AR-Zambia Rev&Plan Aug2016

Africa RISING going to scale in the Eastern Province of Zambia Project
Annual Review and planning meeting
30-31 August 2016, Lusaka, Zambia

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Project page - click here

Objectives

• Share updates on project activities implemented and results for year 1
• Discuss lessons learnt and reflect on these for year 2
• Develop work plans and budgets for year 2 of the project
• Harnessing synergies within the themes and between mother Africa RISING and the AR going to scale in Eastern Province in Zambia project

List of Participants

Agenda

Day 1 (30 August)
08:00 Participant’s registration
08:30 Welcome & Opening remarks

• Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon – Project Manager Africa RISING East and Southern Africa
• Moses Mwale – Zambia Agricultural Research Institute
• Harry Ngoma – USAID Zambia Mission

08:50 Overview of agenda for the day – Jonathan Odhong’
09:00 Introduction of participants
09:20 Overview of year 1 planned project activities and expected outcomes – Mateete Bekunda
09:30 Presentations by Theme Leaders on implementation progress (20 minutes presentation by each theme + 10 mins Q& A after each presentation)
10:00 Theme 1: Improving legume seed delivery systems – David Chisanga, IITA
10:00 Break and group photo
10:30 Continuation of Theme presentations
11:00 Theme 2: Strengthening OFSP planting material systems – Felistus Chipungu, CIP
11:30 Theme 3: Sustainable intensification of low-input maize-legume systems – Peter Setimela, CIMMYT
12:00 Theme 4: Commercializing Aflasafe as biocontrol agent for aflatoxin mitigation – Juliet Akello, IITA
12:00 Lunch Break
13:00 Overview of Africa RISING in Malawi – Regis Chikowo, Michigan State University
13:30 Group exercise: Synergies between themes and common Africa RISING denominators
15:00 Presentation of draft work plans by themes (10 minutes presentation + 10 minutes discussion after each presentation)
NB:The draft work plans for all the themes were revised during the meeting to this final version downloadable here

• Theme 1
• Theme 2
• Theme 3
• Theme 4

16:30 Break
17:00 Presentation of draft work plans by themes for 2016/2017 cont’d
18:00 wrap up day 1

19:00 Joint dinner/ team building activity

Day 2 (31 August)
08:00 Overview of agenda for the day – Jonathan Odhong’
08:05 Expectations from USAID Mission for year 2 – Harry Ngoma, USAID Zambia Mission
08:30 Discussion of available budget and allocation to Themes – Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
09:00 Revision of draft work plans (based on inputs/comments received the previous day)
10:00 Break
10:30 Continuation of revision of draft work plans
11:30 Presentation of revised work plans by themes (15 minutes presentation + 15 minutes discussion after each presentation)

• Theme 1
• Theme 2

12:30 Lunch Break
13:30 Presentation of revised work plans by themes cont’d

• Theme 3
• Theme 4

14:30 Discussion FtF indicator reporting – Mulundu Mwila/Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
15:00 Publication of success stories - Jonathan Odhong
15:30 Refinement of work plans based on feedback received
16:30 Way forward
17:00 Wrap up meeting / Break

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MEETING NOTES & PRESENTATION DOWNLOADS

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Day 1 (30 August)
08:00 Participant’s registration
08:30 Welcome & Opening remarks

• Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
  

Project Manager Africa RISING East and Southern Africa
I would like to welcome you to this review and planning meeting. It’s good to see you all here. We met last year in September at Chisamba Lodge where we made the first plans for this project. However not all of us took part in that meeting, so for the benefit of those who weren’t there here is a brief background to the project and the Africa RISING program.

Africa RISING is funded by USAID Bureau of Food Security (USAID – BFS) in Washington DC and is principally focused on research in sustainable intensification of smallholder cereal-legume based farming systems. It was launched in January 2012 and its implemented in Tanzania, Malawi, Mali, Ghana and Ethiopia. Between October 2013 and September 2015, we have strategic partnership with the SIMLEZA project in Eastern Province of Zambia. So that was a very nice partnership, but then in view of the phasing out of the Feed the Future R4D project last year in Zambia. The USAID Zambia mission approached IITA/Africa RISING and suggested for a project that takes Africa RISING as an avenue for tying up/ finalizing a activities in the SIMLEZA project with the aim of scaling out mature technologies and dissemination systems and also to fill some research gaps that were still in some of the projects.

So IITA/Africa RISING accepted this proposal and committed itself to work with the partners on ground to implement this project for obvious accelerated benefits to the smallholder farming communities. It was also clear that new partnerships would be needed for the project, particularly with the NGO’s in order to increase the dissemination of these technologies and eventually their adoption. So this was how the project was conceptualized. So USAID also focused their resources on funding four themes, namely: Improvement of legume seed systems, strengthening the OFSP sweet potato planting systems, intensification of low input maize – legume systems, and the commercialization of Aflasafe biological product to mitigate aflatoxin contamination.

For the implementation of this project, USAID Zambia country mission initially awarded 300,000 USD and later on in March 2016 another 100,000 USD. These funds were topped up by the USAID – BFS to the tune of 300,000 USD and Africa RISING mother project (from its Malawi and Tanzania budget) another to the tune of 350,000 USD mainly for research activities because this is the core work that Africa RISING is doing.

So we are gathering here today and tomorrow, to update each other on what has been achieved over the last year; learn what was successful and what didn’t happen so well, and also how can we overcome the challenges faced both collectively and individually by the various themes. The theme leaders were given guidelines for the presentations, so the expectation is that we will be able to get the same set of information from all the four groups. In earlier communication, the theme leaders were also instructed to come prepared with the draft work plans for each of the themes for next year. This will be discussed by all participants to help speed up the process of getting ready for the coming season.

This project was therefore developed from different projects (supported by USAID Zambia Country Mission) that operated quite independently from each other. However since we are now working under the umbrella of Africa RISING which is a highly integrated and collaborative program the expectation is that during this meeting we should focus on how the different themes can benefit from each other and how can Africa RISING Malawi benefit from what we are doing here in Zambia and vice-versa? For instance, eventually the improved seed systems will benefit the farmers in theme 3, but will the technologies that were developed for intensification of smallholder farmers also benefit those farmers working with the group on OFSP also to get those technologies and vice-versa? It is important that we can demonstrate this to our donors – the synergies.

I probably should mention that Africa RISING mother project’s first 5-year phase comes to an end in September 2016. This is nothing to worry about however, because the lead centers – IITA, ILRI and IFPRI have been invited by the donor (USAID) to prepare proposal for a second 5-year phase. This has kept has busy for the past few months. So we have done that and are now waiting for a formal communication from USAID. In this next phase Africa RISING will not only continue doing systems research, but will also focus more closely on ensuring that the research results from Africa RISING phase 1 (and partly that will be done in phase 2) reaches a large number of farmers. So we will transition from a pure research project to dissemination/scaling approach. This change opens up opportunity to work with other development partners because we will not be able to (considering our resources) to reach a large number of farmers alone.

Thank you very much once again for coming for the meeting!

• Harry Ngoma – USAID Zambia Mission

I would like to convey the regards from the USAID Zambia Mission Director who is a great ally for the work we are implementing in this project. It’s good that we are able to come back and meet again after a year of implementing project activities. We’ve incorporated new things from the previous R&D program: brought in manure management trials into the research activities; incorporated the work by CAMACO; continued with our traditional research elements like strengthening the cereal – legume systems etc. Congratulations to the OFSP team for winning the World Food Prize Award which was recently given to the team! We’re therefore looking forward to see what has come of our work over the past year during these two days. Together with some colleagues from the Mission went to the field and were very excited to see what was going on courtesy of the project on the ground. So we are looking forward to hearing from you the actual analysis – what can be scaled up, what can be learned? In terms of moving forward, we are currently in the process of formulating the new Feed the Future country strategy so by end of next year we hope to have an idea on what sorts of issues the Mission will be focused on. So at that point we will be able to see what activities to continue or discontinue. I am looking forward to the discussions.

08:50 Overview of agenda for the day – Jonathan Odhong’
09:00 Introduction of participants
09:20 Overview of year 1 planned project activities and expected outcomes – Mateete Bekunda

- Comment:In the work plan template that you provided, there is just a number that you can put. But it is not clear if this is the number of farmers reached…or farmers adopted…or farmers read and adopted? Maybe we need to clarify this during the meeting.

09:30 Presentations by Theme Leaders on implementation progress (20 minutes presentation by each theme + 10 mins Q& A after each presentation)
10:00 Theme 1: Improving legume seed delivery systems – David Chisanga, IITA

Question: There are two new soyabean varieties that were identified for seed multiplication and you only talked about one. Why?

Answer: The varieties that we were supposed to work on were KAFUE and MWEMBESI. However we didn’t have breeder seed for MWEMBESI.

Question:
The purity of the ICRISAT foundation seed for pigeon pea hasn’t been good. Are there any concerted efforts to improve this by the team?

Answer:
The case you are mentioning was very particular and it relates to where you purchased the seed as opposed to the generalized expression that ICRISAT foundation seed for pigeon pea is not pure. This is because we investigated and found that the people who went to purchase the pigeon pea seeds (Export Trade Representatives) were not very clear on the different varieties they were interested in. So they were given different varieties which were packaged differently. However after arriving at their shop they opened up the seed and removed them from their original packages in order to repackage them into smaller packs. It is during this process that the mix-up the seeds happened and therefore what was eventually sold to different buyers ended up as mixed varieties which differ physiologically when planted in the fields. To confirm this we counter checked at the fields where we had planted the foundation seeds and didn’t find the off types.

Question: Did you do anything on inoculation?

Answer: We did not undertake any activity on inoculation or testing of inoculants.

Question: Why was the team planning to apply inoculants on the two self-inoculating soybean varieties?

Answer:Even self-inoculating plants also respond to inoculation. Science has also shown that even the promiscuous varieties when you inoculate they respond very positively.

Question:
In your presentation (on one of the slides), the new varieties of groundnuts had very low yields! What is going on there?
Answer:
The season was delayed to the extent that the plantings were done in the middle of January. After this late planting the rains continued to be erratic to the extent that there was nearly no germination on some of the varieties. So the late planting and dry spells coupled with late planting affected yields.

Question:
In the MoU with CARGELE and AfriSeeds, what are the arrangements for the commercialization of seed varieties?
Answer:
CARGELE is interested in putting in place the MoU. We are currently in discussions with them how to operationalize different aspects of the MoU e.g. trainings etc.

Question:
The area planted (cowpea) as shown in your presentation. Is the ration of planting to yield 1:1?
Answer:
That ration of planting to yield is realistic and possible as reported.

Question:
Did IITA do any promotion of agronomic practices for the other legumes too? This wasn’t clear in your presentation?
Answer:
No. IITA/ICRISAT didn’t implement any promotion of agronomic practices at the beginning of the season. The other issue is that there was little clarity whether this activity was approved to be implemented by both IITA and ICRISAT in the final work plan.

Question:
There are some activities in the work plan that weren’t reported on like support the e-voucher system into pilot districts, and roll-out beyond pilot districts. Has anything been done on that?
Answer:
We didn’t have enough time to engage the government on how the seed can be channeled through FISP. It will however still be a challenge because we don’t have enough certified seeds.

10:00 Break and group photo
10:30 Continuation of Theme presentations
11:00 Theme 2: Strengthening OFSP planting material systems – Felistus Chipungu, CIP

Question:
In your work with OFSP, are you also addressing the colour for the skin of the tubers? This is because in supermarkets they prefer the red skin. But most of the red skin varieties are white fleshed.
Answer:

Comment:
You seem to have done so well. I don’t seem to understand why you have so many challenges! Just how much better could you have done if you didn’t have these unfaithful partners!

Question:
Who owns the intellectual property rights for the OFSP varieties, especially considering the path towards commercialization?
Answer: OFSP is a public good, so as long as anyone who seeks to commercialize pays tax it is okay.

Comment:
There is a shift in policy going on at the moment in Zambia (and within the wider SADC bloc) where in future ZARI and other lead centers will soon seek to collect some “small” amount of royalties for their varieties that are commercialized. More clarity should be sought on this matter going forward.

Question:
You indicated that you are working with CRS in Petauke. Is it possible to expand your partnership with CRS to Chipata and Lundazi?
Answer: Actually we used to work with CRS in Chipata and Lundazi before. However that relationship did not materialize very well for various reasons. But we can explore this further.

11:30 Theme 3: Sustainable intensification of low-input maize-legume systems – Peter Setimela, CIMMYT
Question:
You showed nice figures of adoption, but they were mainly percentages. How do you define your adopters? What about the spill-overs? What was your methodology?
Answer:
Monitoring adoption is tricky and the only way to clearly establish it is to do a proper adoption surveys. The team tried to monitor this within the limited budget it had to track adoption (based on the surveys it had done before + the PRAs). Because our work was building from activities implemented in the past, our baseline was 2011 and so we followed up in 2015. We are basically comparing what the status was when we started implementing activities to now. So these are the results that were presented.

Comment:
To carry out adoption we also need to be careful with the issue of attribution, so that we don’t steal credit/ignore the work implemented by others within the same communities.

Question:
You didn’t report on the benefits/ impacts of the green manure (lablab relays) cover. Could you shed some light on that?
Answer:
We just started on the green manure activity and in the first year you can’t see any benefit of green manure. This is more likely to be seen in the second year. Better data will be available in the coming year.

Question:
What does it mean in your presentation that ZARI will take over some of the activities? Could you clarify what “taking – over” will entail?
Answer:
This is still all part of Africa RISING, what it means that we (CIMMYT) will give ZARI more of our portion of the budget to implement these activities. It doesn’t mean that ZARI should get their own funds to implement these activities.

Question:
I didn’t see any figures on the Land Equivalence Ratios comparing the maize intercropping and the double-up systems?
Answer:

Question:
There also seems to be a very big depression of the groundnut yield (in the doubled-up systems) because of the pigeon pea this year. This is supposed to be a win-win situation. What could have happened?
Answer:
Moisture has been very limiting this year and that affected one part of the double up system. This invariably has effect on the other parts as well. However what we are more interested in despite the challenges this year are the varieties, which ones can we rely on for the most stable outcomes.

• 12:00
  

Theme 4: Commercializing Aflasafe as biocontrol agent for aflatoxin mitigation – Juliet Akello, IITA
Question:
You data shows only 50% effect of Aflasafe on groundnuts! Previous results have reported 97%. Is that the range or there is a reason for that?
Answer:
These are preliminary results. We have so far analyzed only 50% of our samples, so don’t treat these as conclusive just yet! When we have completed the analysis we will share the final results.

Question:
When are you going to be able to finish analysis of the samples?
Answer:
We hope to finish this by end of this year.

Question:
Why didn’t you also factor in other aspects like storage when talking about Aflatoxin contamination?
Answer:
I agree that this is also an important factor. When we are sensitizing farmers we always give them a complete package that includes also storage including pre-and post-harvest handling. We don’t only focus on Aflasafe alone. Although we have done studies and established that Aflasafe actually protects the grains even when farmers store poorly, but that is not the message we would ever want to promote!

12:00 Lunch Break
13:00 Overview of Africa RISING in Malawi – Regis Chikowo, Michigan State University
Question:
Have you experimented with ratooning the pigeon pea? We’d like to explore ratooning in Africa RISING Zambia.
Answer:
We’ve tried but were a bit disappointed….maybe we didn’t do it correctly. The animals (goats) either fed on the ratooned parts or in the dry parts the ratooned stems just died off. A challenge with ratooning is also the high diseases (fusarium wilt) and pests build up…in fact in Malawi the government has banned ratooning.

Question:
What are some of the interesting insights of your Africa RISING work in Malawi?
Answer:
We were getting land equivalence ratios of at least 1.3…so the technologies are clearly adding value and enabling farmers to produce more. We are also currently doing some panel studies at the moment that are not concluded, but will in the near future provide more insights on the benefits of these technologies.
13:30 Group exercise: Synergies between themes and common Africa RISING denominators

Instructions

• Form 2 groups - group A and B
  

Group A: Theme 2 + Theme 3 members

• How the interventions and experiences from theme 2 benefit the farming communities targeted by theme 3 and vice-versa? What is the current status, what needs to be improved going forward?
  

Group B: Everybody else not in theme 2 and theme 3

• Which research results/ experiences from AR Malawi can benefit AR going to scale in Eastern Zambia and vice versa
  
• Are there possible entry points for livestock into the work done in the two countries?
  

Feedback from groups:
Group A: How the interventions and experiences from theme 2 are benefit the farming communities targeted by theme 3 and vice-versa? What is the current status, what needs to be improved going forward?

Current status: Activities are not fully integrated; But are currently implemented in 5 common camps - Chiparamba, Vuu, Hoya, Chanje and Kawala.
Possibilities for consideration:

• Mega demonstration plots-combined technology demonstration,
• promote various technologies at the same plot Joint adoption and monitoring,
• Joint research (Intercropping Sweet potatoes with Maize with the purposes of producing seed, OFSP under CA),
• scaling up activities to common areas,
• strengthen synergies (joint bulletin/Newsletter)

Group B: Which research results/experiences from AR Malawi can benefit AR in going to scale in Eastern Zambia and vice versa? Are there entry points for livestock work into the activities being implemented in the two countries?

Which research results/experiences from AR Malawi can benefit AR in going to scale in Eastern Zambia and vice versa?

• Orange-fleshed potato,
• Double-up.
• Folder trees grown along the farm borders (Malawi) can be useful for afforestation, soil fertility.
• General guidelines that suit small-holder sustainable intensification,
• Improved traditional storage facilities with oxygen eliminating technology (candle) to kill the pests.

Are there entry points for livestock work into the activities being implemented in the two countries?

• The poultry initiative by COMACO done mostly by women to diversify income sources for women.
• Old traditional breed such as black austrlaup that can be used for both meat and eggs and can easily be bred on-farm.
• On-farm pig production,
• On-farm feed production.
• Grazing system,, pigeon pea for folder,
• Climbing beans
• Dairy cattle rearing (Malawi) improved methods.
• Research into pumpkin production (Malawi seed bank can support that).

15:00 Presentation of draft work plans by themes for 2016/2017 (10 minutes presentation + 20 minutes discussion after each presentation) NB: The draft work plans for all the themes were revised during the meeting to this final versions downloadable here

• Theme 1 draft work plan
• Theme 2 draft work plan
• Theme 3 draft work plan
• Theme 4 draft work plan

16:30 Break
17:00 Presentation of draft work plans by themes for 2016/2017 cont’d
18:00 wrap up day 1

Day 2 (31 August)
08:00 Overview of agenda for the day – Jonathan Odhong’
08:05 Expectations from USAID Mission for year 2 – Harry Ngoma, USAID Zambia Mission

The mission basically has the same focus this year – ensuring that productivity of our key value chains of interest is addressed (through research). The USAID Zambia Feed the Future country strategy for 2010 – 2015 has come to end and we are in the process of revising it and will soon transition to a new strategy at some point next year. So what we expect in this last year of the funding cycle is that we should conclude our research and generate key results, come up with sound recommendations which our development partners can run with. We very much appreciate the effort put in by the teams in the past two years. For some pieces of work that haven’t been concluded, we can only expect that as we formulate the new mission strategy some of those unresolved issues can be addressed in the next cycle of Feed the Future. The FTF program will continue in the next cycle. Some of you may be aware that it was signed to an Act by the US president so it means that the expected administration changes in November will not be disruptive. We would also like you to also work with your linkages to local organizations (NGOs and CBOs) and private sector for scaling of some of the promising technologies after research is concluded. In terms of budget levels we are not expecting changes from last year. I think last year we were working with a figure of 1 million USD and this was funded from different sources. This is going to remain the same. So I just hope that we will have a better year – weather wise. Already weather projections indicate that this year we will have La Nina, which is associated with more rains in southern Africa, although they are downgrading it to a weak La Nina. Anyway, this means that the rains will be much better than last season. So hopefully we will do much better than last season. The legume sector is very important because of these linkages for nutrition, so we would like to see how more legume seeds can be brought on board. In fact we just recently got on board with a mechanism in USAID Washington which promotes working with the private sector called – innovation for partnering for innovation. And we are currently evaluating those applications. Quite a number of them are looking at addressing the seed challenge especially in the legume sector. We hope that at the end of the year we can have tangible materials that will reach farmers and create impact at the household levels. So we wish you well in the coming year. We are expecting new leadership at the Mission in December.

Question:
How soon can we expect the mission to okay contracting?
Answer:
There is an office Director at the mission who will approve the contracts once they are ready. So this will not be a challenge.

08:30 Discussion of available budget and allocation to Themes – Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
09:00 Revision of draft work plans (based on inputs/comments received the previous day)
10:00 Break
10:30 Continuation of revision of draft work plans
11:30 Presentation of revised work plans by themes (15 minutes presentation + 15 minutes discussion after each presentation)

• Theme 1
• Theme 2

12:30 Lunch Break 13:30 Presentation of revised work plans by themes cont’d

• Theme 3
• Theme 4

14:30 Discussion of FtF indicator reporting – Mulundu Mwila/Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon

• Africa RISING indicators handout
• Additional Feed the Future Indicators

Question:
Do we only have to report only one indicator per activity? For example if you have 500 demos, this can be reported as No. of farmers who have applied technology or Are under improved technologies.
Answer:
You report on both in that case because they are two different indicators.

Question:
What should we do if only 2 of the 8 indicators we are supposed to report on are applicable to my project?
Answer:
You only report on the relevant indicators.

Question:
There has been a challenge of duplicated reporting/double counting. For example if you are implementing 2 different technologies on the same farmer…..is that double counted, or what happens?
Answer:
You report this as indicator for No. farmers using technologies as 2; But for the indicator No. of farmers reached this is counted as 1. The aggregation of numbers once entered into the PMMT is always done by IFPRI.

Question:
Have the numbers for these indicators now been entered into the system for the previous year/
Answer:
Not yet, but all the theme leaders have committed to entering the numbers before the end of the year.

15:00 Publication of success stories - Jonathan Odhong

• Hand out for success story collection (click to download)
• Link to all project templates (Click to download)

15:30 Refinement of work plans based on feedback received
16:30 Way forward – I. Hoeschle - Zeledon
Thank you all for very high levels of participation over the past two days of the meeting! So next, since the work plans are near final now from this meeting we hope to move fast with submission of budgets and then approvals. I would request you to please be very realistic with the budgets because we still don’t have a definite figure/ amount for this year’s budget. So if you send me by Monday the work plans and budget, then if need be provide immediate feedback. We will send it to the Mission (Harry) in the week beginning 12 September.

Soon we will also submit our technical progress report to USAID for the period April – September, 2016.This technical report is usually a compilation of all the smaller report that you send to IITA. I am therefore reminding you all to be on time in submitting your reports so that we can meet this obligation to our donor in good time.

17:00 Wrap up meeting

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