biological
plough). This also ensures better carbon storage than CA
alone
3. Trees in the rotation/ intercrop reduce weeds, insect
pests and diseases; Thus increasing savings from inputs
such as fertilizer and herbicides
When integrated with CA, trees ensure

17. For successful scaling up, an Evergreen
agriculture programme needs
Tree management
spacing, niches, CA,
tree crop interactions,
etc
Right species,
Seeds, and seedling
systems
Favorable policies,
extension networks,
capacity building at all
levels
Germplasm Practices
Enabling environment
Knowledge to Action with
further research
(Rural resource centers)
Characterization
of typologies
Support for
national scaling
up programmes

18. What have we learned from the impacts already
achieved, and about the key farmer incentives
for adoption?
1. There are multiple benefits and repercussions
on crop productivity, yield resilience, fodder
production, fuelwood availability, timber as an
income source, and systems sustainability.
2. Scaling-up models will differ across agro-
ecological zones and countries

19. A portfolio of projects in EA
1. Sida funded CAWT – Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia
and Ghana
2. IFAD funded scalign up evergreen agriculture
– Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Lesotho
3. IFAD funded through CIMMYT - Enhancing
total farm productivity – Building on SIMLESA
- Kenya and Ethiopia

20. Characterizing typologies
Large heterogeneity in performance of any
particular AF technology, and hence the need to
understand that ‘technology x context’ interaction
• Socio-economic baselines
• Land health baselines
• Tree diversity surveys
• Characterizing seed/seedling supply systems
including testing potential of FMNR

21. Machakos Mbarali
 Small farms average size of 1ha and 60%
experience food deficit at some point in
the year
 Farmers plant exotic species
 Little knowledge of fertilizer trees
 Half of seedlings sourced from own or
private nursery and one-fifth of trees
naturally regenerated
 Demand for seedlings of some species
outstrips supply and purchases are
common
 Farmers lack knowledge on CA and little
on AF
 Several private nurseries recorded
 Farmers in collective action groups but
more focused on rural finance than
agriculture
 Bigger farms average size of 3ha but 41%
experience food deficit at some point in
the year
 Farmers protect indigenous species but
many trees are old
 Few exotic species planted for fruits and
fuelwood
 Indigenous knowledge on F. albida as
fertilizer trees is common but not many
other species
 The few planted trees mainly sourced
from project and school nurseries
 Farmers lack knowledge on CA and little
on AF and few have attended training on
farming technologies
 Few private nurseries recorded and
seedling purchase not common
Characterizing typologies

22. Traditional practices tempered with
science

23. Approaches for germplasm supply
• Rural resource
centres
• Satelite nurseries
and demonstrations
in schools – healthy
learning approach
• Group nurseries
• Individually operated
nurseries (pseudo-
extension)
• FMNR approaches

24. Approaches for extension
Government as the default and most sustainable – ministry
of agriculture (not forestry?)
NGOs network – KENDAT, World Vision, others in Tanzania
Approaches – Landcare, rural resource centres, satelite
nurseries (with healthy learning), farmer field schools
Demonstrations
Innovative farmers and nursery operators

25. Demonstrations and participatory trials
• At rural resource centres,
satelite nurseries, ATCs
• At least one per
demonstration per
intervention village
• Also serve as
participatory on-farm
trials to test acceptance
of technology
• High replication to allow
biophysical
measurements with
sufficient precision

26. Knowledge management and communication
• To enhance scaling up and out
• Conducting knowledge needs assessment, designing
information sharing tools like print, electronic/digital and live
folk media.
• Developing appropriate knowledge and information sharing
products (KISP) - include, print media; electronic/digital media
to enhance information flow, learning and sharing at different
levels of governance
• Facilitating promotion of rural resource centres at district
levels to enhance cross regional knowledge and information
sharing.
• Setting up of web pages within the ICRAF and other partner
organizations websites and interactive sites such as phone-
web system.
• Communication strategy developed with all stakeholders

27. Ecosystem degradation can rarely be reversed without
actions that address one or more indirect drivers of
change:
– public participation in decision-making
– cultural factors
– technological change
Collectively these factors influence the level of
production and consumption of ecosystem services and
sustainability of the production base.
DRIVERS OF CHANGE

28. AHSANTE
Creating an Evergreen Agriculture