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Africa RISING ESA Project Science Outcomes and Impacts Review Meeting
24-25 August 2022
Dodoma, Tanzania

Participants

  1. A. Kimaro, ICRAF
  2. B. Zemadim, ICRISAT
  3. C. Thierfelder, CIMMYT
  4. D. Mgalla, IITA
  5. E. Swai, TARI-Hombolo
  6. F. Kizito, IITA
  7. F. Muthoni, IITA
  8. G. Fischer, IITA
  9. J. Kihara, Bioversity-CIAT
  10. J. Manda, IITA
  11. J. Odhong, IITA
  12. L. Claessens, IITA
  13. M. Bekunda, IITA
  14. M. Mutenje, IITA (consultant)
  15. P. Okori, ICRISAT
  16. R. Chikowo, MSU
  17. E. Temu, ICRAF
  18. M. Mulundu, ZARI
  19. M. Shitindi, SUA
  20. H. Beliyou, IFPRI
  21. E. Temu, ICRAF
  22. j. Mwololo, ICRISAT-ZW
  23. Y. Muzila, SUA
  24. W. Mhango
  25. F. Michael, IITA
  26. E. Mwambo, IITA
  27. G. Wanjiku, ICRISAT-MW



Objective

  • Present and critically assess the major research and development outputs and deliverables of the project.
  • Explore opportunities for further scaling of project outputs and outcomes beyond Africa RISING

File:ESA ppt Antony Kimaro.pptx - Dr. Antony Kimaro (ICRAF)

  • Day ONE [24 August 2022]

Welcome & Opening remarks

  • B. Mateete.
  • In his opening remarks, Mateete refers to the event as a reunion of the Africa RISING team at the end of the program. At the same time, looking forward to continuing benefits to farmers even after the project phases out.
  • He explained the purpose of the meeting was to review the research work and achievements. The meeting output would contribute to developing the end of phase two final report.
  • F. Kizito.Among the things that Kizito talked about during the opening remarks focused on the significance of the partnership; according to him, even though the project was ending, a partnership built along the way would ensure the sustainability of the good work done by the project.
  • He, therefore, referred to the ending stages as a transition stage, whereby partners are taking over.
  • Fred pointed out that more than 15 Africa RISING team members have been a part of the Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership. Through Africa NAFAKA, more than 20 thousand farmers in the Southern Highlands and Babati are reached.
  • H. Irmgard
  • In her opening remarks, Irmgard appreciated the work by the new Africa RISING management.

She expressed happiness in participating in the meeting and had a chance to meet with the team again. I am grateful to have the opportunity to meet you again because I felt sad when I left in December 2021 without meeting you again". Irmgard physically met the Africa RISING ESA team in March 2019. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, she has been meeting the program team virtually. According to her, virtual meetings missed the personal touch. Speaking about the progress of Africa RISING in 11 years, Irmgard noted that 11 years of the Africa RISING Program was possible through generosity by the donor long length of funding of the program." I don't know another program that has run for so long with such support from the donors marked Irmgard. She explained even with the up and downs, such as the financial crisis in 2017, the donor stretched for support and was highly engaged in overcoming the situation and ensuring the continuity of the program and referred to the support of Jerry Glover, the project activity leader from USAID. "This was proof of confidence in Africa RISING that something good is going on and something useful will be coming out of this program. This is what I am most grateful for during my leadership in Africa RISING. Also, having met nice colleagues and had good professional and personal interaction with everybody, explained Irmgard. According to her, the review meeting was significant since it provided an opportunity to review the project's results, achievements, and overall process. "The results from the meeting will contribute to developing the final report to the donor. The donor needs to learn lessons from the Africa RISING Program and get the assurance they have invested their money very well for so long in such initiatives, she noted. Irmgard explained that it was essential to take stock of what went well and what did not go so well and referred to the failures as lessons and would support other new initiatives in sustainable intensification. In a nutshell, she appreciated the efforts and commitment of the Africa RISING project team and scaling partners. She noted though there are some failures, the project team needs to understand that those failures are actual results, and nobody should have felt bad about it. "…it is not because we are personally failed. It is because maybe the technology did not work, and this is the role of science to find this out. "I am looking forward to this review, to refresh my memory and be able to reflect more critically and conclude that maybe in future how we could do it differently," she noted. "Thank you very much for coming to this meeting and having this opportunity to meet you all again and say bye in three days," concluded Irmgard while opening remarks on the first day of the Africa RISING ESA project science review meeting.

Timeline presentation of Africa RISING, specific focus on ESA – F. Kizito, Project Manager

  • Please download the PPT slides from the Link below.

File:ESA Timeline ESA Fred.pdf -F. Kizito (IITA)

Discussion Dr. Fredy Kizito highlighted common threats that the project addressed while in phase one of the project; he explained that the donor (USAID) focus was to make a difference primarily to regions threatened with a high level of poor-quality seeds and degraded soils (high labor inputs on the work done), insufficient use of fertilizers and resources (water) and big knowledge gap. Kizito explained the approach used to address those farmers' pressing challenges was the sustainable intensification systems that focused on five domains, including productivity: social, human, economic, and environmental. Talking about opportunities to address the knowledge gap for farmers and various stakeholders, Kizito noted the need to empower different stakeholders so they could also empower farmers and take up the technologies that could improve productivity and livelihood and limit poverty and malnutrition. Other opportunities discussed focused on better agronomy, automated environmental monitoring, technological innovation ICT, and improved Postharvest handling. Kizito stated the project's footprints from phases one and two of the Africa RISING ESA project and elaborated on each step in detail. According to him, the marked footprints were simply because the Africa RISING project has been awarded a prosperous partnership from people on the ground. He noted that the Footprints of the project were made possible through partnerships with the agro-dealers, development partners, universities, extension agents, and private sectors. He noted the partnership approach built confidence and would assure continuity of research works by the project, even after the project exit, while referring to an example showing commitment and willingness TARI and SARI while the project was looking for partnership on the integrating soil fertility management in Babati district, Manyara region, in Tanzania. Kizito explained that the project flourished in identifying critical partnerships. Therefore, it was an opportunity to continue identifying potential areas to work with partners in Tanzania. "We heard about NAFAKA KILIMO and other government entities introducing themselves in Malawi and Tanzania. We have a good presence as much as this transition. Based on the success, we need to think what can we do together that will accelerate information delivery and dissemination, he said. Along the path to transformation change, a lot of work was done around conservation agriculture, farmer-declared seeds, Geospatial tools, board of knowledge built on the economics of sustainable intensifications. Through the project;

  • Farmers' perception and knowledge of the use of fertilizers have positively changed. For example, farmers in Babati are now using fertilizers to improve cultivation and enhance soil fertility.
  • Extension officers in Babati can now quickly and timely access agricultural information through communication messages via ICT platforms like Mwanga.
  • Potential partnerships strengthened, for example, the Ile de Pax Island of Peace (IDP) and Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership projects. The partnership projects enabled the initiatives to benefit farmers outside the project's action areas.

Despite the well-done work by the project, strengthening the value chain from productivity to postharvest emerged as essential to farmers because it would ensure farmers with the market. Kizito noted that even though some of the initiatives were not intended for Tanzania, the tools, methods, and approaches developed in Tanzania could still gain traction in other countries, particularly Malawi. The project implemented a sustainable mixed farming system in Malawi, whereas Tanzania was not part of the initial country. While describing the merits of Phase two of the project (2012-2022), Kizito highlighted the following.

  • The ability of the program to close harmonize and work in different areas.
  • Program learning events, Kizito pointed out the Tanzania country mission of Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership project. He acknowledged Madam Elizabeth Maeda, the ambassador and advocate of the partnership project instrumental because her advice and guidance on what farmers care about streamlined and ensured the project was successful.
  • USAID Commissioned an external review
  • Virtual meetings organized during the COVID-19 pandemic were successfully implemented and valuable to track the progress of the ongoing research works.

Kizito also discussed Phase two of the program, which emphasized the sustainable intensification assessment framework focusing on five pillars; productivity, environment, social-human, and economical. The framework was launched in November 2017. According to Kizito, many stakeholders outside the Africa RISING project are using the sustainable intensification assessment framework; he then argued partners to take the SIAF forward. "The future of scaling for SIAF will lay on the nature of partnership we developed, also involving the theory of change because there will be challenges coming, and we need to adapt to the challenges to move forward, 'he said. In the end, Kizito appealed for support from the development partners in documenting and following up on where the opportunity for succession lies. He concludes by quotation. "To achieve the best results, the Africa RISING program has had to channel the wealth of experiences and lessons learned from Phase I and make them into successful implementation strategies and plans for the second phase.' Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon, 2016 ‘’ Kizito commented the project was successfully implemented. He explained that the focus on scaling has resulted from the partnership, which has allowed the project to reach one million households by 2021. "We have achieved a lot in identifying best bit technologies in phase one of the project, and in phase two, more dynamic scaling approaches have been adopted. An example is reaching 20 thousand Southern highlands over twelve districts. This will allow us to get the technologies to the hand of millions of farmers, he said. "Now that we have made the promise for whatever has been done, I think it is time for us to transition to the question of how we deliver on the promises and how scaling helps us reach the targets. The most significant change to our work is not doing the research but looking at what has been done to accelerate information delivery and dissemination into the hands of people that need it, concludes Kizito.

What we promised at the start [the ESA project proposal] – M. Bekunda, Chief Scientist

Download the PPT slide from the Link below

File:ESA Project Promised ESA Mateete.pdf -M.Bekunda (IITA)

Discussion

During his presentation, Mateete elaborated on the program guide, the project log frame guided by SIAF, outputs/outcomes, and the promised mainly; legacy materials, including publication as indicated in the program proposal. He explained the vital questions were to reflect on whether the team was paying attention to conducting the research activities and if the project had reached the promised according to our log frame. While discussing the implementation of research activities in line with the proposed five project outcomes and expected outputs, Mateete explained that the activities were to be written under outcomes, and scaling was to be under each outcome and not otherwise. And argues participants to be knee when writing proposals for future projects. Regarding legacy materials, Mateete acknowledges the project's tremendous work in producing publications, including journals, articles, book chapters, conference papers, technology labels, and others. "Because we did much research and the expectation was to have most of what we did, ESA has done very well in producing journals, and I believe at this time, we have more than a hundred publications. This is very good for a project like ours. The Sustainable Agricultural Intensification handbook is among the legacy publications of the project. According to Mateete, Betty Maeda (USAID) was one of the people who supported the idea of producing the handbook, and the project succussed in that. Follow-up action point raised while discussing the capacity-building aspect and legacy materials.

  • The final reports should include all the abstracts of all the publications. Some of the abstracts have been shared with Jonathan. Therefore, those who have not submitted the publications/ abstract TO Jonathan should do so.
  • To compile the abstracts of dissertations of the about 21 students
  • Capacity-building feedback the numbers are essential to the donors as the targets

Market Place I: ESA Technologies applying genetic intensification as an entry point

The market bus stops/places were stops that provided an opportunity for participants (referred to as customers) to shop for technologies/products and the output of the project research work. Most of the buyers were the national systems and colleagues who were part of other initiatives.
  • Drought tolerant quality protein maize – Bright Jumbo

Please download the file poster from the link below

File:QPM Maize ESA Jumbo.pdf - Bright Jumbo (ICRISAT)

  • High yielding disease resistant groundnut – Patrick Okori
Please download the file poster from the link below

File:QPM Maize ESA Jumbo.pdf - Patrick Okori(ICRISAT)

  • High-yielding drought-tolerant common beans – Rowland Chirwa
Please download the file poster from the link below

File:Groundnut variety ESA Willis et.al.pdf - Rowland Chirwa(IITA)

  • Resilient vegetable varieties – Justus Ochieng/ Rosina Wanyama
Please download the file poster from the link below

File:IPM Vegetables ESA Rosina.pdf - Rosina Wanyama(World Vegetable Center)

File:Vegetable varities ESA Rosina et.al.pdf - Rosina Wanyama(World Vegetable Center)

Discussion

C. Regis. The presentation was excellent. There was a difficult question I asked Jumbo about, how do we communicate with the farmers, market, and producers, to see the invisible? How will the product (s) penetrate the market?
C. Mateete. We should not be afraid of talking about our failures; again, I will take Jumbo as an example. The donor asked us to write about gaps. For example, if they were to support the continuation of Africa RISING, what problems would have arisen from what we have achieved so far? Sometimes we sit together as scientists and think without contacting our colleagues. When I was here, our colleagues from NAFAKA KILIMO pointed out the fundamental gaps that the seed group needs to address, and unfortunately, we are writing some papers from such gaps. So, I expect some contributions we get from colleagues should appear in those publications.
C. Mulundu. Going through the three marketplaces, I thought about one issue we could have done more about social economics. If we have an opportunity to go to the people we are working with and ask more about their expectations regarding the interventions we have done? This also related to what Regis asked about whether buyers buy the technologies.
C. Christian. It's about scaling. Besides NAFAKA probability, what we have reached in terms of numbers is not what the donor would like to see normally when it comes to scaling. CGIAR centers are not good at scaling. Have we engaged with NGOs or other scaling partners enough? Probability not, and what lessons have we learned in the scaling process? was that documented? Probability not and probability we could have learned much more about the scaling aspect of phase two.
C. Patrick. The main problem I had to hear from everybody was the critical question about sustainability. One of the significant challenges we had was building trust. It takes a while to build trust and engage with people to pick whatever you are doing and going with them. Africa RISING was a bit lucky that we had 11 years to do that compare to other projects.

The second problem is when we were starting, we were many biological scientists, the program introduced the social aspect later about gender and other things, and this put us quota half on the bit of the left foot. If we had a social element inbuilt from the begging, we could have captured many things raised; however, the interest was mainly in ton per acre while ton per acre is not everything. In the future, if we redo this thing again, I think starting with the best slice and then collectively identifying how to move forward involves the social aspect, in fact, using the SIAF domain. I found it to have been a handy tool to help me plan better. So, starting from that part will help us form on the right footing, crops, and technologies. On the side of partners, if something else might be necessary, it is easy to say that private sectors can roll out the technologies. Still, they usually see it as the first, and the truth is, there are no private sectors that are not subsidized. We should have asked from a smallholder perspective what model we need for delivering technologies in a sustainable way where public sectors still invest and partner with private industries and single societies to roll the technologies.

C.Betty. From experience with NAFAKA, most of the dealer's contract with farmers. And farmers turn out to be the best researcher and producers of quality maize and rice because they have market opportunities. Farmers need assurance, a ready-made market to abide by all the new technologies available. Something we need to look at first is the market availability to farmers.
Mruma: My concern going forward is now the USAID funded these initiatives are coming to an end; how about the African government's commitment going forward to trying to see the value of funding research when I looked at her, I questioned myself who next, Patrick Okori is, who is the next Matetee, NIKILIMO, Maeda in the current research systems, who is the next generation of these people in the system. That question is not answered. For how long will USAID continue funding these kinds of new initiatives?
C. Patrick (ESOKO). Having listened to groundnuts and the also QPM for the maize, one of the things is they said the varieties are not released while looking at the project is coming to an end. What mechanisms are in place to ensure the seeds are released and available to the market?

The second one is about dissemination and feedback, coupled with scaling up out of the project zone. As researchers, we focused on the research aspect and forgot the dissemination as the critical aspect. We cannot measure the impact of the entire technology that has not been adopted. There is a gap in how the technologies will be adopted and scaled out and the mechanism in place to get feedback from the end users adopting the technologies after the project phases out.

C. Jumbo. For QPM, the private seed company released high-seed breeds. The only step needed is for the company must go through the seed multiplication process. They must have the seeds for parents from the high breeds; after that, they can produce certified seeds. So, this process will depend on commercial interest, but it is ready to go.
Q. Matete. Jumbo, how long are materials released viable?
R. Jumbo. Once the variety has been released, we hand the seed (breeder seeds) to the seed companies for the parents. Hence, the seed companies maintain those parents. Every year they harvest fresh seeds for the parents, so when they want to make high breeds, they will have fresh seeds that they gathered.
C. Patrick. Reacting to the comment on legume seeds, in doing this work, we involved TARI. There are processes and standard processes that you must follow. Therefore, TARI Naliendele is responsible for the crops. We have written the release proposal, they have looked at the data, and now they should be able to present and move on.

ICRISAT, as a breeding institution, is responsible for making available seeds. The dry nut cereals are also with TARI Uyole. So, the process has been completed, but sometimes we have a bureaucracy that delays the process. We are working with TARI, but the process might be somehow long.

C. Nduguru. The project has developed very robust technologies. If diminished, it can create a substantial tangible impact on attending targeted beneficiaries. If we can go back to the review and planning meeting at the begging of the project, I think some constraints were highlighted. Among them is the issue of adoption. We found linkage elements between farmers, other stakeholders, extension agents, and policymakers. During the project, we saw farmers in village A have privileged priorities and preferences. For example, a farmer in Long will go specific type of beans verities and maize, whereas the farmer in Seleto tend to prioritize a different set of technologies. So, I think If we were to move forward much more effectively, we need to go back and see how we can strengthen the relationship between researchers, extension agencies, policymakers, and farmers, and for instance, toward the end of the project, we initiate some pilot functional stakeholder platforms in three villages. The farmers /stakeholders identified and prioritized their needs, and we could see the connection between agro-dealers and the farmers. I think we will have a better chance of high adoption rates.
C.Fred. I think from the perspective of Africa; there are some things that are not within our control. I think the government has a significant role to play. For example, RUNDER, they have developed ALIS (Agricultural land information systems), so they know every farmer on a parcel of land in terms of demographic, soil requirements, water requirements, and agroecology that could produce for you.

An example of what Ndunguru said is you have Long, which is high altitude, come down to Seloto, and go to Sabilo. These areas all fall under agroecological greeted high rainfall, and lower rainfall and the soil will be different. So, when you come to those ecologies, the government will tell the farmers type of land, seed verities that work for them, and agro-dealers to deal with. All that has now been digitized to know what is working for who, and now they are disseminating what is happening. Consolidate all scattered information into one place. Africa RISING was on a good path in documenting the legacy products; the question raised by Mruma is, who is the next Betty Maeda, Irmgard, Mateete, etc.? I think the government will ask who the next person can consolidate this information so it can be shared with agro-dealers, farmers, and donors. In a nutshell, we need to sit back and take a look and say, out of this reach research, can we develop the simple vital messages that we can communicate with the policymakers so that they can think how we can consolidate this information that will be beneficial at local, sub-national, national level?. I think we can play the role of how we can curate the knowledge, digitize it, and make it available to policymakers and broader audiences.

Market Place II: ESA Technologies applying ecological intensification as an entry point

  • Doubled up legumes & crop sequencing – Regis Chikowo

Please download the poster from the link below.

  • Mbili Mbili – Michael Kinyua
  • Soil fertility management through fertilizer application – Job Kihara

Download the poster from the link below

  • Soil and water conservation in Tanzania – Fred Kizito

Download the poster from the links below.

  • Conservation agriculture in Malawi and Zambia – Christian Thierfelder

Download the poster from the links below


Discussion

C. Swai. As we have identified the gaps, we need to think about how we can address those gaps.
C. Haile. Africa's RISING program has worked very well in validating technologies, which has been observed by scaling partners in the national systems and farmers.

In my opinion, the critical challenge is mechanization, especially labor-intensive technologies. So we must consider how we use the assistant technologies to scale further in the community-based. : So, I think it is something that we can make forward to further research or project implementation C. Patrick. We need to think about the way to integrate some of the initiatives because there are initiatives that were borrowed from CA For example, farmers need to save on the use of fertilizer by using CA and need to save soil erosions from using another initiative; I think this need to be simplified to farmers. Therefore, we need to think of a way to ensure these initiatives are combined and documented in a simple way for the farmers to benefit. Because I have noted what Job is doing, it compliments other presenters, for we should consider having a cocktail of technologies.

C.Irmgard. I would suggest that for the final report we are writing about the program, we should be open to describing the downsides of the technologies or challenges, not only on productivity, increased income, and nutritional things. Be open and have the courage to describe the problem, which makes us incredible.
C. Kimaro. We should focus not only on delivery and challenges but also on the way forward and recommendations. We should have something that puts a positive way forward. What are our recommendations? For example, what do we have to do if the land size is shirking? We should not have left that question unanswered. On the other side, about the deliverables, they lead us on how or what to put underrate. For example, if we say achievements, it could have been more than the publications/book chapters but include many other tangible things the farmer can take up. So let's put the achievements down and appear very strongly
C. Betty. Regarding the technologies, for example, Fanya Juu and Fanya Chini, we need to look at the cost of production and have a cost per unit area so that farmers can know how long it will last. This information could make him/her in a position to have an informed decision to adopt the technology. But, once we do an experimental, trial base or demonstration is just like we are showing them something that they are not going to adopt because it is laborious and might be time-consuming and experience. But if we show them in the begging, the cost in terms of time and finance will help farmers to be in a better position to adopt the technology.
C. Matha. We need to develop labor-saving technologies to enhance the adoption of the technologies. Also, little has been done on gender studies; we need to do gender studies to assess gender roles and how they have influenced the adoption of the technologies.

Day TWO [25 August 2022] Market Place III: ESA Technologies applying socio-economic intensification as an entry point

  • Returns on investment in Africa RISING research and scaling – C. Azzarri, Julius Manda

Download the poster file from the link below.

Overview from our Monitoring and Evaluation – D. Mgalla & C. Azzarri, M&E Lead

Download the poster file from the link below.

Discussion

C. Mateete. Julius has a fascinating presentation. I think the request from USAID was about the return on investments. For example, if you are using money with you to MSU to do the calculation and you forget that I am getting the salary to supervise Regis, you are not making the total investments; suppose you use the money for real investment, what would you get for comparison?
R.Imgard. Mateete, the project has a high overhead, but we could get the specific calculation for farmers.
R. Mateete. Irmgard and I don't think we have reached the break-even for these values because we are going to end, but the project impact, I believe, will continue, so when do you get to the break-even to say this is a return on investment?
R. Julius: Regarding the project cost, we are already in contact with Fred to see if we can get the total price for the project itself, so we will see how this came out. But, first of all, we wanted to validate the

methodologies we are using, and the way to do it is with the kind of data available. After you finetune the methods and bring down all the costs, the rates will reduce.

C.Patrick. I was discussing with Julius that if these trends are actual, you would see the technologies everywhere. Because they have dis- adaptation, they are having a warning signal that something must be done, which Julius accepts.
C.Haroon. The issue of capacity building, about the paraprofessionals, how we can link them into existing services, for example, the work of LEAD foundations and DAICO offices. Do they have any certifications? have they been linked there? We need to think about this going forward.

Regarding long-term training, do we have the status of the MSU, Ph.D. students? How many are in the country, are they still going on, and did they complete their studies? I think this information is missing, and it is crucial going the way forward as we close this phase.

C.Patrick. It might be helpful to disaggregate in the report what we mean by beneficiaries so people understand the meaning/content of what we are writing.

The second comment is on the capacity-building poster. The data is disaggregated per country. Secondly, it would be good for the posters to have targeted the government policymakers after we have disaggregated the information and clarified how many people and what capacity has been built at a different level. This is something to think about. The communication team can work with the team to develop. Also, I think the number going up is progressive if we could show the beneficiaries. The graphs presented by Daniel are not very different from Julius's poster, which shows the number of benefits is going high up. In that case, I think it can make an excellent communication piece because there is evidence that something was happening. I guess tying Julius posters and Daniels is a good way of selling the message, and the projection can be made.

C. Matha. Along with defining the beneficiary, it is also good to operationalize adaptors such as years of using the technology, level of implementing the technology, and so on.
C.Haroon. I wanted to clarify that USAID, under the Africa RISING NAFAKA, tried to avoid the term adoption because of the matter that Matha has pointed out (about adopters). Even when you go to the indicator definitions of USAID, they are talking about application rather than adaptation, while the focus is on how many farmers have applied the technology, whether they have tried or adopted it, so long as at that particular time they were applying and this makes the conditions or criteria of USAID. I think that saves us a lot of trouble. Applying is just enough.
R. Mateete. Patrick, the number we have shown for the beneficiaries, we got them from tools from IFPRI, the TTT tool. Those are the numbers and a clear definition of the beneficiaries.
C. Patrick (Esoko). I believe a project should be able to leave tools behind that could continue scaling work / This would help other stakeholders to make use of the data collected passively and have insights into what is happening even after the project phase out, for example, having the repository for digital content, accessibility use and traceability of the content. This could inform future interventions.

The project could also emphasize branding and advertising of its products.

C. Mruma. In my opinion on the way to go forward, I think the project and other CGIAR centers have shown excellence in agronomy. NAFAKA KILIMO project is exploring possibilities to partner with the excellence in agronomy within the framework of the Farm to Market Alliance initiatives in the Southern highlands, of which the WFP and NAFAKA KILIMO will be implemented in the next five years. The Farm to Market Alliance is willing to support part of production if private sectors offer the technologies. In the future, we might win the Mastercard Foundation initiatives in the Center and Northern Tanzania, and we need to develop some of the technologies. For example, some of the technologies we might adopt from Compendium Job Kihara have developed, and some will need to sit with Job to twist them how we want to take it to the farmers. Also, going forward, the government is looking to strengthen partnerships with the private sector, for example, the horticulture industries, in the next five years. This is another aspect we are looking to work on with World Vegetable Center.
C. Mateete. There is a need to continue learning how to work together, and we must work on that.

Market Place IV: ESA Technologies applying human condition intensification as an entry point

Improved household nutrition (value addition) – Seetha Anitha, Y. Muzanila, A. Mwangwela

Download the Poster file from the Link below

Technologies for reducing postharvest losses and improving food safety – Christopher Mutungi

Download the poster file from the link below

Market Place V: Tools for scaling ESA Technologies

  • Utilization of geospatial tools – Francis Muthoni

Download the poster file from the link below

  • Sustainable recommendation domains (FARMDESIGN, Typologies etc.) – J. Groot, L. Claessens

Download the poster file from the link below


  • Using the SI Assessment Framework learning lab approach for impact - S. Snapp

Download the Poster file from the Link below


https://africa-rising-wiki.net/images/8/85/Grains-Dairy_Vegs_Nutrition_benefits_ESA_Seetha.pdf Technologies for reducing postharvest losses and improving food safety – Christopher Mutungi Download Poster file from the Link below https://africa-rising-wiki.net/images/f/f7/Benefits_PostharvestTech_ESA_Christopher.pdf

  • The shelter effect was more compared with the main screen and maize crop underneath. There are not many cropping seasons by drought in terms of yield productivity, but there was comparative control in each of the shelters where there are no trees. The presence of trees will be checked by the monoculture with and without trees to understand if it would cause positive or negative effects on maize alone treatments and with other treatments.
  • Christian. Okay, may you please elaborate on how long and time when you put the shelter?
  • Antony. We introduced before the tackling, and overall, at 50% tackling, and this was the onset of active group period on each of the seasons. In terms of precisely the month, it was mid-March, about six to eight weeks.
  • Mateete.Drought performing better than ambient, needs some more explanation?
  • Antony.Thanks, Mateete. In 2020, it was the year of an evenly distributed large amount of rainfall from mid of October towards the end of April/mid-May. The drought created favorable conditions for the varieties adapted to semi-arid areas compared to the ambient. Therefore, I would associate it with better performance in the drought treatments in 2020 compared to the trying year of 2019.
  • Fredy.Comment. Thank you, Antony, the increased productivity is excellent. It would be a good study if carried out for more than two years and assess yield stability in the context of resilience.
  • Jumbo.Comment. The design of experiments in terms of center size is something you need to pay attention to because of how the study was designed. It might be challenging to explain if the control of other factors has not been well accounted for. So, just two seasons may not be enough. That is why it seems there are speculations on performance. Other external factors should be accounted for. We need another season to see the consistency of the results.


File:ESA ppt Elirehema Swai.pptx - Mr. Elirehema Swai (TARI-Hombolo)

  • Download presentation from link in the title above.

Discussion

  • Shitindi. Swai, was there control fertilizer use under baby trials?
  • Swai.Yes, Shitindi. On the calories and protein production attribute to the water shortage. Both mother and baby trials have the same treatments at the same level. And all received the same amount of fertilizers at planting and before flowering.
  • Shitindi. Thanks, Swai, how about the issue of moistures, the difference in crop performance substitute to terms of texture between mother plots with clay soils, and most baby plots with another type of soil. Under normal conditions, I expected the clay soil to have higher moisture retention than the other type of soil. If the two kinds of soil receive the same amount of rain, the expectation is that the clay soil would retain more moisture for crop use.
  • Swai. We conducted the study across the season; it was impossible to obtain the data from a single event. During the experiment time, there was not enough soil moisture to allow the wetting of the soil under the clay. Where there is inadequate wetting, the impact of soil water impact would be difficult. Also, there was no water held between the replanting during the season, which would make the difference. But also, the experience from the semi-arid shows when there is limited soil moisture supply in the very wet season, farmers could get something under a semi clay soil compare to typical clay soil.
  • Mulundu. In the two years that the study was undertaken, was the normal rainfall attended for the study site? If not, are there are possibilities of having extra rainfall in the season, for example, if the study site can attend something in a range of at least 600-700 mm, has it been a thought that probably if the rainfall were higher, in that case, the performance of the two treatments would have different performance?
  • Swai. Thanks, Mulundu, We carried the study in a semi-arid area. Usually, there is an average rainfall of around 550-600 mm of rain per season. Because of the research and project time limit, it is difficult to conduct another study. Another study will require three seasons consequently to quantify the result.
  • Mateete.Comment. The first season which is entirely wet, is a good blessing in the study and should show that the technologies do not work all the time and everywhere, this should be stressed in this reporting.
  • Regis. Swai, during the introduction, you talked about the hardpan due to livestock tractors, etc. to reinforce the ideas under that aspect, it would be nice to show the existence of the hardpans through empirical data from the landscape, which would strengthen your arguments by reinforcing the paper with such kind of data.
  • Swai. Thanks, Regis. It is unfortunate. We did not conduct such type of study.
  • Regis. Noted, Swai. Also, there are concerns that there are limiting issues when it comes to infiltration, and sometimes it may lead to rainfall intensity above a certain threshold, and you turn to have a runoff. So probably we need to get data on how much moisture was infiltrated and how much was run off under certain rainfall conditions. I hope that kind of data is available.
  • Swai. Well, Regis, my study was confined to cumulative infiltration as such. But, I will look at it if we can go further working on your idea. We had no automatic rain weather station that could follow in terms of rainfall intensity. Besides, we had only the standard ranges to measure the rainfall amount and other paraments. The rainfall intensity was not difficult to measure.
  • Regis.Okay, How about the runoff? It would be essential to show because it is a proxy for infiltration if you could measure runoff. Do you have ideas about that, or was your study based on soil moisture only?
  • Swai. In phase one of the Africa RISING, another study was undertaken in the Kongwa Kiteto district and involved many parameters (runoff, soil loss, soil water content). Also, there was rip tillage using the oxen-drawn implement. In that study, we measured the runoff, and the impact was very evident. The rip tillage compares to conventional farmer tillage has less runoff. Tied ridge had low runoff, and traditional tillage of farmers had high runoff.
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