CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE WITH TREES (CAWT) PROJECT: SCALING-UP THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA END OF PROJECT REPORT Draft 1: August 2012 JONATHAN MURIUKI, HAMISI DULLA, SAIDI MKOMWA, JEREMIAS MOWO AND THE PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION TEAM FUNDED BY: The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SIDA/ICRAF/ACT Conservation Agriculture with Trees Final Project report | 1 Table of contents Table of contents ........................................................................................................................ 2 List of abbreviations and acronymsAcknowledgements ............................................................ 4 Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 5 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................. 8 1.2 Case study country selection .................................................................................. 9 1.3 Formation of the Project Implementation Team .................................................. 10 1.4 Project inception ................................................................................................... 11 2. SITUATION ANALYSIS ON CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE AND AGROFORESTRY IN THE FOUR COUNTRIES ................................................................................................ 12 2.1 Conservation Agriculture in the Region ................................................................ 12 2.2 Agroforestry in the Region .................................................................................... 22 3. EXTENT OF ADOPTION OF CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE AND AGROFORESTRY IN TANZANIA, KENYA, GHANA, AND ZAMBIA.................................................................. 30 3.1 Introduction and methods .................................................................................... 30 3.2 Results and discussions ......................................................................................... 31 3.3 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 45 4. POLICY INCENTIVES FOR SCALING UP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE WITH TREES IN TANZANIA, KENYA, GHANA AND ZAMBIA................................................................... 48 4.1 Introduction and methods .................................................................................... 48 4.2 Results and discussion........................................................................................... 48 4.3 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 65 5. INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS FOR SCALING UP OF CAWT TECHNOLOGIES: THE CASE OF KENYA, TANZANIA, ZAMBIA AND GHANA .................................................... 67 5.1 Introduction and methods .................................................................................... 67 5.2 Country Specific Analysis ...................................................................................... 67 Institutional Frameworks opportunities for supporting CAWT in Kenya ................... 68 Institutional Frameworks opportunities for supporting CAWT in Tanzania ............... 75 Institutional Frameworks Governing CAWT in Zambia .......................................................... 80 Institutional Frameworks opportunities for supporting CAWT in Ghana ................... 85 5.3 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 91 SIDA/ICRAF/ACT Conservation Agriculture with Trees Final Project report | 2 6. TOWARDS A REGIONAL FACILITATION MECHANISM FOR SCALING UP AGROFORESTRY BASED CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE ............................................ 92 6.1 Introduction and methodology ............................................................................. 92 6.2 The Africa Conservation Tillage Network .............................................................. 93 6.3 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) ......................... 94 6.4 World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) ....................................................................... 95 6.5. The African Union - CAADP and Regional Economic Communities (RECS) .......... 96 6.6 The role of RECs in scaling up CAWT within the policy frameworks of CAADP .. 102 6.7 The proposed Regional Platform for fast-tracking CAWT initiatives from national to regional levels for sustained growth and impact ........................................... 105 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 0 SIDA/ICRAF/ACT Conservation Agriculture with Trees Final Project report | 3 Acknowledgements This project would not have been successful without the efforts of several individuals and institutions some of which we list below and others that we might not be able to list but whose contribution is not in any way less important. We acknowledge Sida for funding the project, engaging actively with the project team and even allowing a no-cost extension to ensure that all three outputs could be delivered. We also appreciate the cooperation given by various government and non-governmental institutions some of whom played a very active role in the project. These include, in alphabetical order, the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), Ghana Forestry Commission, Golden Valley Agricultural Research Trust (GART), the Kenya Federation of Agricultural Producers (KENFAP), the Kenya Network for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies (KENDAT), Ministries of Agriculture in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia, University of Dar es Salam (Institute of Resource Assessment, IRA), University of Zambia (UNZA), and other institutions that formed the CAWT taskforces in each of the four countries. Many CA and agroforestry stakeholders, including smallholder farmers, provided information that was very useful towards output delivery as survey respondents or key informants and we greatly appreciate. Of great value also were enumerators and field assistants that were recruited to help with various aspects of field research. Dedication The project implementation team was grieved to learn of the death of Dr. Ebenezer Owusu- Sekyere (pictured below), the project focal person for Ghana who passed away on the last day of the end-of-project workshop (May 11, 2012). Dr Owusu-Sekyere hard battled an ailment for almost the entire project period that made him cede the project implementation in Ghana to Dr. Paul Bosu. We wish to dedicate this report to him. R.I.P SIDA/ICRAF/ACT Conservation Agriculture with Trees Final Project report | 4 Executive Summary 1. Introduction Supported by Sida, the World Agroforestry centre (ICRAF) and the African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) launched the Conservation Agriculture with Trees (CAWT) pilot project in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The countries were selected as among those in Africa where there was strong evidence of CA up-scaling taking place. The project was premised on the hypothesis that integrating trees in conservation agriculture systems has the potential to enable smallholder farmers to attain more sustainable production and agro-ecosystems. The project was funded for one and a half years (December 2010 to May 2012). The purpose was to develop a solid knowledge and partnership base for effective up-scaling of a continent- wide campaign for evergreen agriculture among smallholder farmers in SSA including awareness, capacity development and policy guidance. This was to be addressed by generating 3 major outputs as follows: (i) The extent of adoption of conservation agriculture by smallholder farmers identified and documented, and the institutional and organizational infrastructure to support up- scaling mapped and analyzed, (ii) Policy and institutional factors promoting or hindering large scale adoption of conservation agriculture identified, quantified and documented, and (iii) A regional facilitation mechanism for scaling up agroforestry based CA identified. 2. Extent of adoption of conservation agriculture and agroforestry The results of the study reveal that adoption of CA is still very low and slow in the four study countries, with less than 5 per cent of smallholder farmers adopting all three components of CA. More popular is the adoption of one or two components of CA. The factors influencing adoption of CA in the target countries include the age of the household head, household size, access to training resources, knowledge dissemination (through farmer field schools and contact farmer approach) and farmers’ perception of CA as potentially mitigating climate change. As such, CA may not be adopted as a one size fits all intervention and there is need to target interventions by taking into account specific local characteristics. Agroforestry (tree crop intercropping) is fairly supported by farmers and this provides hope and impetus for efforts to scale up CAWT. However, this has to be approached with caution since there are specific factors that would encourage adoption by farmers that should be looked into during design and dissemination of interventions. The study also