IFAD social reporting blog

©IFAD/D. Paqui

©IFAD/D. Paqui

©IFAD/D. Paqui

©IFAD/D. Paqui

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Written by: Larissa Setaro

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is increasingly referred to as a climate-smart technology based on the three principles of minimum soil disturbance, permanent organic soil cover and crop rotation. Yet there are still unanswered questions about its double role in sustainable agricultural intensification and climate change adaptation.

On 13 and 14 January, IFAD hosted a learning event on CA, with the aim of addressing the existing challenges to adoption and scaling-up, and to learn from experience. IFAD has a large portfolio of programmes implementing CA with the support of research centres such as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), and NGOs such as Total Land Care (TLC). The event brought together CA experts from the different research centres and NGOs, who engaged in the debate from different angles, reporting on their expertise on the subject matter and their experience from the field.
     

CA plots from CIMMYT field experiments. ©CIMMYT/ Christian Thierfelder

CA plots from CIMMYT field experiments. ©CIMMYT/ Christian Thierfelder

CA plots from CIMMYT field experiments. ©CIMMYT/ Christian Thierfelder

Targeting of CA interventions: Need for flexibility

The discussions held over the two days stressed the need to clarify that CA is within the bigger box of good agricultural practices (GAPs), rather than something separate. Starting from this conceptual definition, the field experiences reported in the seminar reflected the need for well targeted CA interventions if we want to obtain higher adoption and scaling-up rates. In the design phase, different factors must be taken into account to shape the appropriate CA option:

• Farming systems, which are intimately linked to the specific agro-ecology (e.g. rainfall distribution, soil type, temperature) and in which the CA option should fit 
• Farmers and their livelihoods (e.g. farm size, income, resource endowment) – the CA option should suit the adopter of the technology
• Entry points at the farm and community level (e.g. farm labour, water scarcity, erosion) on which the programme should have an impact
• Contextual factors (e.g. policy, extension services, markets) in which the whole intervention is embedded. 

Building upon these factors, interventions must not be seen as a fixed package composed of the three principles of CA noted above. Rather, these principles should provide guidance, but may be combined, modified and adapted within the context of the good agricultural practices, in order to optimize the CA option in the targeted areas. This approach calls for greater flexibility and creativity during the design of CA interventions. In addition, it requires capacity building for extension services and farmers.

CA is no silver bullet solution, as many speakers at the learning event said, and with the knowledge we have, we are able to black out areas in which CA must not be recommended, or at least be carefully reflected as an option – specifically, areas with high rainfall and heavy clay soils.

CA field of maize-cowpea relay. © TLC/Trent Bunderson

CA field of maize integrated with Faidherbia trees. ©TLC/Trent Bunderson

Immediate and delayed impacts

When adopting CA, farmers immediately perceive a reduction of labour requirements because certain agricultural operations, such as land preparation, are eliminated. This has a potential impact on women's workload, giving them the opportunity to dedicate more time to diversifying their income activities. However, as Claire Bishop (Gender and social inclusion specialist, IFAD) explained, workload and gender issues must be further investigated to understand how labour peaks change and which member of the household will be affected.

The result of soil cover is observed from day one in increased soil moisture and water infiltration, which is crucial in areas of low rainfall. Yet yield impacts are inconsistent among field experiments. Different claims are made on how long a farmer should wait to see yield benefits, from one year to more than ten years, so land tenure issues must be carefully taken into consideration. However, we must define what we are expecting from CA: increased yields or stable yields? Evidence shows that in dry spells CA can deliver a yield, unlike conventional agriculture, which can experience an entire seasonal failure.

A woman with her children in a CA field©CIMMYT/ Christian Thierfelder

 

Same field: on the top, runoff and  standing water under conventional ridge tillage; below, excellent infiltration with no sign of runoff or loss of top under CA. ©TLC/ Trent Bunderson

Herbicide and mechanization: Can farmers afford CA?

CA has proved effective in high input systems. However, can smallholder farmers do the same? Yes, but not under the same conditions (e.g. high rate of fertilizer and expensive machinery cannot be proposed to smallholder farmers that farm on 0.1 ha land and live on less than 1 $ per day). Here again, flexibility and adaptability are required for the options proposed to smallholder farmers.  Opportunities for small mechanization in CA systems exist, and depend on the creation of  profitable systems such as a multi-purpose mechanisation (e.g., for transport, shelling operations and water pumping), supported by suited input/output business models. In addition, in the discussion was mentioned that in areas where farmers are already selling their services to others using animal traction, and it becomes easier for them to shift into mechanization business. In sub-Saharan Africa, CA systems are easier and more profitable when herbicide is used. However, unless this is provided or subsidized, farmers often cannot afford herbicide, and weed incidence increases, requiring more labour. In these cases, alternative affordable options should be considered for farmers.

Locally made tool-bar-based seeder. ©CIMMYT/ Fred Baudron

Spraying herbicide on a CA plot to control weeds. ©TLC/ Trent Bunderson

Learn from experience

The event aimed at drawing lessons from field experiences in order to address IFAD's next steps in  implementing CA. The points raised over the two days helped to clarify the path towards which IFAD should continue and key issues to keep in mind for CA interventions.

When it comes to CA, many factors will influence its adoption, and those factors are all interlinked. Field evidence has proven the impact of CA, but adaptive and participatory research is required. CA options proposed to farmers need to prove their feasibility, viability and profitability, besides minimising farmers' risk and assisting their adoption. For sure, IFAD must learn from the past in order to implement more carefully targeted interventions, which have higher adoptability potential. In addition, the scaling-up process needs to be facilitated by institutions and policies aligned towards the same objective, together with high-quality extension services and functioning markets.

Written by: Khalida Bouzar, Director of the Near East, North Africa and Europe Division - IFAD

©IFAD

Partnership is crucial to the way we work, here at the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). To see this, one need look no further than IFAD’s founding at the World Food Conference in 1974. Troubled by the great droughts and famines that had struck Africa and Asia, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), other developing countries, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) decided to create an institution that would tackle poverty and hunger in non-oil developing countries. Pooling resources from OPEC and OECD countries, this institution would work to counter poverty and hunger through investment in agricultural and rural development. Out of this partnership, IFAD was born.

Since then, an increasing number of developing and transition countries have been experiencing both rising levels of prosperity and economic opportunity. As a result, co-operations between the countries of the so-called South (South-South cooperation) have emerged as a complement to the traditional North-South cooperation. Between 2005 and 2012, GDP growth rate strengthened on average to 6.1% annually in developing countries as compared to 1.2% in developed countries. International finance and trade flows, which have historically been tilted toward developed countries, are steadily rebalancing in favor of the Global South. According to the UNCTAD 2014 World Investment Report, gross flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to developing countries reached US$ 778 billion in 2013 (or 54% of the total), exceeding FDI to developed economies.

Today, we find ourselves at another historical crossroads, as we look toward the launch of the post-2015 development agenda. Improved food security in the Arab world is definitely high on this agenda, and regional cooperation will be essential to our collective success.

Despite their diversity, the countries of the Near East and North Africa region share many similar development challenges. These include: water scarcity, natural resource management, food and nutrition security, gender disparities and high youth unemployment. Reaching rates of 28 per cent in the Near East and 29.5 per cent in North Africa, youth unemployment in these regions is the highest in the world.

The Arab region is also characterized by its dependence on food imports. Coordinated investment in rural areas is also essential, as a reduced dependence on food imports can only be achieved by strengthening regional cooperation. The issue of rural poverty is at the core of IFAD’s mission. Globally, awareness is growing that rural and urban areas are interdependent: Rural farmers feed cities, and cities provide markets, money, and services. But it is a tragic irony that many of the people who grow the food that feeds the cities go hungry themselves. Indeed, although the rural areas of developing countries provide four-fifths of the food consumed in urban centers, these same rural areas are home to three quarters of the world’s hungriest and poorest people.

Unless the development community directs its attention – and investment - to rural areas, overall sustainable development cannot be fully achieved.

Another particular challenge faced by the Arab region is that it is one of the most under-researched regions in the field of economics from 1985-2005. Access to data is difficult, which makes evidence-based decision-making challenging. A lack of data also limits the monitoring and evaluation of projects.

Here, too, we believe that partnership is part of the solution: Greater regional cooperation will enhance institutional effectiveness and impact on the ground, including intergovernmental processes at both regional and global levels.

For this reason, the Arab Spatial knowledge platform emerged as part of the IFAD-IFPRI partnership to promote open-access data and M&E tools for the Arab World. With over 150 socio-economic and biophysical indicators, the platform allows users to download, map and chart layers of these indicators for research, policy analysis, and general information.

In the Arab Region, we need to expand and scale up our efforts to build stronger partnerships in order to better the lives of all. With this newly launched Arab Food and Nutrition Security blog, it is my hope that IFAD will contribute to yet another valuable means to make our interventions on the ground more impactful in our pursuit of development effectiveness and poverty reduction.

By: Perrihan Al-Riffai, Sr. Research Analyst – IFPRI and Nerina Muzurovic, Knowledge Management Officer - IFAD

©FAO/Alessia Pierdomenico

In a well-attended side event titled: Building Resilience to Crises in the Arab World at the 41st meeting of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome, October 17th, 2014, IFPRI in collaboration with its development partners, CGIAR’s Policies, Institutions and Markets Research Program, FAO’s Regional office for the Near East, IFAD/NEN and UN-ESCWA presented the results of recent studies on food security in the Arab Region and launched the Arab Food and Nutrition Security Blog.

In the Arab World, food insecurity is not only a consequence of conflict, it is also a major cause of civil conflict, more so in Arab countries than in the rest of the world. Recent events such as the food price riots in 2007-08 and the Arab uprisings in 2010-11 seem to confirm the role of food insecurity as a catalyst to political instability and civil conflict. In short, emphasized Mohamed AwDahir, the regional food systems economist at FAO’s Near East Region, “peace is fundamental to food security, and food security is fundamental for keeping peace.”

Policies, programs, and projects that build resilience and improve food and nutrition security are likely to also reduce conflict was one of the key messages Olivier Ecker, research fellow at IFPRI, had during the session. Resilience-building policies and programs should focus on increasing the opportunity costs of conflict participation (through e.g. rural development, employment and income generation, social safety nets, human capital formation) and programs and projects that adopt a participatory, demand-driven approach and support social inclusion and cohesion (e.g. IFAD’s projects in Dhamar and Al-Dahla, Yemen) tend to be more successful in building resilience for food and nutrition security and conflict prevention.

Improving policies and interventions will require more and better information, as well as monitoring and evaluation, highlighted Khalida Bouzar, IFAD’s Director of the Near East, North Africa and Europe Division who also chaired the side event. Data availability as well as access to existing data across the Arab World is difficult leading to a limited scope for improving evidence-based decision making as well as the monitoring and evaluation of projects.

Regional interagency collaboration is emerging as a powerful mechanism to enhance institutional effectiveness and impact on the ground, including intergovernmental processes at regional and global levels. In order to improve the knowledge base for the Arab World, IFPRI, under the leadership of Clemens Breisinger, senior research fellow at IFPRI, in collaboration with development partners, IFAD, UN-ESCWA and CGIAR-PIM, helped build a knowledge platform for the Arab World known as Arab Spatial. “Arab Spatial, is the first open access interactive atlas and data repository for the Arab World”, explained Perrihan Al-Riffai, senior research analyst at IFPRI. The Arab Food and Nutrition Security Blog, co-financed by the IFAD grant on “Decreasing Vulnerability to Conflict in MENA through Rural Development” and chaired by Nadim Khouri, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN-ESCWA aims to further inform the food and nutrition security debate through expert opinions and provide a platform to address them across the Arab World.

More regional collaboration is needed for the Arab World to build its resilience to crises. Emerging challenges, include; addressing conflicts and their regional spillover effects, trade policies, transportation and infrastructure, water and energy, research and development, and sustainable flows of direct foreign investment need to be addressed at the regional level. “Building resilience means helping people, communities, countries, and global institutions prevent, anticipate, prepare for, cope with, and recover from shocks and not only bounce back to where they were before the shocks occurred, but become even better-off.”