A presentation made at the WCCA 2011 event in Brisbane, Australia.

1. Sustainable Intensification of
Maize Legume cropping
systems for food security in
Eastern and Southern Africa
SIMLESA
Geographic focus
Ethiopia
The Why, How and Where
Kenya
Malawi Mulugetta Mekuria; Prasanna B,
Mozambique Rodriguez D , Shiferaw B, Wall P,
South Africa Dixon J,Dimes J, Potgieter A
Tanzania

2. Problem setting
Why SIMLESA and Origins of Program idea
• Persistent hunger & poverty in east and southern Africa
* droughts and famine
* food (price) crisis …. which persists
* global financial crisis (GFC)
• History of Australian contributions to food security since the middle of the last
century:
* establishment of FAO; and ongoing support
* establishment of CGIAR; and ongoing support
• Current widespread concerns in Australia over negative effects of food price crisis
on hunger and poverty
* initial contributions through multilateral institutions
• During 2008 additional budget allocations sought forspecific food security programs
in Asia and Africa (including one part focused on maize-legume systems

3. http://apsrunet.apsim.info/simlesa/
Clusters of food insecurity
SIMLESA Countries
Why are we where we are?
Low productivity of maize-legume cropping systems
Lack of functioning input and output value chains
Poor availability of improved seeds
Scarce agricultural research capacity
Potgieter, Davis and Rodriguez, 2010

4. Dual Challenge to SSA
To double food production, and significantly increase incomes
and livelihood opportunities, while
• Ensuring resilience and sustainability of farming systems on
essentially the same land area,
• Adapting to climate change and the increases in costs of
fertilizer, water, and labor.
SIMLESA goes right to the heart of this challenge

5. SIMLESA aims at increasing farm-household food security and
productivity, in the context of climate risk and change, through
the development of more resilient, profitable and sustainable
maize-legume farming systems
Socio-economic More productive, Improved range of
characterization resilient and maize and legume
sustainable varieties available
Input and output smallholder maize- for smallholders
value chain legume practices,
tactics and
Whole farm strategies
resource allocations
Mainstreaming Gender, M&E , Spill overs, Scaling out
and capacity building
30% increase in maize and legume yields and 30% reduction in risk
500,000 households over the next 10 years

6. 3 Is
INTEGRATION (SYSTEMS)
INNOVATION PLATFORMS
Program Leader
IMPACT ORIENTATION

7. Baseline surveys, Farming systems
and SE studies modelling
Reported Farmers' Sources of Income
Researcher
100%
80%
other
craft
petty trade
managed trials
beer brewing
60%
self-employment
40% remittance
hiring-out labour
20% livestock sales
vegetable sales
0% crop sales
Arumeru Karatu Hanang
Farmer-
managed trials On-farm trials
Farmers Researcher and
Community
experimenting extension
awareness
training
meetings
Farmer-to-farmer
exchanges SIMLESA, 2010

9. Governance and Organization
ASAREC
MoA A CIMMYT
Tanzania
IIAM
ICRISAT-
Mozambi
TL2
q
MoA
Malawi
KARI Australian
Kenya Partners
Project Steering
EIAR Committee South
African
Ethiopia Project Management: Partners
CIMMYT

10. Objective 1: Major achievements-2010
Household baseline survey
• Baseline survey completed in all
the five countries and on-going in
Malawi
• Interviewed 4600 farm households
randomly selected
• 29 districts located in two agro-
ecological zones and maize-pigeon
pea, maize-beans, and maize-
groundnuts , maize-soya beans
cropping system
• More than 580 villages
• Community survey data collected
from these villages

11. Achievements in Objective 2 (CA)
• Ethiopia: Second season 2011/2012 progressing vey
Field days ongoing
• Kenya and Tanzania Season two crops mid season stage-
Field days being organized
• Malawi and Mozambique-First Season results reported

12. Field Day –Hawassa –Ethiopia
16 August 2011

13. Objective 2: Establishment of on-farm exploratory trials by
farmers
Country Farmer groups # of Exploratory trials
Ethiopia 9(12) 47 (58 in Year2)
Kenya 8 48
Tanzania 8 48
Malawi 6 36
Mozambique 6 36
Total 37 215

14. • Innovative relay & intercrop cropping
systems tested for Queensland
• Stress characterisation for Queensland
• 2 NARS trained on BNF
• More than five congress publications
submitted

15. Achievements in Objective 2 (CA)
Field Visit Kenya 16 June

16. Objective 03
Identification of pre-release (within NVMTs) or newly released hybrids and OPVs
with potential suitability for the targeted farming system
Ethiopia Kenya Malawi Mozambique Tanzania
Hybrids BH661 KH500-39E MH26 CZH0511 Selian H308
BH543 KDH3 MH27 Olipa Selian H208
WH105 SAH779
KH500Q SAH638
KH631Q SAH636
H624
H520
KH533A
KM0406
OPVs Melkassa 2 KDV1 ZM523 ZM523 SA523
Melkassa 6Q Embu Synth ZM623 Tsangano SA525
Gibe 2 KKSynth2 ZM309 Chinaca
Gibe 3 WS303 ZM721
KM0403

17. Farmers’ assessment of newly released and pre-released
maize varieties
• Assessment was done for newly released varieties, pre-released
varieties, and farmer maize varieties
• Evaluation involves socio-economists, maize breeders and
agronomists in collaboration with farmers and extension staff

18. Capacity building
• Graduate level training/scholarships -AusAID and ACIAR
– 5 PhD enrolled in 2011 in Austrian Universities
– 30+Msc,3 PhDs registered in local Universities
– 2012 Candidates being selected
• Specific short term training in
– CA Principles for research ,extension, NGO,staff and
farmers
– socio economics, M&E, Impact assessment for NARS
– breeding and seed systems
– Gender Mainstreaming
– APSIM
• Vehicles for all NARS, Laptops, moisture meters, digital
cameras, jap planters, GPS units

19. For SIMLESA to succeed, it must draw on
appropriate component technologies
• CA based practices
• Drought tolerant maize
• More productive legume varieties
• Postharvest technologies
• Improved integration of livestock options
• Cell-phone managed insurance approaches
The Challenge:
How do we combine them so they
optimize food security, incomes,
resilience and sustainability?

20. For SIMLESA to succeed, it must align with
realistic value chains
• Seed supply
• Fertilizer supply
• Equipment for CA based
technologies
• Postharvest technologies
• Insurance providers
• Price information providers
• Traders and processors
…
Do you know them? Are the
appropriate providers involved?

21. Looking at the bigger picture:
What are we targeting?
– Farms that strongly base their food and income
security on maize and legumes
What do we do? –
Interventions that maximize farm-level productivity,
income, resilience and sustainability in these farming
systems, based on farmers own resources and long
realistic value chains.
How do we work? – Innovation systems approach which
means strong partnership with relevant actors