Food security

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August 7, 2012

Implementation of Feed the Future livestock project in Ethiopia: USAID and CNFA

Posted by Diego Valbuena under Ethiopia, Food security, Intensification, News | Tags: , , |
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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded CNFA (a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to stimulating economic growth and improving rural livelihoods by empowering the private sector) a contract to implement the Agricultural Growth Program-Livestock Growth Project (AGP-LGP) over the course of five years.  As part of USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative, AGP-LGP will foster growth, create jobs for rural households, and reduce hunger and malnutrition through increased competitiveness of selected livestock value chains in meat and dairy. The project is a key USAID contribution to the Government of Ethiopia’s Agricultural Growth Program (AGP), whose objective is to increase agricultural productivity and market access for key crop and livestock products in targeted woredas with increased participation of women and youth.

More information from the CNFA website

 

April 26, 2012

ILRI looking for a coordinator for Africa RISING

Posted by Diego Valbuena under Ethiopia, Food security, ICRISAT, IFPRI, ILRI, Innovation Systems, Intensification, IWMI, Job opportunity, Livelihoods
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AFRICA RISING Program (Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation) is part of the Feed the Future Initiative of USAID. This initiative is funding three projects in West Africa, Ethiopian Highlands, and East and Southern Africa. The project in the Ethiopian Highlands is ‘Sustainable intensification of crop-livestock systems to improve food security and farm income diversification in the Ethiopian highlands’, led by ILRI.

ILRI seeks to recruit a Project Coordinator to coordinate and manage the project (about 40% time) and provide scientific input into project implementation (about 60% time). The deadline for applications is the 18th May 2012.

The vacancy description is available from the ILRI website

 

April 2, 2012

Nature discusses fertilizer use and more sustainable ways of food production in Sub-Saharan Africa

Posted by Diego Valbuena under Article, Conservation Agriculture, Food security, Intensification | Tags: , , , , |
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This week Nature discusses about increasing food production in Sub-Saharan Africa by using fertilizer (supported by subsidies) or by implementing more sustainable ways such as conservation agriculture, “fertilizer trees” and legumes. The Editorial concludes that “For now, that has to mean improved access to fertilizers, because the choice between food and famine is an easy one”. Maybe the opportunities are in combining both approaches, depending on the farm/local conditions and socio-economic and biophysical context.

The editorial and article are available from Nature website

 

January 18, 2012

Yield gaps and potential agricultural growth in West and Central Africa: an IFPRI report

Posted by Diego Valbuena under Central Africa, Food security, IFPRI, Intensification, Marketing, West Africa | Tags: , , |
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The authors identify a set of development priorities for agriculture that cut across West and Central Africa at both the country and regional levels to achieve economywide growth goals in the region. To do this we adopt a modeling and analytical framework that involves the integration of spatial analysis to identify yield gaps determining the growth potential of different agricultural activities for areas with similar conditions and an economywide multimarket model to simulate ex ante the economic effects of closing these yield gaps. Results indicate that the greatest agriculture-led growth opportunities in West Africa reside in staple crops (cereals and roots and tubers) and livestock production. Contributing the most to agricultural growth in the Sahel are livestock, rice, coarse grains, and oilseeds (groundnuts); in Coastal countries, staple crops such as cassava, yams, and cereal seems to be relatively more important than other subsectors; and in Central Africa livestock and root crops are the sources of growth with highest potential. Results also point toward an essential range of policies and investments that are needed to stimulate the productivity growth of prioritized activities. These include developing opportunities for regional cooperation on technology adaptation and diffusion, strengthening regional agricultural markets, exploiting opportunities for greater regional cooperation and harmonization, diversifying traditional markets, and enhancing linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural sectors.

The complete report is available from the IFPRI website

 

November 2, 2011

Landscapes for People, Food and Nature: an international initiative for dialogue, learning and action

Posted by Diego Valbuena under Climate Change, Food security, Innovation Systems | Tags: , , , , |
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The Landscapes for People, Food and Nature is an international collaborative initiative that aims to scale up successful strategies that simultaneously improve livelihoods, conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services, and feed the world while helping to address climate change. This integrated approach combines interests across multiple sectors to improve landscape management.

Dialogues of this three year collaborative initiative will start in an international forum in March 6-10th 2012 in Nairobi, Kenya. Co-organizers include Biodiversity International, Conservation International, EcoAgriculture Partners, FAO, Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, UNEP, UNU-IAS and the World Agroforestry Centre.

The complete description of the initiative is available here

 

October 12, 2011

Agricultural biodiversity, smallholder farmers, and adaptive capacity – status of knowledge in the context of resilience and transformations

Posted by Diego Valbuena under Climate Change, Food security, Innovation Systems, Livelihoods | Tags: , , |
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Stockholm Resilience Centre is looking for input, comments and suggestions on the commissioned report by Hivos and Oxfam Novib: “Agricultural biodiversity, smallholder farmers, and adaptive capacity – status of knowledge in the context of resilience and transformations”.

The report aims “to identify knowledge gaps related to biodiversity conserving agricultural production and marketing systems, to reduce risks and improve the livelihoods of rural people living in poverty”. Inputs should be addressed to Pernilla Malmer.

The draft report and annexes are available from the PAR website

 

September 2, 2011

Biomass production, chronosequence and vegetation indexes: Outputs of students working with SLP

Posted by Diego Valbuena under Africa, Animal Feeding, Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, Crop-Livestock, Drought, East Africa, Ethiopia, Food security, ILRI, Modelling, Publication, Survey, Wageningen University | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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SLP has been strengthening links with different academic institutions. The result of these links has been a small set of internships, BSc or MSc thesis with various universities. Research topics are diverse trying to investigate the complexity of mixed crop-livestock farming systems from different but complementary disciplines, tools and scales. Topics include: biomass production and management; chronosequences, land-use/cover and soils evolution; and remote sensing,  NDVI analyses and R scripting.

Crop residue management and farm productivity in smallholder crop-livestock system of dry land North Wollo, Ethiopia (Hailu Terefe, Wageningen University, The Netherlands).

The objective of this study is to explore and analyze crop residue and manure management practices and their influence on farm productivity. Data collection and analyses include farmer resource allocation and socio-economic by semi-structured questionnaire; biomass production, N content and digestibility of crop residues and soil nutrients; and crop-growth simulations to explore the influence of crop residue management use on farm production. The results show that nutrient contents and physical structures of arable plots are declining. Modelling results suggest that to reverse this situation, farmers should retain about 70% of crop residues in the field; but retention should ensure incorporation into the soil. To achieve this strong interventions are needed.

Pdf document available from ILRI website

Development of an open source tool to analyze Vegetation Index from Remote Sensing data (Romain Frelat, INSA, France).

During this internship, I have developed a free package in R to conduct automated analysis of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from different optical satellite instruments (AVHRR and Spot Vegetation). Land Surface Phenology metrics can be easily computed from points or polygons generated either in GIS software (shp) or Google Earth (kml). Metrics and vegetation anomaly maps are calculated for every cropping season to support the study vegetation dynamics in agricultural landscapes.

Pdf document available from ILRI website

R package available from CRAN

Evolution de l’occupation des terres en lien avec les caractéristiques physico-chimiques du sol dans un village pres de Nekemte, Ethiopie (Matthieu Crespin, UCL, Belgium).

C’est dans ce but que ce travail, réalisé à l’échelle du village, devrait permettre de quantifier et de comparer la qualité des sols pour des occupations et des situations topographiques différentes : cultures, pâturages, forêts d’une part et vallées, pentes et sommets d’autre part. Il devrait également permettre de tracer l’évolution de la fertilité pour des sols de forêt jusqu’à des sols convertis à la culture et ce pour trois groupes d’âges différents.

 

January 14, 2011

ILRI 2009-2010 Corporate Report features SLP study

Posted by brugerard under CIAT, CIMMYT, Crop-Livestock, Food security, Global, ICRISAT, IFPRI, Intensification, IWMI, Publication
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The corporate report looks ‘back to the future’—to the thousand million farmers practicing small-scale mixed crop-and-livestock agriculture in poor countries—the kind of seemingly old-fashioned family farming systems that have become so fashionable in recent years among those wanting to reform the industrial food systems of rich countries.

The report synthesizes results of a study, ‘Drivers of change in crop-livestock systems and their potential impacts on agro-ecosystem services and human well-being to 2030,’ being published in book form in 2011. The study was a collaborative endeavour conducted by a group of scientists in centres belonging to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The study was funded and coordinated by the CGIAR’s Systemwide Livestock Programme and led by Mario Herrero, a livestock systems analyst at the International Livestock Research Institute.

The SLP study shows that it is not big efficient farms on high potential lands but rather one billion small ‘mixed’ family farmers tending rice paddies or cultivating maize and beans while raising a few chickens and pigs, a herd of goats or a cow or two on relatively extensive rainfed lands who feed most of the world’s poor people today, and is likely to play the biggest role in global food security over the next several decades, as world population grows and peaks (at 9 billion or so) with the addition of another 3 billion people.

Read the report in pdf

 

January 13, 2011

State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet

Posted by brugerard under Food security, Global, Publication
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The 2011 State of the World edition from Worldwatch was released yesterday.  It is reported to give a compelling look at the global food crisis, with particular emphasis on global innovations that can help solve a worldwide problem.

Read more

The pdf version costs $19.95! Why isn’t that document a free public good?

 

August 27, 2010

Is the Brazilian model transforming agriculture replicable/desirable?

Posted by brugerard under Animal Feeding, Brazil, Conservation Agriculture, Embrapa, Food security
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Brazil has revolutionised its own farms. Can it do the same for others?

An interesting article in the Economist on the transformation of farming systems in the cerrado of Brazil. Certainly addressing food security at global level but may be not equity, the future of small scale enterprises and other social and environmental issues…  To put in parallel with technical models linked to land deals (grabs) in Africa?

A related story: the recent and ambitious development partnership plan aiming at strengthening agricultural collaboration between Africa and Brazil which was launched at the 5th FARA/ African Agriculture Science Week in Burkina Faso on 21 July.

 

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