East and Southern Africa Division (ESA) and West and Central Africa Division (WCA)

Melissa Bell, will host a panel with ministers, representatives of farmers’ organizations and practitioners. The panel will explore how conservation agriculture can serve as a strategy to improve smallholder livelihoods and meet the food security challenges in East and Southern Africa and West and Central Africa regions.

Enhancing agricultural production while preserving the environment - Current opinion considers conservation agriculture (CA) as a climate-resilient technology and sustainable production approach that contributes both to environmental conservation and to enhanced and viable agricultural production. It involves a set of best practices based on zero or minimum soil disturbance, the maintenance of a soil cover, crop rotations and good crop management. These practices combine to allow farmers to better manage available soil, water and biological resources as well as farm inputs and labour, and to make more effective use of natural ecological processes. Success stories have emerged in some countries in Asia and in  Australia, Argentina and Brazil.

Adapting conservation agriculture approaches to the sub-Saharan Africa context- Despite the success recorded elsewhere, there is concern about the relevance and effectiveness of CA strategies  for some smallholder farming systems. Significantly, in  sub-Saharan Africa adoption of this technology remains slow. Some of the issues faced are:

• Potential decrease in yields due to poor adaptation of CA packages;
• Increased labour requirements for timely weed control when herbicides are not used;
• Competing uses of crop residue as mulch for soil cover, livestock feed and composting;
• Potential redistribution of farm labour, placing a higher demand on women’s time;and
• Weak input supply chains in most countries constituting a major limiting factor for smallholder farmers to properly adopt CA packages.

Panellists

Two ministers of agriculture from sub-Saharan Africa

• Professor Ken E. Giller is the Chair of Plant Production Systems, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.. Professor Giller’s field of expertise covers resources for production of crops and livestock with emphasis on the temporal and spatial dynamics of resources within farming systems and their interactions. His research interest include resource utilization efficiency and scaling in systems analysis, focusing on the role of nitrogen fixing legumes in provision of food, feed, fuel, and soil fertility in tropical farming systems. He leads a number of initiatives such as N2Africa (Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa ), NUANCES (Nutrient Use in Animal and Cropping Systems: Efficiencies and Scales) and Competing Claims on Natural Resources.   He joined the Wageningen University Research as Chair of Plant Production Systems in 2001 after holding various teaching positions at Wye College, University of London, and University of Zimbabwe.

• Dr. Dennis Garrity is the Chairperson of Landcare International, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Distinguished Board Research Fellow, World Agroforestry Centre and UNCCD Drylands Ambassador. He  is a systems agronomist and research leader whose career has been focused on the development of small-scale farming systems in the tropics. Dr Garrity is Distinguished Board Research Fellow and former Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre, the global leader in advancing the science and practice of cultivating trees on farms. He has recently been designated as UNCCD Drylands Ambassador, and is involved in a global effort to reconsider the future of agriculture in the 21st Century by examining unconventional ways of creating more productive and environmentally sound farming systems. Dr Garrity also chairs the Steering Committee for Landcare International, a global effort that supports grassroots community-based natural resource management. Previously, he served as Regional Coordinator of the Southeast Asia Programme of the World Agroforestry Centre, based in Bogor, Indonesia, and was agronomist and head of the Agroecology Unit at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

• Mr Collins Khatiko: Senior Officer in the Conservation Farming Unit, Zambia Farmers’ Union.

• Victoire Ravaonasolo: President of “Jeunes Ruraux Fédé Soamiaradia’’, Madagascar