Climate Conversations - Green value chains transform vulnerable farmers into entrepreneurs

By Naoufel Telahigue and Rami Abu Salman

Organic cocoa farmers in Sao Tome and Principe have benefited from
an IFAD scheme linking them with overseas buyers. PHOTO/IFAD

Next month, we will all gather again in Rio de Janeiro to work out what went wrong 20 years ago and consider solutions that we have dismissed.

Children who were 12 years old during the first Rio summit, in 1992, might now be quickly approaching the end of their life expectancy in some countries. But what if smallholder farmers had been at the centre of the debate 20 years ago?

At the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) – the United Nations’ agency focused on rural development – we believe there can be no green economy without “green” agriculture.

Agriculture is a key economic and development sector in all countries across the globe, recognised by world leaders for boosting gross domestic product (GDP). If done sustainably, agriculture can provide a significant opportunity for the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty to improve their lives, and cater to the food security needs of the world’s more than 925 million malnourished people.

In addition, climate-smart and simple technologies can help poor smallholder farmers to build their resilience and mitigate risks associated with climate change.

IFAD and its partners have been working to ensure that innovation and investment in agriculture -  and more importantly in the world’s 500 million small farms - lead to long-term sustainability.

Organic fair-trade Cocoa
In Sao Tome and Principe, for example, IFAD has helped turn around the dying smallholder cocoa sector after the collapse of world market prices in the late 1990s.

By setting up public-private partnerships with overseas buyers of organic fair-trade cocoa of high quality, the project helped small farmers establish export cooperatives and achieve stable and significantly improved incomes.

Smallholder families participating in the programme have seen their yearly income increase, on average, from a level 25 percent below the poverty line to 8 percent above it. One particularly successful producer used the profit from organic cocoa production to set up a small roadside shop that his wife runs, generating even greater profit.

This initiative was coupled with organising small farmer groups and training them in organic and conservation agriculture, solar drying, integrated pest management and other environmentally sustainable practices.

Growth potential
Smallholder farmers have untapped growth potential. The message IFAD will take to the upcoming conference in Rio is that we must explore this potential by transforming smallholder farmers into empowered business women and men.

This transformation requires adopting new approaches that are competitive, sustainable, sufficiently diversified and within the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems. By helping smallholders in integrating and developing “green value chains”, we offer them an opportunity to sustainably harvest not only food, but also economic, social and environmental benefits.

For instance, a new initiative in Sierra Leone is aiming to develop markets for high-quality organic, fair-trade cocoa. The project will rehabilitate a cocoa plantation abandoned during the war.

Prices for good-quality certified cocoa are less susceptible to market fluctuations, and this encourages further investment and assures sustainability. In addition to the extra income provided by intercropped plants, cocoa agroforestry systems will support greater biodiversity and avoid land degradation and erosion caused by slash-and-burn farming.

Smallholder farmers have immense potential to contribute to a green economy and to sustainable growth in general. To do that successfully, they need enabling environments and support such as improved access to land, water and markets, financial services, adequate technologies and technical assistance.

In this respect, promoting the role of women and youth as farm entrepreneurs is particularly crucial. We have the means, we have the knowledge, and now we need the collective will. If we don’t act now, we risk going back in another 20 years to acknowledge the failure of choices.

Originally posted on AlertNet blog

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Naoufel Telahigue and Rami Abu Salman are Regional Environment and Climate Specialists at the IFAD. IFAD is co-organising Agriculture and Rural Development Day on June 18 ahead of the Rio+20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Rural Perspectives - Dare to Dream

Territorial development, inequality and new green initiatives
By Josefina Stubbs
On a recent mission to Mexico in which we launched a wonderfully detailed and incisive report by the RIMISP – Latin American Center for Rural Development on inequality and territorial gaps across the region, I was talking with a Senator from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, Heladio Ramírez López, about our dreams, responsibilities – and yes even our deficiencies – when it comes to rural empowerment, social inclusion, targeting and policy dialogue.

“IFAD allows us to dream,” the senator told me.

I couldn’t agree with him more. But, while we need to dare to dream, we also need to dare to innovate, target and drive territorial development approaches that reach the poorest sectors of Latin America, and drive new policies and initiatives that will ensure continued, responsible and sustainable rural poverty reduction across the region well into the 21st century.

While we’ve taken important steps in reducing poverty in Latin America, surprising – and at times astounding – territorial gaps remain. To begin with, Latin America still has the highest inequality in the world. And within large middle-income countries like Brazil and Mexico, you’ll see socio-economic gaps that are as pronounced as those that exist between the richest and poorest countries in the world.

In Mexico for instance, nearly 60 per cent of the nation’s extreme poverty is concentrated in rural areas, according to the new “Poverty and Inequality 2011: Latin America Report,” and the rural illiteracy rate is 15.6 per cent, while it’s only 4.3 per cent in urban areas. Latin America’s poorest rural territories also have limited access to healthcare. The report – made possible through funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Development Research Centre - Canada (IDRC) – highlights the causes of extreme inequality, territorial achievement gaps and lack of opportunities in Latin America’s rural sector, analysing socio-economic indicators in health, education, economic dynamism and employment, income and poverty, citizen security, and gender equality from 10 Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru.

The dream for dialogue
One of the first steps in “dreaming this impossible dream” is to look toward policy dialogue as a catalyst for change. In Latin America, IFAD is actively funding policy dialogue platforms to ensure farmers, politicians, intellectuals and business leaders are given the forums and tools to engage, debate and advance smart policies that will benefit poor rural people.

Looking at the data from Mexico, I see that despite strenuous efforts poverty and inequality in rural Mexico have increased. Just look at Mexico’s ten richest municipalities, where the average per capita earnings are around US$32,000. Head to the poorest municipalities, and you will see earnings of just US$603 per year.

One of the first steps in counteracting this phenomenon is to support policy dialogue platforms. The ‘Knowledge for Change’ Rural Dialogue Groups are bringing key stakeholders together to discuss rural development issues and push them to the top of national agendas. The Rural Dialogue Groups program is working in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Mexico, and is starting to yield results. One need only look at the pro-active dialogue we had recently in the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where leading academics and thinkers converged to launch the new publication and discuss new ways forward.

The dream for social inclusion
The lessons we are taking from the data and analysis of the Latin America Report are helping us to form a new generation of projects that seek to remedy the variegated territorial gaps we are seeing in the region. In the case of Mexico, IFAD’s executive board recently approved the US$47.5 million Rural Development Project in the Mixteca Region and the Mazahua Zone. One of the project’s central goals is to improve the quality of life in the target area by strengthening the social inclusion mechanisms for local rural development institutions. An investment in building the capacity of these institutions is not just an investment in the rural people living in this oft-overlooked part of Mexico – projections point to a US$6.30 increase in daily earnings for project participants – it is also an investment in the very social fabric that inter-threads every aspect of rural life in Mexico, working to promote lasting systems, capacities and mechanisms for long-term peace and sustainability.

One thing my 20-plus years in rural development has taught me is that there’s no silver bullet for poverty reduction. And projects need to be scoped, designed and targeted to meet the local context. In Colombia, we are scaling up our work with a new national project recently approved by IFAD’s Executive Board that will invest directly in local capacity building for businesses. The US$70 million “Trust and Opportunity Project” will reach some 160,000 families. “The project looks to improve food security, facilitate access to financial and community services, improve the competitiveness and incomes of small-share producers in the zone, and create mechanisms to include these very producers in the systems of government,” says our Country Program Manager for Colombia, Roberto Haudry.

Further south, the Inclusive Paraguay Project works to create public-private alliances that will facilitate access to specialized technical assistance and markets, create new jobs, and close territorial gaps. Interestingly enough, Paraguay’s economy grew by 14.5 per cent in 2010. Nevertheless, 1.3 million rural Paraguayans are considered poor, of which around 60 per cent are considered extremely poor. As we saw in Mexico, these territorial gaps become more pronounced in indigenous communities, which have a mortality rate three times higher than the national average.

The dream for a greener future
Many of the new projects funded by IFAD in Latin America are looking toward community forestry, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable natural resource management as a mechanism for poverty reduction and rural empowerment. In this edition of Rural Perspectives we examine these mechanisms in-depth.

No matter how you shape it, the future of IFAD funding for Latin America must move toward ever-greener pastures, improved discourse and dialogue, smarter market access and value-chain strengthening, and differentiated territorial approaches that take into account the nuanced differences between territories, societies, economic corridors and local economies.


Saludos, 

Josefina

Read More
Check out the latest articles from the new edition of Rural Perspectives.

Environmental governance and agro-ecological systems in Mexico
Carlos Edgar González Godoy is the Director of the IFAD-funded Sustainable Development Project for Rural and Indigenous Communities of the Semi-Arid North-West of Mexico (PRODESNOS)...
Read more 

Integrated farms, green value chains, environmental governance – The Honduran experience with Victoria Flores Aguilar
How can we create and implement sustainable agricultural systems that benefit the rural poor? How can we strengthen value chains in a sustainable and green manner? How do we define environmental governance, and how can we insert small farmers in environmental payment programs, such as REDD+? In this revealing interview,Victoria Flores Aguilar, Honduran expert on community forestry, REDD+ and agro-ecology, highlights the road ahead, where we are at today, and the challenges and threats facing us along the way.
Read more 




Protecting Mother Earth in Bolivia
In Bolivia's high valleys and Chaco region – a remote corner of the world where reverence and respect for Pachamama (Mother Earth) is an integral part of everyday life – climate change and land degradation are making family farming a very risky business.
Read more 

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Ventana Rural - Atrévase a soñar

Desarrollo territorial, desigualdad y nuevas iniciativas verdes 
Por Josefina Stubbs 
En una misión reciente a México, en la que presentamos un informe maravillosamente detallado y revelador preparado por el Rimisp-Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural acerca de las brechas de desigualdad y territoriales en toda la región, conversé con un Senador del Estado mexicano de Oaxaca, Heladio Ramírez López, acerca de nuestros sueños y responsabilidades (e incluso de nuestras deficiencias) en lo relativo al empoderamiento rural, la inclusión social y la selección y el diálogo de políticas.

“El FIDA nos permite soñar,” me dijo el senador.

No podría estar más de acuerdo con él. Sin embargo, aunque necesitamos atrevernos a soñar, también necesitamos atrevernos a innovar, seleccionar e impulsar abordajes de desarrollo territorial que lleguen a los sectores más pobres de América Latina y a promover nuevas políticas e iniciativas que aseguren la reducción de la pobreza rural de forma continua, responsable y sustentable en toda la región hasta bien entrado el siglo 21.

Aunque hemos dado pasos importantes en la reducción de la pobreza en América Latina es sorprendente (y a veces pasmoso) que las brechas territoriales permanecen. Para comenzar, América Latina todavía tiene la tasa de desigualdad más alta en el mundo. Y con países con economías de grandes y medianos ingresos como Brasil y México, las brechas socio-económicas serán tan pronunciadas como las que existen entre los países más ricos y más pobres del mundo.

Por ejemplo en México, casi 60 por ciento de la pobreza extrema en la nación está concentrada en áreas rurales, según el reciente informe “Pobreza y Desigualdad: Informe Latinoamericano 2011”, y la tasa de analfabetismo es de 15.6 por ciento, mientras que en áreas urbanas la tasa es de solo 4.3 por ciento. Los territorios más pobres en América Latina también tienen acceso limitado al cuidado de la salud.

El informe —hecho posible por la financiación del FIDA y del Centro de Desarrollo–Canadá (IDRC, por sus siglas en inglés)— destaca las causas de la extrema desigualdad, brechas de logros territoriales y la falta de oportunidades en el sector rural de América Latina. Analiza los indicadores socioeconómicos de salud, educación, dinamismo económico y empleo, ingresos y pobreza, seguridad ciudadana e igualdad de género en 10 países latinoamericanos que incluyen a Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Nicaragua y Perú. 

El sueño del diálogo 
Uno de los primeros pasos al “soñar este sueño imposible” es recurrir al diálogo de políticas como catalizador del cambio. En América Latina, el FIDA financia activamente las plataformas de diálogo de políticas para asegurar que los agricultores, políticos, intelectuales y líderes de negocios cuenten con foros y herramientas para participar, debatir y hacer avanzar políticas inteligentes que beneficien a los pobres rurales.

Al ver los datos de México es evidente que a pesar de los esfuerzos intensos, la pobreza y la desigualdad rural en México han incrementado. Tan solo vea las diez municipalidades más adineradas de México, en donde las ganancias promedio per cápita están en los alrededores de USD32,000 dólares estadounidenses. Si ve a las municipalidades más pobres, verá que las ganancias son de apenas USD603 al año.

Uno de los primeros pasos para contrarrestar este fenómeno es apoyar las plataformas de diálogo de políticas. Los Grupos de Diálogo Rural ‘Conocimiento y Cambio’ reúnen a las partes interesadas para discutir temas de desarrollo rural y llevarlos hasta que figuren en los primeros lugares de las agendas nacionales. El programa de los Grupos de Diálogo Rural funciona en Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador y México, y ya está comenzando a producir resultados. Basta con ver el diálogo proactivo sostenido recientemente en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, en donde académicos y pensadores convergieron para lanzar la nueva publicación y discutir los caminos a seguir.

El sueño de la inclusión social 
Las lecciones que tomamos de los datos y análisis del Informe Latinoamericano nos ayudan a formar una nueva generación de proyectos que procuran remediar las abigarradas brechas territoriales que vemos en la región. En el caso de México, la junta ejecutiva del FIDA aprobó recientemente USD47.5 millones para el Proyecto de Desarrollo Rural en la Región Mixteca y la Zona Mazahua.

Una de las metas centrales del proyecto es mejorar la calidad de vida en el área seleccionada al fortalecer los mecanismos de inclusión social para las instituciones de desarrollo locales rurales. La inversión para fortalecer las capacidades de estas instituciones no es solamente una inversión en las personas rurales que viven en esta parte frecuentemente olvidada de México —las proyecciones indican un incremento de utilidades de hasta USD6.30 diarios para los participantes en el proyecto— es también una inversión en el tejido social mismo que entreteje cada aspecto da la vida rural en México y que trabaja para promover sistemas, capacidades y mecanismos duraderos para la paz y sustentabilidad a largo plazo.

Algo que me han enseñado mis 20 y tantos años en el desarrollo rural es que no hay una bala de plata para la reducción de la pobreza. Los proyectos deben definir su alcance, diseño y objetivo para adaptarse al contexto local. En Colombia, estamos ampliando nuestro trabajo con un nuevo proyecto nacional aprobado recientemente por la Junta Ejecutiva del FIDA que invertirá directamente en el fortalecimiento de capacidades locales para negocios. Los USD70 millones del “Proyecto Confianza y Oportunidad en Colombia” llegarán a unas 160,000 familias. “El proyecto busca mejorar la seguridad alimentaria, facilitar el acceso a servicios financieros y comunitarios, mejorar la competitividad e ingresos de productores de pequeña escala en la zona y crear mecanismos que incluyan a estos mismos productores en los sistemas de gobierno,” dice nuestro Gerente de Programa de País en Colombia, Roberto Haudry.

Más hacia el sur, el Proyecto Paraguay Inclusivo trabaja para crear alianzas público-privadas que faciliten el acceso a la asistencia técnica especializada y mercados, creen nuevos empleos y cierren las brechas territoriales. Resulta interesante que la economía en Paraguay creció 14.5 por ciento en 2010. Sin embargo, 1.3 millones de paraguayos rurales son considerados pobres, de los cuales 60 por ciento son considerados extremadamente pobres. Como vimos en México, estas brechas territoriales se hacen más pronunciadas en las comunidades indígenas, que tienen tasas de mortalidad tres veces más altas que el promedio nacional.

El sueño de un futuro más verde 
Muchos proyectos nuevos financiados por el FIDA en América Latina tienen la mirada en bosques comunitarios, mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático y la gestión de recursos naturales sustentables como mecanismos de reducción de pobreza y empoderamiento rural. En esta edición de Ventana Rural examinaremos estos mecanismos a profundidad.

 Sin importar cómo lo quiera ver, el futuro de las financiaciones del FIDA para América Latina deben avanzar hacia pastos más verdes y ecológicos, discurso y diálogo mejorado, acceso mejorado al mercado y fortalecimiento de la cadena de valor, y los enfoques territoriales matizados que consideran sutiles diferencias entre territorios, sociedades, corredores económicos y economías locales.

Saludos, 
Josefina 

Boletín Ventana Rural   

Gobernanza ambiental y sistemas agroecológicos en México

Carlos Edgar González Godoy es el director del Proyecto de Desarrollo Sustentable para las Comunidades Rurales e Indígenas del Noroeste Semiárido en Mexico (un proyecto apoyado por el FIDA)
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Fincas integrales, eslabones verdes, gobernanzas ambientales – La experiencia de Honduras con Victoria Flores Aguilar
¿Cómo podemos crear e implementar técnicas agrícolas sostenibles que beneficien a la gente pobre rural? ¿Cómo podemos fortalecer las cadenas de valor en una forma sostenible y verde? ¿Cómo definimos la gobernanza ambiental, y cómo insertar a los pequeños campesinos en programas de pagos ambientales, como REDD+? En esta entrevista relevadora, Victoria Flores Aguilar, experta hondureña en la forestaría comunitaria, REDD+ y temas agro-ecológicos, resalta cómo avanzar, dónde estamos y cuáles serán los retos y desafíos en el camino. Leer más

Protección para la Madre Tierra en Bolivia

En Valle Alto y la región del Chaco de Bolivia –un área remota del mundo en donde la reverencia y el respeto hacia Pachamama (Madre Tierra) es una parte integral de la vida diaria – el cambio climático y la degradación de la tierra están convirtiendo...
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Próximos eventos 
• 21 de mayo de 2012. Sintonice la transmisión web interactivo de nuestro seminario acerca de ‘Desarrollo rural en América Latina: Preguntas, perspectivas y desafíos’ 

• Mapas interactivos, gráficas, datasets y más del informe latinoamericano están disponibles en www.informelatinoamericano.org. 


¡Compártalo!

Pastoralisme durable au #Maroc

par Ilaria Firmian

La semaine dernière, j’ai accompagné sur le terrain une visite du Trésor américain au Nord Est du Maroc, qui dans le cadre d’une mission plus vaste voulait aussi voir un exemple opérationnel d’un projet du Fonds de l’Environnement Mondial. Je ne connaissais le Projet de Lutte Participative contre la Désertification et la Réduction de la Pauvreté dans les Hauts Plateaux de l’Oriental que par quelques lectures. J’ai découvert une réalité incroyablement riche en termes d’expériences positives et innovantes.

La visite de terrain a commencé par un déjeuner généreusement offert par nos hôtes à Ain Beni Mathar. Parmi les nombreux mets qui nous furent généreusement offerts, un mouton rôti entier nous a été servi !

Ce mouton symbolise à lui seul l’ histoire des Hauts Plateaux de l’Oriental!

Cette race ovine locale, le Beni Guil, est certifiée IGP («indication géographique protégée»). Le goût particulier de sa viande provient des qualités génétiques de la race mais aussi de l’herbe qui le nourrit, l’Artemisia herba-alba. Cela rends cette race très prisée dans le pays et lui donne une haute valeur marchande. Malheureusement, l’écosystème qui abrite le Beni Guil est de plus en plus en danger.

Les écosystèmes arides et semi arides des Hauts Plateaux de l’Oriental au Maroc subissent une dégradation profonde due au changement climatique (cette année est la troisième année consécutive de sècheresse et 50% de la production céréalière est déjà perdue) et aux mauvaises pratiques de gestion des terres et du cheptel.

Le projet intervient prioritairement dans la gestion durable des terres (GDT) et la gestion intégrée des ressources en eau soit à un niveau politique, en intégrant ces thématiques dans les principaux programmes et initiatives de développement local, soit directement sur le terrain par la construction de micro barrages pour approvisionner les animaux en eau, par la mise en repos des pâturages et par la fixation de dunes.

Ce projet FEM a été conçu en étroite collaboration avec la phase 1 du Projet de Développement des Parcours et de l’élevage dans l’Oriental, soutenu par le FIDA. Ce projet a constitué une base solide pour une intervention consistante sur financement du FEM, et a fourni un cadre institutionnel solide. De plus, il a permis la promotion d’actions innovantes, en particulier la création de coopératives (associations de gestion des pâturages) impliquées dans la totalité des activités du projet, facilitant un haut degré de participation et d’appropriation par les communautés rurales. Une simple visite sur le projet montre le rôle central joué par les éleveurs dans la vie du projet.

Des approches particulièrement innovantes en termes de GDT sont aussi testées, comme par exemple l’utilisation de la charrue Vallerani (un brevet italien) qui permet de créer dans le sol un système de micro-bassins et de sacs enterrés pour recueillir l'eau de pluie et des éléments fertilisants. Ceci favorise la restauration des pâturages dégradés grâce à une meilleure germination et croissance des plantes endogènes mais aussi par la transplantation d'espèces nouvelles préparées en pépinières.

Une autre innovation est l’utilisation dans le processus d’afforestation du produit Zander, un produit biologique provenant de sédiments lacustres, qui contient un éventail de nutriments et hormones de croissance des plantes naturelles stimulant l ’enracinement des plantes et réduisant significativement les besoins en eau.

Le projet a financé aussi l’achat de stations agro-météorologiques automatiques, qui collectent les données nécessaires pour mettre en place un système d’alerte précoce à la sécheresse.

Enfin, pour diminuer la pression sur la terre, le projet promeut des activités génératrices de revenus dont bénéficient principalment les femmes, y compris des circuits d’écotourisme qui suivent le mode de vie des pasteurs nomades.

Ainsi on verra bientôt des touristes parcourir les plateaux, dormir sous la tente, garder des moutons et manger leur délicieuse viande rôtie! et la boucle sera bouclée!

Protecting Mother Earth in Bolivia

New generation PROMARENA development project looks to environmental stewardship as a mechanism for poverty reduction and peace

In Bolivia’s high valleys and Chaco region – a remote corner of the world where reverence and respect for Pachamama (Mother Earth) is an integral part of everyday life – climate change and land degradation are making family farming a very risky business.

In order to help poor farmers adapt to these changing conditions (and show their respect to Pachamama as they have done for centuries) the Natural Resource Management Project of the Chaco and High Valleys (better known by its Spanish acronym PROMARENA) is looking toward age-old practices of terrace farming and good old-fashioned competition as a mechanism for eco-friendly development and sustainable poverty reduction.

The eight-year US$ 15 million PROMARENA Project closed late last year after improving the lives and livelihoods of nearly 20,000 poor rural families.

“The environmental achievements of the project are quite impressive. Through the competitive resource allocation model, where project participants compete for project funding in public contests, the PROMARENA project helped to plant over 8 million trees and  construct 803,012 ha of new terraces that reduce erosion and contribute to minimize the effects of desertification,” says Francisco Pichón, Bolivia Country Programme Manager for the International Fund for Agricultural Organization (IFAD). IFAD contributed US$12 million to the PROMARENA project.  

How does the contest model work?
The contest model is being used across Latin America to ensure sustainability and build community-based, demand-driven support for rural poverty projects.

“The public contests (concursos) work by identifying a problem within a family. The family identifies a problem. They tell us that they want to improve their house, the ceiling is about to fall down, there aren’t enough rooms, they need a bathroom. The project looks at these needs through the contests and transfers the money to the families,” says the National Coordinator of the PROMARENA Program, Omar Tejerina. “Motivated by the economic resources, the families begin to work with local resources and with everybody in the family.”

Efraín Condori Quispe is a peach farmer that benefited from PROMARENA’s public contests. With a group of other farmers he competed for a grant to build a small dam and irrigation canals for his orchards. Quispe and crew won first prize with their three-dimensional “Talking Map” that mapped out how the community managed their natural resources in the past and how they planned to improve their management in the future. With technical assistance from PROMARENA, Quispe also added terraces to his farm to reduce erosion and improved the quality of his production by using organic fertilizer.

“Everything we had laid out with our talking map we’ve accomplished. We drew with our hands the past, present and future, and we’ve achieved these goals,” Quispe says.

During the project’s cycle, nearly 2.5 million ha of land were converted to organic, family-based vegetable gardens, new rainwater tanks (with the capacity to store over 1,150,000 m3 of water) were constructed, and around 1 million llamas and alpacas benefitted from better zoologically-based sanitary measures and care.

One of the most notable push-on effects from PROMARENA’s environmental work has been the raise in land prices across the region and improved earnings for area farmers. Land prices for project participants have increased ten-fold over the past eight years. “They started with nothing,” says Tejerina. “At the beginning of the project, a family with one hectare of peaches made US$100 to US$150 a year, now these families are making US$15,000 per year per hectare.”

With his improved income and asset base – at the beginning of the project Quispe’s land was valued at around US$200, now it’s worth around US$11,000 – Quispe is hoping to create a micro-business with his children that are currently attending university to become agricultural and industrial engineers. 

“I won’t sell our land. It’s ours, and it’s not something that’s for sale because each day we learn more about how to management it, how to conserve,” says Quispe.

Addressing food security
Throughout the region the changing climate patterns, desertification and divers environmental risks are putting productivity levels at risk and affecting food security. In order to address this challenge, the project worked with various other international and national programmes to improve food security and increase productive yields in a sustainable manner.

“PROMARENA helped renovate over 4000 kitchens in the project area, improving substantially the living and working conditions of women, youth and children. And through the concurso (public competition) methodology, the project carried out 4800 concursos with almost 40,000 participants, transferring over US$4.5 million to project participants,” says IFAD’s Pichón. “The project also financed around 950 livestock, agriculture, handicraft and rural services business proposals with around US$2.4 million in investments, which generated around US$10 million in income for small producers.”

But the job is far from done. There are still high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition across the region and the natural ecosystems remain at risk. With this in mind, the Bolivian government recently signed a new loan agreement with IFAD for the US$15.2 million Plan Vida-Peep Pilot Project to Strengthen the Capacity of Communities and Families Living in Extreme Poverty, a three-year program that will be implemented by the same agency behind PROMARENA.

More than 53 per cent of project funding will work to improve natural resource management and production systems, 16 per cent will go to community initiatives and 11 per cent is dedicated for strengthening productive infrastructure.

PROMARENA’s Tejerina sees these types of environmentally oriented rural development projects as a mechanism for peace.

“I understand that many of our problems come principally from lack of basic necessities and the lack of food. With this in mind, as a project, I believe that we contribute to peace,” says Tejerina. “And the best way to contribute to peace is to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to have enough to eat and to have access to citizens’ rights.”

Originally published in The New Agriculturalist. 

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Ing. Omar Gustavo Gustavo Tejerina es el Coordinador Nacional del Proyecto de Manejo de Recursos Naturales en el Chaco y Valles Altos de Bolivia (PROMARENA). En esta entrevista Tejerina destaca las lecciones aprendidas del proyecto. PROMARENA cerró este año después de contribuir a mejorar la calidad de vida de 19,985 familias pobres rurales. Los resultados del PROMARENA superaron las metas esperadas. El número de familias beneficiarias del proyecto fue superado por más de 130 por ciento, llegándose a trabajar directamente con 1269 comunidades rurales en 53 municipalidades en los departamentos de Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, La Paz, Santa Cruz y Tarija. Con la intervención del proyecto, el valor de las tierras de los campesinos participantes se incrementó gracias a las mejoras aportadas por ellos mismos y, por medio del mejoramiento de las técnicas agroecológicas, los ingresos para muchos usuarios del proyecto se elevaron del 40 a 60 por ciento.



En este testimonio Efraín Condori Quispe explica como su familia han beneficiado de los concursos del Proyecto de Manejo de Recursos Naturales en el Chaco y Valles Altos de Bolivia (PROMARENA). A través de concursos públicos, el PROMARENA transfirió 7.2 millones de dólares estadounidenses a los participantes del programa. Durante la ejecución del proyecto, se llevaron a cabo unos 4800 concursos, y el proyecto co-financió 951 propuestas de negocios por un monto de 2.1 millones de dólares. Esta metodología fue implementada para asegurar la participación en el proyecto, y para lograr transformar a los campesinos en los protagonistas principales de su propio desarrollo.


En su testimonio director Franklin Contrera Quispe explica como el apoyo del Fondo Internacional de Desarrollo Agricola (FIDA) y el Proyecto de Manejo de Recursos Naturales en el Chaco y Valles Altos de Bolivia (PROMARENA) le apoyó en proteger el medio ambiente y mejorar sus cultivos.

 
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Climate smart agriculture, additionality and business as usual

by Dr. Bruce Campbell, Director, CGIAR Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

In one workshop session at the Bonn SBSTA one participant said “We are doing nothing new”. In the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair, held late last month at IFAD headquarters in Rome, participants in one session felt that “perhaps 80% of climate smart agriculture (CSA) is made up of what we already know how to do and are trying to do”. I realise this refers to the proven technologies and practices that can be called upon in CSA, but we also have to consider “additionality”. “Additionality” is a keyword in climate change negotiations. Additionality can be defined as the extent to which a new input adds to the existing inputs (instead of replacing any of them) and results in a greater aggregate. The word is applied to climate finance – the call for developed countries to provide, “new and additional” climate change financing to developing countries. And it is also a key word applied to mitigation interventions – the interventions must reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to business as usual (or compared to the agreed baseline). Additionality is less frequently applied to adaptation, but even here it has been raised; and it is only time before metrics will be needed to show how climate finance has improved adaptive capacity (e.g., see the chapter on MRV in the Meridian Institute Report on Agriculture and Climate Change) http://www.climate-agriculture.org/~/media/Files/Projects/CCAg%20microsite/Agriculture%20and%20Climate%20Change%20Scoping%20Report%2012%20July%202011.pdf).

So why is “climate-smart agriculture” additional to business as usual? CSA includes the explicit recognition that there are three (or more) outcomes that are sought, two of which are climate-related. There are the business as usual outcomes associated with agricultural development – e.g. production increases, improved agricultural markets, enhanced food security, empowered farmer organisations etc. Then there are the climate change outcomes – enhanced adaptation to climate change, and enhanced contribution of agriculture to climate change mitigation.

And, invariably, when we seek to enhance more than one outcome there will be trade-offs that have to be dealt with. To illustrate some of these – rising temperatures in the Indo-Gangetic plains mean that wheat may need to be planted earlier, but the easy way to do that is to burn the rice residues of the previous crop, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Movement of potato farmers up the Andes to escape the pests and diseases from a warming world will result in the destruction of carbon-rich grasslands. Crop insurance may help deal with crop failures due to extreme events in the short term, but may in the long term be maladaptive – the real solution being more transformative adaptation (changing crop species, out-migration etc). So, CSA is different from business as usual in that the trade-offs amongst production increases, adaptation and mitigation are explicitly recognised and dealt with, both for short and long time scales.

CSA is also not business as usual in terms of the partnerships needed to foster outcomes. The climate science community and meteorological departments need to be more closely involved with the agricultural community – for providing meaningful seasonal, near-term and decadal forecasts of climate which are essential if adaptation to increased variability and progressive climate change is to be successful. Given the predicted increase in frequency and severity of extremes, much more attention has to be given to climate risk management. This also needs better partnerships with the crisis response community and insurance sector. We also have to bring in a completely different group of scientists – those dealing with measuring greenhouse gas emissions.

There are many technologies and practices that are known that can be brought to bear on CSA. But CSA is not business as usual, as there are also many technologies and practices that are not climate-smart! Fertiliser subsidies may enhance food production outcomes but will often result in increased greenhouse gas emissions. Building large irrigation schemes in regions where rivers are likely to dry will do nothing for adaptation over the longer term. Promoting crops and livestock that are increasingly difficult to grow in specific agro-ecological zones is not climate-smart.

Markets in a climate-smart world are likely to be different. Many western diets are poor for human health and the environment. There is increasing recognition that eating habits will need to change. Fat taxes are being introduced. There are campaigns about “carbon footprints”. This trend is likely to intensify. In a climate-smart world, developing countries will need to improve the efficiency of production methods for export products if they are to compete; or may need to shift to alternative products that have less of an environmental impact.

Climate-smart agriculture is likely to be very different in different places. In some regions of the world we have to expect greenhouse gas emissions to increase, given the significant yield gaps that exist. But even here it is not business as usual, as the emissions per unit food produced will likely be lower than under business as usual. In other regions of the world, especially in developed countries, CSA will involve de-intensifying agriculture to reduce the environmental footprint. In some parts of the world, we can expect incremental adaptation as varieties change and as cropping systems are altered. In other parts we can expect transformative adaptation as industries move and transform; as new crops are brought in; as major shifts occur between livestock and crops.

CSA will bring in new policies. This is already the case in some countries. For example, we see “carbon farming initiatives”. NAMAs and NAPAs are widespread and are increasingly giving more attention to agriculture. REDD+ plans are recognising agriculture as a driver of deforestation and we can expect greater attention to the details of how to solve this – involving policies and actions in the forestry and agriculture sectors.

CSA is also about visioning an uncertain future world, and about acting on those visions. While we may know many of the solutions to today's problem’s, we now have to plan for the next decade – with rising temperatures and more extreme events. Seasonal forecasting and long term climate projections are, unfortunately, riddled with uncertainty (though we can expect this situation to improve with further research). Tools are now being put in place that will help development practitioners and service providers to farmers envision a future world. With a click on a site on a map you should be able to get a series of predictions about future climates. With a click on a site you should be able to see places which can be visited to get a glimpse of the likely future climate for your site. Farmer-to-farmer visits can be organised to such analogue places to exchange views on how farming may have to shift.

CSA is also about a new research agenda. There are many new research issues that need urgent attention. We need downscaled climate projections that work for those involved in agriculture. We need much better seasonal forecasting for climate risk management. We need enhanced index-based insurance products. Farmers, extension workers and development planners need the decision support tools to help navigate the trade-offs amongst production goals, adaptation goals and mitigation goals. We need basic information on the costs of different options (to take a case in point, the costs of soil carbon sequestration in Australia range from $10-50/ton CO2. Such lack of precision is having major implications for policy development). And CSA means a new wave of attention to breeding – breeders need to think about what is needed in 10-20 years time, with crop-specific strategies. The implications of climate change on pests and diseases is a major area for research.

CSA is not business as usual. It has many dimensions of additionality. But there are plenty of proven technologies and practices that can be promoted today for a climate-smart world.

#sfrome: Greening the Economy through Agriculture: The FAO message for the Rio +20 Conference in 2012 (20)

Written by Stéphane Jost, Nadejda Loumbeva and Domitille Vallee

FAO gave an overview of the preparation process for the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and its position on greening the world economies to adapt to global and local climatic changes and achieve sustainable development on our planet. FAO’s main message is: “There is no green economy without agriculture”. In the framework of its “Greening the Economy with Agriculture” initiative, FAO analysed the linkages between the four pillars of food security (availability, access, stability and utilization) and the four pillars of sustainable development, i.e., environmental, economic, social and governance. There should be a focus on more sustainable and low foot-print production systems, ecological certification, support to small holders and promotion of sustainable diets, amongst others.

In the second half of the session, the group brainstormed answers to two questions: 1. Is the FAO message complete? How does it resonate with stakeholders? and 2. What opportunities for collaboration are there? The process framework followed was rotating peer assist.

The groups insisted on the importance to think of a green agriculture = sustainable agriculture that would imply:

• diversity - crops, seeds, farming systems etc, building resilience in the system, which goes against the mono-cropping; food systems approaches in a growingly urban economy (from producer to consumer – looking at the entire value chains) : the food processing and marketing are as important as the production ; the food waste issues should be tackled
• global mechanisms of natural resources management - enabling sustainable management of land and water in particular - This implies to increase linkages across multiple players, in particular various ministries (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, environment,...);
• equity : the poorer, and most vulnerable should take part in problem-solutions at their levels;
• working at various scales: countries are different and there is no blanket agriculture solution - urban, industrial and rural economies need different approaches
• insisting on education as an important way to promote changes in consumption habits and behaviours related for instance to waste management.
• local authority have an important role to play, for instance through procurement policies - which do not imply new rules or legislations - (example of provision of organic products for school feeding in Italy);
• several opportunities can be used to promote this message on the importance of agriculture for the green economy, as for instance the Farmers' Forum to be organised by IFAD in early 2012.

#sfrome: Living an environmental sustainable life: Replacing plastic and PET bottles for cotton bags (77)

Written by Rima Alcadi

Armine Tukhikyan, from the Urban Foundation for Sustainable Development (UFSD), tells us that Armenia is a very beautiful country – in terms of its natural, cultural and historical heritage. However, the country has a big problem and it’s that it is littered with plastic bags. She tells us of two projects that are geared towards addressing this major issue.

The first project is about recycling plastic bottles. The separation of plastic from solid household waste is quite recent - not only in Armenia, but also in most of the post – Soviet countries. This issue is especially acute in small towns and rural areas. In Armenia, the UFSD was the first organization to use special bins for collecting plastic bottles. Of course, as pioneers, they had no idea whether people would use these bins or not! So they first piloted the idea in a small town of 20,000 people.

It worked! The municipality and the private sector are also involved in the project, denoting a great example of Public-Private partnership. The plastic bottles are collected by the companies, that turn the plastic bottles into flakes and then sell these flakes to other private sector entities, as secondary material. Currently, the plastic bottles are not sold to the companies collecting them: it is not yet economically remunerative because the volume is not sufficient to cover for the transport. The municipality is being encouraged to buy a machine to flake and press the PET into bales, so that the material can be sold. In addition, it is expected that rural communities will benefit from savings in garbage collection fees. Considering that in Armenia, plastic bottles make up for 31% of the total volume of household waste, these savings could be considerable.

Encouraged by the success of the first project, an ambitious attempt was made to reduce usage of plastic shopping bags. UFSD is promoting the use of reusable shopping bags. They analysed the various possible materials that could be used – they wanted something durable and that also looks good. They came up with 2 different models, sold for Euros 1.5/1.7 depending on the quality of the bag. This bag is currently being sold in a supermarket chain. Following their corporate social responsibility policy, the management of the supermarket chain bought several thousand bags, with a first batch distributed for free to their clients to educate them on the usefulness of the reusable bags. They then started to sell these bags. But the bad news is that ownership of the supermarket chain has recently changed and we are left hoping that the new owners will want to subscribe to this environmentally friendly initiative as well ….

How are these two projects related? Well, they both address the issue of the reducing the use of plastic bags. The first project, whereby plastic bottles are recycled, should reduce the use of plastic bags by 31%, since, as stated above, that is the proportion of household waste that is constituted by the plastic bottle. In the second case, the idea is to eliminate the use of the plastic bag altogether, by replacing it with the reusable shopping bag. These projects reminded me of a mantra all environmentally-conscious consumers should bear in mind: Reduce, reuse and recycle.

UFSD works a lot to educate children as well. They believe it is essential to build environmental awareness at an early age, to ensure a greener future as well as to hold their families accountable for a greener present. They tell children that plastic is made out of oil, which is a non-renewable resource that is not biodegradable and that contaminates our soils and water. They reward schools for adopting environmentally friendly behaviour – they give a medal to schools with the title of “green school” when they recycle, plant trees, reuse shopping bags etc. UFSD also involves the media a lot and they advertise and promote the “green schools” as role models.

For more information, contact Armine Tukhikyan (atukhikyan@aua.am) and visit the UFSD website

Day 6 – Conservation Agriculture: Bearing the Torch from Brazil To Africa

Greetings from Foz do Iguaçu – the town of Iguassu Falls – where we are wrapping up our intense workshop. We began the day with presentations and discussions – including an eye-opener from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA): the cost of environmental degradation in Africa ranges from 4% to 12% of GDP! Enormous.

Day 5 conservation agriculture project breadbasket field workshop in brazil

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Then we visited the Itaipu Dam, the operators of which provide payments to municipalities along the reservoir lake to provide the environmental service of implementing no-till agriculture to reduce siltation at the dam. The dam provides 25% of Brazil’s energy.

So how to adapt and adopt the Brazilian experience to the African reality? AGRA’s Rebbie Harawa called on all workshop participants to be "torchbearers" in their respective countries, to promote and support conservation agriculture practices and reverse the trend of degradation. The teams spent the afternoon and evening working with IAPAR, FEBRAPDP, FEPAGRO and CIRAD coaches preparing ideas to present to the group tomorrow - the last day of the workshop - on how what they have learned and observed can be applied in sub-saharan Africa. We will post all presentations early next week in a wrap up blog.

So that's it from Brazil - but we will be back with another post from IFAD HQ in Rome on Monday.

This blog prepared by Jeff Brez and Waltteri Katajamaki.

Day 4 – Conservation Agriculture Needs an Enabling Environment

After a dinner reception hosted by the mayor of the municipality of Pato Branco on Tuesday evening, the workshop resumed Wednesday morning slightly later than usual. We travelled to Coronel Vivida to learn about microcredit opportunities for smallholder farmers in the state of Paraná, after which we had a chance to visit an idyllic and successful organic family farm outside the town (fish pond surrounded by indigenous fruit trees, pasture up the hill and beyhond that sugar cane).

(The below ppt was delivered on Day 3, and has great background on conservation agriculture and cover crops)

Day 3 conservation agriculture field workshop project breadbasket calegari, iapar, july 12, 2011

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development

Thirteen years ago Adir Lino (at left) completed his farm's transition into organic production. He chose organic farming because he could not make ends meet with conventional (chemical / input intensive) farming of soybeans and noticed negative health effects on his family. Today his farm has high levels of diversity, and all of the production is integrated into one system (the meat and honey production is not fully organic). This, Adir says, has been the key for success. For the Paraná region the farm is relatively small – a total of 17 hectares, half of which is under cultivation while the other half is kept as a reserve forest (more than the federally mandated 20%).

The farm uses only family labour, with Adir, his wife and his parents working together . And it sounds like there might be quite a bit of work to do with all the different products of the farm: sugar cane, corn, beans, rice, fruits integrated in the agroforestry system, cassava, vegetables, honey, fish, poultry, dairy… You name it! Where possible, the production is organic, and minimum tillage and cover crops such as black oat, ryegrass and radish are used. In addition, agroprocessing is being done at the farm to further add value to the products, which are then sold to Brazil’s school feeding programme, in regional markets, and to customers directly at the farm.

Today, Adir’s family farm is a shining example of what can be achieved through using diversified and integrated farming systems. As workshop participant August Basson, from Lesotho, put it, Adir’s farm is something of a paradise. The question remains as to how these practices can be adapted to the realities of African smallholder farms.

Parana State has seen incredible yield and productivity increases since 1992 thanks to conservation agriculture, but other things have changed, too.

As Dr. Ricardo Ralisch of EMBRAPA and University of Londrina and Danilo Rheinheimer dos Santos of FEPAGRO (Rio Grande Do Sul) tell it, in the 1980s no-till was increasing for big farmers and mechanized (tractor-powered) farms, but smallholders were not in the picture at scale. During this time the research institutes (EMBRAPA, IAPAR, universities) were learning about conservation agriculture to help farmers become more efficient and smallholders more productive. The turning point for smallholders was the introduction of animal traction tools for conservation agriculture, which IAPAR designed. With financing from Monsanto and Semeato, the first 36 prototype animal traction planters, “gralha azuls,” were produced in 1985. They were provided to the extension agency EMATER, who then worked with smallholder farmers, IAPAR and others to introduce conservation agriculture through countless field demonstrations.

Conservation agriculture helped the struggling smallholders who previously produced only grain or cash crops, to develop integrated crop-livestock systems. Now Parana state is a major producer of dairy products, powered by smallholder production.
In 1992, the conservation agriculture federation FEBRADPDP was founded and the revolution was in motion.

During the 1990’s some government support for small farmer programmes came in the form of loans through PRONAF to cooperative investments for agro-processing and storage systems. Work also continued on improving infrastructure including rural roads for market access.

As incomes steadily grew, smallholder communities became more organized and asked municipal leaders and politicians for stronger support. In the 2000s, government investment in smallholders increased through beefed up credit programmes through PRONAF and the creation of a new Ministry for Agrarian Development, which implemented policies and programmes specifically targeting smallholders. One key policy now regulates market for smallholders and includes a programme of direct buying from small farmers by municipalities – each municipality must purchase at least 30% of food it supplies to schools, welfare programmes and military needs from small farms.

Adir Lino accessed credit from PRONAF to buy his agroprocessing equipment (a 5 year group loan at 1.2%/yr interest) and also sells his produce to the municipality, among others. Clearly, his family's success is the result of organic and conservation agriculture approaches together with a strong enabling environment.

Reporting by Jeff Brez and Waltteri Katajamaki

Day 3 – Conservation Agriculture Success? Institutional Partnerships with research and farmers at the center

Today we visited a thriving smallholder farm as well as IAPAR’s research station in Pato Branco. In the 1970s and 1980s Parana State was losing 100 tonnes of soil per hectare per year - that’s a loss rate of 1 centimetre/ha per year, while it takes nature 400 years to make 1 centimetre per year of soil! (source: IAPAR, Parana State Agricultural Research Institute) Something needed to be done.

So in the early 1970s, soon after Herbert Bratz made his pioneering trip to the USA, IAPAR began research into conservation agriculture methods. What has become crystal clear to the workshop participants, is that integrated institutional partnerships – with farmers themselves and their associations and cooperatives at the center– are necessary for changing mindsets and affecting change. The hard work paid off beginning in the early 1990s when the number of hectares under CA began to skyrocket.


One of the keys to the success of CA in Parana state was a focus on its crop-livestock systems. Not only permanent soil cover, but also more livestock forage was necessary, and IAPAR’s research helped determine which winter crops could best serve as both cover crops and forage for dairy cattle. Before 1992 there was almost no no-till in Parana State, while now, 20 years later, it is almost all no-till. Of course, IAPAR has not achieved this alone – it has worked with the national extension service, EMATER, with EMBRAPA, with municipalities, with SEAB, with FEBRAPDP, often sharing and embedding staff.

Iapar presentation day 3 conservation agriculture virtual field workshop in brazil

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development.

On the bus ride back to town, participants from AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) and Lesotho stressed that demonstrations need to be guided by researchers and extension staff, but also carried out in farmers’ fields, so farmers can see firsthand the comparative advantages, benefits and costs of adopting conservation agriculture. An EMBRAPA participant enthusiastically agreed, saying this was the modus operandi in Parana State and elsewhere in Brazil.

Pictured at left, (Marietha Owenya, SARI, Tanzania) Marc Corbeels (CIRAD) and Waltteri Katajamaki (IFAD).

Day 2 – Reflections from Mauritania, Mozambique and Tanzania + more demos!

In the 1970s and 1980s, Parana State was seeing extreme erosion. When farmers lost their soil, they lost their farms, and began moving to urban areas in large numbers. Conservation Agriculture was a key part of the solution, strongly supported by all levels of government, including Parana State, to stop the desperate migration and increase the productivity of the farms, giving farmers a chance to make a livelihood on their land.

Conservation Agriculture: No plough! Use cover crops (continuous soil cover)! Crop rotation! (No burn! )

Because we didn’t have time to download everything yesterday, we are adding the below demonstration videos and interview videos now in a second posting for Day 2 – and also EMATER’s powerpoint.

No till agriculture in parana state brazil-july 2011 by emater

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development

The interview videos below convey the initial impressions of participants after 2 days of workshop and our visit to the Roik family farm. We ask these questions: 1) What is the current situation of conservation in your country today? 2) What do you feel about what you have seen and learned so far here in Brazil? 3) What do you see as the main challenges for scaling up conservation agriculture in your country?

Interview video - Marietha Owenya, Principal Agriculture Field Officer, Selian Agriculture Research Institute (SARI), TANZANIA – English

Interview video - Magalhaes Miguel, Plant Physiologist, Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique, MOZAMBIQUE - Portugues

Interview video - Mamadou Guye, Secretaire General de l’Association des Usagers du Walo, MAURITANIE - Francais

A note on the knife roller demonstration video we posted in our previous blog: normally the cover crop would be higher. The knife roller “lays down” or “smashes” the cover crop without cutting it, to obtain a slower decomposition and thus retain soil cover for as long as possible, and also to avoid clogging the blade of the Animal Traction Seeder (also featured in our last blog). You can also see a photo of a knife roller in action in a taller cover crop IAPAR’s powerpoint in our Day 3 blog (coming soon!).

As a bonus, we are posting two more demonstration videos – very short – just in case you’ve never seen a “Fitarelli” Manual Jab Seeder or a manual sprayer in action.

Demonstration video: Manual Jab Seeder

Demonstration video: Manual Sprayer

And as an even bigger bonus, we spoke with Ataides Fitarelli (in photo) who joined our workshop. His grandfather Reinaldo invented the first manual jab seeder before traction animals were available. He said, “The jab seeder was much easier to use on the slopes and made the work easier for the smallholder farmers – it helped them to feed themselves. Today, we continue to produce for the smallholder market, the large industries don’t invest in them. We produce about 10,000 jab planters per year and we export our various products – www.fitarelli.com.br – to more than 50 countries.”

Day 2: Conservation Agriculture South-South “Virtual” Field Workshop in Brazil: First Demonstrations

Today we travelled from Curitiba to Irati to learn how Conservation Agriculture has been scaled up by government and communities. EMATER made an excellent presentation in the morning (will post it later, having technical problems now), then in the afternoon the Roik family welcomed us to their 24-hectare conservation agriculture farm, where we saw demonstrations of manual and animal powered tools (see videos below).

Agro-ecological info: Irati is about 900 meters above sea level and is a sub-tropical forested area. It receives approximately 1700 mm of rainfall per year (1000 in summer, 700 in winter). The sedimentary soils are very acidic with high stone content, low declivity and an abundance of steep slopes . Main crops are maize, common beans, tobacco and wheat.

About half an hour’s drive from Irati town centre, in a dramatic green and hilly landscape we arrived at Vittorio Roik’s family farm. The farm is the average size for a family farm in the region, and is completely under CA cultivation. Roik’s son and daughter-in-law work on the steep hills cultivating various crops, while Roik and his wife concentrate on milk production. Today the farm is a model CA farm, used as an example by IAPAR, but ten years ago everything was different.

In 2001 Vittorio was invited to participate in an event organized by EMATER and IAPAR in Ponta Grossa to learn and see what CA can do to yields. He came out of the event impressed, and initially planted half hectare of maize using CA methods. Seeing significant yield increases, the family decided to adopt CA on the entire 24 hectares. This was not an easy decision, as the initial investment on the necessary equipment such as the no-till seeder and knife roller were expensive. But the family together agreed to sell their only cow in order to be able to shift completely to CA.

This brave decision proved to be the right one for the Roik family. They have been able to diversify from original maize and beans to include onions, tomatoes and tobacco, and now they have over twenty heads of cattle that provide over 200 litres of milk every day. While the yields before the shift to CA on the farm averaged 2000 kg/ha, now the farm produces up to 10,000 kg/ha, an impressive improvement in the production levels.

Demonstration Video: Knife Roller

Demonstration Video: Animal Traction Seeder

In addition to the demonstration videos, later today we will introduce three workshop participants from Tanzania (Marietha Owenya - English), Mozambique (Magalhaes Miguel - Portugues) and Mauritania (Mamadou Guye - Francais) who will share their impressions each day.

read Day 1 blog

read Workshop Introduction blog

Day 1: Conservation Agriculture "Virtual"Field Workshop in Brazil

Read Introductory Blog for Workshop

On the morning of the opening day of the workshop the group of around 25 workshop participants gathered in the conference room of a Curitiba hotel. Many had travelled for over 24 hours to reach Curitiba, but soon after breakfast we were up and running with the day’s programme. Much of it concentrated on the background on conservation agriculture (CA), and challenges that African countries are facing in its adoption.

Herbert Bartz (at left), a pioneer conservation agriculture adopter in Brazil in the early 1970's (and now President of the Brazilian CA Federation), told the group how he borrowed money to visit an American farmer in Kentucky to learn about CA, and imported the first no-till planter into Brazil.

In his presentation, Dr. Abednego Kiwia, a soil health programme coordinator of AGRA, stated that a major challenge for smallholder agriculture in Africa today is poor soil fertility and consequent low productivity levels. This, he said, due to numerous reasons, including diverse agro-ecologies and farming systems, limited national R&D capacity, over-reliance on rain-fed agriculture, and inadequate enabling of agricultural policies and investments. The presentations of seven AGRA-projects participating in the workshop further identified problems for African agriculture, including high levels of food insecurity, low farm income, unsustainable use of inorganic fertilizer, and limited or no market access for both inputs and outputs. Nevertheless, several African participants highlighted positive outcomes from initial CA experiences, including increased yields and improved food security and household income.

Researcher Dr. Marc Corbeels from CIRAD provided an analysis of yield trends in controlled rainfed CA experiments (see his ppt below), highlighting that while long term yield increases are observed, in the short term yields decrease on average, indicating a major hurdle for adoption of CA by poor smallholders. In addition, he said, CA brings trade-offs, including competing uses for crop residues that can lead to excessive removal of ground cover, difficulties in keeping grazing cattle off of the field after harvest, and shifting in labor patterns (less labour is needed for tilling, but more labour input is required for weeding). Also, he noted that due to poor functioning of markets farmers have limited access to necessary inputs, including herbicides and no-till equipment. Finally, he stressed that CA is knowledge-intensive and must necessarily be tailored to a large diversity of farmers and agro-ecological conditions.

Corbeels reality check for ca in africda project breadbasket field workshop in brazil 10 07_2011

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Stephen Lyimo from Tanzania emphasised that the adoption of CA required a change in mindsets for smallholders: they need to be shown both the yield and income analysis before changing their strategies. Finally, as Patrick D’Addario from the organizing LaGuardia Foundation noted, while the participants will see plenty of options during the workshop, there is not a recipe to follow, "nothing to copy:" each project must find local solutions for uptake and upscaling of CA.

Stay with us for Day 2. From tomorrow, we will have our first demonstration: weed control through the use of cover crop and the use of the knife roller!!

Don't miss the demonstration video and reactions from our representative voices from Tanzania, Mozambique and Mauritania.