Conservation Agriculture (CA) for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) (CA for SARD), Phase II.

Country of operations: Kenya and United Republic of Tanzania
Development Objective: The development objective of the project is to promote improved socio-economic growth, food security and livelihoods in Eastern Africa through Conservation Agriculture based interventions

The project is contributing to the achievement of this development objective by producing three immediate objectives directed towards the smallholder farmer community; the manufacturing and supply-chain actors; and strengthening knowledge management at a regional level.

The CA SARD II design acknowledges and builds on the gains made from CA-SARD I initiatives. This is with regard to both the CA technological development aspects and to the dissemination methodologies and approaches. CA SARD II specifically aims to relate and consolidate the following aspects:

• Achievements in aspects of cover crops for soil cover (both in terms of the awareness raised on the subject and the promising cover crops already identified and being grown)
• The CA equipment thrust with a number of CA equipments introduced and a promising emerging local equipment manufacturing and supply industry
• The FFS school approach that has recorded great success in farmer mobilisation, organisation and as a farmer self-learning system

The implementation of the CA SARD II has used the same on-the-ground set-up established in the CA-SARD I including the facilitators who are now fully competent in both CA and FFS approaches. In consolidating this aspect, the CA SARD II also recognises and brings on board an active role of farmers from the old FFS groups coming in as facilitators to support other new groups. Through the national and regional implementing organisations, CA SARD II plans close linkages to both national and international (including NEPAD) initiatives on SLM/CA.

Institutional Framework:

In each of the two project countries, institutional frameworks for the implementation of the project are directly through existing government structures including the farm level agricultural extension–research establishments. The African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) in liaison with FAO – Rome takes responsibility for the regional functioning (technical and administrative).

Kenya: In Kenya, the government implementing agency is the Ministry of Agricultrue via its agricultural research Institute KARI. KARI is large research institute with centres across the country that addresses regional and national agricultural constraints through on-farm, adaptive and applied research. KARI has many years of wide experience on active research and development / promotion of SLM and soil and water conservation related practices. In its many NRM/SLM related projects, KARI and the CA SARD Project are expected to draw on active value adding synergies.

KARI is a strategic government institution with active involvement in identifying and streamlining government agricultural policies and related strategies. Therefore, through KARI, the CA SARD II Project mutually interacts with, and contributes to, Kenya’s thrusts on SLM, NRM and related programmes and initiatives.

Tanzania: In the case of the United Republic of Tanzania, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and Cooperatives through its Department of Irrigation and Technical Services and the Ministry’s agriculture research institute – the Selian Agriculture Research Institute (SARI) takes primary responsibility for the implementation of the project.

Though the CA SARD II is not essentially a mainstream research project (seen as combining some on-farm applied research (adaptation) and high development objectives, the two Institutions are seen as capable in taking up the implementation of the CA SARD.

Regional level: The African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) takes primary implementation of the project at regional level. This includes both technical and administrative functions. This is done by and through the ACT Secretariat based in Nairobi.  

Brazil: The activities that are implemented in Brazil are done in close partnership with the IAPAR Institute. IAPAR directly liaises and communicates with the FAO/LTU in Rome. The formal contractual partner for FAO representing IAPAR in letters of agreement has been the Foundation for Support to Research and Development of Agribusiness (FAPEAGRO). This foundation was established in 1996 and facilitates those aspects of the work of IAPAR which are outside its strict mandate as a state institute of Paraná. Such work includes national or international research and development projects funded by public or private sector organizations.

Target beneficiaries

There are three principal groups of project beneficiaries in Kenya and Tanzania, namely:

• Smallholder farm families (men, women and children) in poor communities in rural areas in particular those exposed to food insecurity.
• Agricultural implement manufacturers and retailers including artisans whom the project will target to ultimately enhance availability and accessibility of CA farm implements, replacement parts and after-sales service to farmers.
• Local traditional and civic leadership systems, government policy frameworks and regional / international CA/SLM initiatives targeted with appropriate CA/SLM information to stimulate streamlining of CA/SLM into local, national and international programmes and attract active support into CA/SLM adoption / promotion.

Project strategy and Methodologies
The project strategy and methodologies are best viewed in the context of the two main components, namely:

• Dissemination and increased adoption of CA (in terms of both land area and number of farm households involved), and
• Stimulating government and private sector activity support to CA (including creating an enabling policy framework)

Farmer Field School Approach: With regard to dissemination and increased adoption, the “heart” of the project strategy is that mobilising and stimulating communities into self-motivating collective responsibility and actions through the formation and support of FFS groups this has brought a greater and long-term empowerment of rural communities in CA adoption and NRM. Therefore, the project pursues actively the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach. Key adjustment has been made to the approach to ensure compatibility with conservation agriculture aspects.

This includes active on-farm, farm-led experimentation as a key component to an innovation chain that will encourage and facilitate farmers to innovate and adapt practices suitable and feasible in their circumstances.

The Learning Monitoring and Evaluation process: The projects have an integrated M&E process. This is an important component of the project implementation. The M&E is integral to the functioning set-up at all levels of the project. The M&E system provides for:

• Real-time feedback, especially at farmer level on the effects and impacts of the farmer actions in adapting the CA practices. In this way, the M&E functions as a learning tool supporting the farmer innovation process,
• Timely, relevant and good quality information on project results and impact on poverty reduction and livelihoods of the target group,
• Knowledge generation through systematic capture and analysis / synthesis of evolving knowledge in farmer adaptation / innovation processes. This provides valuable knowledge (incorporating farmers’ own local indigenous knowledge), which is key input to further scaling out / up initiatives.

The M&E is implemented through a set of user-friendly checklists with the process built in the day-to-day observation and-learning undertakings of the FFS group members. Whilst reference is made to the FFS group learning plot, the M&E information is generated on the basis of the members’ own private plots. The M&E checklists are designed to allow the farmers to monitor their activities / interventions and resource use. This includes parameters that will allow holistic and comprehensive socio-economic and technical evaluation and, on the other hand, the results of these activities / interventions in terms of effects / impact on the soil / land productivity (system resilience) and on livelihoods (e.g. food security). The monitoring process goes on throughout the year, with, however, more activity expected during the cropping seasons. On two occasions (mid-way in the season and after harvest) participating farmers come together for a facilitated partial evaluation and learning session. The end-of-season evaluation meeting is also used to revise and plan for the coming season.

The ACT Regional Office provides technical backstopping on the setting up and management of M&E. This includes standardized synthesis / analysis and documentation of the M&E inputs.

Concluded programmes and projects in East African Region

FAO supported the piloting of conservation agriculture in Kenya with a TCP pilot project since 2002. It was the agricultural mechanization section of the Ministry of Agriculture that at that time requested FAO for a TCP to assist the MOA Kenya in the introduction of this rather revolutionary way of doing agriculture that promised to be more energy and labour efficient and at the same time would contribute to more sustainability in managing the agricultural lands and that forecasted a more productive agriculture with less ploughing and digging and with more emphasis on recognizing that the natural resource base –  the soils and agricultural lands – are indeed a very valuable asset that deserves highest attention by land users and farmers in order to sustain it in fertile and productive condition.

Following this first CA pilot project in Kenya (2002/03), the German Government supported follow-up activities and hence the first phase of the Regional Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Department (CA-SARD) project was launched. This was a 2-year project whose term lasted from June 2004 to August 2006, and was implemented in Tanzania and Kenya.

The main objective of the second project was to improve food security and rural livelihoods and build a foundation for the expansion of conservation agriculture (CA) to contribute to Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) and especially to Millennium Development Goals No. 1 and No. 7.

The highlight of this project was the III World Congress on conservation agriculture that was hosted by the Kenya Government in Nairobi and implemented by an international committee coordinated by the African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT). So it happened that in October 2005. For 5 days over 600 participants from 62 countries among them the Ministers of Agriculture from Zambia and Lesotho, discussed the latest developments in agriculture and the potential of conservation agriculture for Africa.

The development initiatives entailed in the project are in tandem with stated government policies and strategies such as the draft National Food and Nutrition Policy, Strategy for Revitalizing Agriculture, Draft ASAL Policy and many others that roots for sustainability in the production systems. 

The implementation of these first two pilot activities for the project was done in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Kenya Network for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies (KENDAT), and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). The Ministry of Agriculture and KENDAT staff played a key role in implementing the field activities. KARI staff equally participated actively in technology testing in a number of KARI research stations.