Addis Lessons from the past

Sustainable intensification of crop-livestock systems to improve food security and farm income diversification in the Ethiopian highlands Project Design Workshop 30 January - 2 February 2012, Addis Ababa Ethiopia

Lessons from the past - West Africa 10 years ago / Asia recently

This workshop provides an opportunity for a broad group of important stakeholders to both learn about the project plans and to share their views on expectations from and opportunities for synergies with the project (days 1 and 2) and for the core project team to finalize the project details (days 3 and 4).

Shirley's experience

10 years ago, a project where there was already integration between crop and livestock and we were already thinking about what farmers wanted and were grappling with;
It was quite easy to identify the system: sorghum-cowpea / millet-cowpea etc. much less diversity than now;
We looked at a system with sorghum, cowpeas and small ruminants in Nigeria and we expanded to Ghana, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso.
We worked with IITA, ICRISAT etc.
We worked in a 'demonstration mode' - all institutes contributed a bit of core money;
In the farms where we worked we did some research on dual-purpose cowpeas and sorghum (good quality/quantity etc.);
We had 11 farmers and decided we were going to also feed animals so we'd need some piece of land to plant this demonstration; When fodder was harvested it was stored and fed sheep. The manure was retained on the field;
There was lots of interaction with the farmers and it brought some evolution. We started with 2 rows of cowpea but farmers were not interested. As we got better feed, farmers did some targeting; We started working with women goat herders whereas we started with sheep.
When grains were harvested there was credit - but we didn't link up with people trying to provide credit so it was not a sustainable project.
In Niger, there was a way to spread out precious legume feeds for a wider period or more animals.
We brought that work from Niger to cross-pollinate it in Nigeria;
Some work on composting and micro-dosing, i.e. good practices;
We ttried to include some socio-economic studies but that was challenging;
Lessons:

We weren't looking at institutions, markets etc. It worked thanks to individuals We were not systematic about intensification, what was measured but did recognise that success was not going to be assessed only on grain yield; No communication work back then - a pity; We should have thought about the bigger development context; We paid attention to farmers' learning and opinions but we didn't document the process very well; Overarching principles;

Comment: there was a very innovative system and multi-scale approach back then and the very rich data set coming out of it has been used by CCAFS.
Comment: why we're not hearing more about other initiatives from CIAT etc. here.
Comment: Focus on markets, institutions etc. has been very good. I wonder if that has some bearing on how we look at access to infrastructures when choosing our sites i.e. those that are closer to roads. Then again, to what degree are those factors integral to success?

Idea: integrate useful projects from the past in our database of projects.

Iain's experience, the CSISA project:

USAid / BMGF project (19 m USD);
There are considerable concerns about increase in yield, NRM issues (water use in Western part of Indo-Gangetic Plains) etc. issues on sustainability and this project was designed to kickstart the 2nd (sustainable) green revolution. IRRI, IFPRI and ?? set it up.
Not much interest in livestock at the onset but despite initial reluctance to look at mixed crop-livestock systems, the BMGF backed the idea;
The first phase is coming to an end and the 2nd phase of the project is being submitted today to USAid and BMGF;
Several components in the project:

Disseminate/roll out technologies (in relation with conservation agric) via establishment in hubs in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Core teams had to build networks to promote new varieties, agric practices etc. Develop next generation of technologies with 4 research platforms (on-station research); Cereal breeding for traits that were relevant for the South Asia context; Look at policy issues, intellectual property issues; Capacity building with 'certified agronomists' ..?

Some challenges:

How the hubs were designed and staffed (people with research background when the issue was to develop networks etc. a la innovation platforms) Too much demonstration and not enough bringing together a wide range of actors; Considerable management challenges: bringing together different management structures and cultures - this was totally under-estimated; Some institutional and personal tensions; Linkages between applied/developmental and strategic research aspects - could have been strengthened. Problems of timeline and linking breeding and delivery of new technologies/varieties; How might such a project attract other donors? It hasn't been very successful; Ownership of the project; the rice-wheat consortium was always seen as a NAR programme. CSISA was perceived as a CGIAR-driven programme which means there's less ownership.

The structure is similar
Comments:

Data management has been pushed in CSISA, we can learn from this; Changing donor priorities between phase 1 and 2 (e.g. geography); Governance was too centralized in phase 1 - we need to decentralize; NARS: we need to collaborate with them. Sometimes we go too much downstream without working with NARS using our comparative advantage; Political challenges in the region; How can we get the M&E framework at the right place? --> it was not in place at the onset of CSISA so having a strong M&E framework from the onset is great. Using the hubs and their staff was also helpful. Should we consider a lessons learnt group with high level concepts etc.?