Presented by Charlotte Klapwijk, Carl Timler, Nester Mashingaidze, Jeroen Groot, Katrien Descheemaeker, Linus Franke, Pablo Tittonell, Ken Giller, Mateete Bekunda, Asamoah Larbi, Regis Chikowo, Gatien Falconnier, Mary Ollenburger and Tom van Mourik at the Africa RISING East and Southern Africa annual review and planning meeting, Lilongwe, Malawi, 3-5 September 2013

1. Rising to the challenge of sustainable intensification
of agricultural production in Africa
Farming systems design to support action research for development
Charlotte Klapwijk, Carl Timler, Nester Mashingaidze, Jeroen Groot
Katrien Descheemaeker, Linus Franke, Pablo Tittonell, Ken Giller
Mateete Bekunda, Asamoah Larbi, Regis Chikowo
Gatien Falconnier, Mary Ollenburger, Tom van Mourik
Wageningen University, IITA, ICRISAT
Africa RISING East and Southern Africa annual review and planning meeting,
Lilongwe, Malawi, 3-5 September 2013

2. Introduction
 Entry points for sustainable intensification:
• Farm components and practices: crop and animal yield gaps
• Farm yield gaps: configurations of components and inputs
• Interactions with social-ecological and economic environment:
networks, markets, resources
 Integrated farming systems analysis needed:
• Context-specific
• On-farm testing
• Embedded in communities

3. Farming systems analysis
Survey
Rapid
characteriz.
Detailed
description
Exploration
innovations
Functional
typology
Structural
typology
Systems
(re)design
Extrapolation
Farm
diagnoses
Tradeoff
analysis
Farm
innovations
Potential
impact

4.  Malawi
• Dedza and Ntcheu
 Tanzania
• Babati and Kongwa & Kiketo
 Ghana
• Northern
• Upper West and Upper East with N2Africa project
 Mali
• Bougouni and Koutiala with ICRISAT
Where?

5. Farm selection – Y frame

6. Data collection

7. Preliminary results Tz, Mw

8. Preliminary results
Proposed improvement
mentioned by farmers
Babati
(Tz)
Kongwa
(Tz)
Dedza
(Mw)
Ntcheu
(Mw)
New crops, cultivars, processing 0.43 0.60 0.88 0.74
Inputs (fertilizers, seeds) 0.25 0.31 0.38 0.23
Land availability 0.23 0.13
Economic resources 0.07 0.15 0.20 0.26
Advice, education and research 0.23 0.13
Improved farm management 0.22 0.06
Technologies and machines 0.17 0.33
Natural resources (soils, manures) 0.14 0.14 0.03
Subsidies 0.02 0.05
Social initiatives, groups 0.01

9.  Large diversity of farm sizes and endowment
 Farmers identified large sets of improvements
 To be explored:
• The role of functional and human/social farm characteristics in
grouping and targeting
• Role of exploration (solution spaces) and design steps in the
delivery of entry points for farm improvement
• Cross-country comparison of farming systems, their constraints and
potential entry points
Discussion

10.  Rapid characterization survey completed (Mw, Tz) or
ongoing (Gh, Ma)
 Secondary data (crops, animals, etc.) collected
 Data inserted into Farm DESIGN tool (Mw, Tz)
 Data overviews made (Mw, Tz)
 Farms for detailed analysis selected (Mw, Tz) or ongoing
(Gh, Ma)
 Presented at Farming Systems Design conference
Progress overview

11.  Detailed data collection (Sep-13)
 Data analysis and explorations (Oct-Nov-13)
 Suggestions for entry points available (Dec-13)
 And...
• Cross country comparison (Sep-Dec-13)
• Make plan for phase 2 (Sep-Nov-13)
Next steps

12. Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation
africa-rising.net
Thank you for your attention
jeroen.groot@wur.nl