World Agroforestry Centre - Annual Report 2003

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	Director General's Introduction
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	Land and People
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Theme: Land and People

Introduction
Lead Stories
Other Highlights

Introduction

We are seeking to understand the basis for sound land management and to quantify the long-term consequences of management practices on small-scale agriculture, in order to devise strategic principles that lead to locally relevant land management options.

Our focus for this year is on utilizing local ecological knowledge in research, new approaches using 'change teams' to rapidly scale up the adoption of agroforestry, and assessing the real impact of practices such as improved fallows on reducing household poverty.

The four focal areas are:

Integrated soil fertility management for improving rural livelihoods. Activities under this focus foster the use of agroforestry systems to improve soil fertility in smallholder farms.
Soil and water conservation for maintaining productive agricultural landscapes. The aim of this focus is to identify the principles for integrating agroforestry into soil and water conservation strategies and practices.
Vegetation management for increased system productivity and reduced human vulnerability. This focal area identifies the principles for integrating agroforestry into agricultural systems for the benefits of microclimate regulation, forestalling desertification, shade for crops, and improved pest and disease management.
Land management interventions for reaching the poorest land users. This focal area recognizes and highlights the difficulties that poor land users face in adopting improved land management practices, and develops participatory technology development processes so that pro-poor technologies can be more readily adopted.

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Lead Stories

Finding the Limits
	At a glance
	Farms in densely populated western Kenya are small, soils are depleted and harvests poor. Agroforestry researchers and farmers have found that two technologies – improved fallows and transferring leafy matter from locally-growing shrubs – replenish soils and improve crop production. But a key study of why – and why not – rural people adopt these technologies reveals that social and economic factors severely limit their potential to ease poverty in the region. Download Document (.pdf, 160KB)
And so it grows
	At a glance
	To combat poverty and hunger, rural people in southern Africa need the means to take charge of agroforestry expansion and development in the region. Agroforestry researchers have now put farmers, traditional leaders and local field workers' in the 'driver's seat', in 'local change teams' that undergo intensive 2-year training and then scale up agroforestry development through farmer-to-farmer extension. Download Document (.pdf, 152KB)
Farmers' Local Ecological Knowledge
	At a glance
	A highly valued input into agroforestry research comes from farmers’ local ecological knowledge. By conducting detailed interviews with farmers, researchers are able to gain a rich understanding of the interactions within complex agroforestry systems that can be every bit as useful as scientific knowledge. For instance, studies have shown that farmers’ knowledge of erosion processes provide very similar results to those from scientific simulation models. In Sumatra such indigenous knowledge is providing guidance on the design of coffee gardens while in Peru it provides the basis for accurately selecting appropriate fruit and timber species that will be most compatible with complex local farming systems. Download Document (.pdf, 157KB)

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Other Highlights

	Putting trees and shrubs to the test – finding the right species to improve fallows and harvests in the Sahel Water is chronically lacking in the semi-arid Sahel of West Africa, but depleted soils are also a major problem. Sahelian farmers are some of the poorest people on the planet, unable to afford purchased fertilizers. Improved fallows are one solution, and agroforestry researchers are testing 14 different trees and shrubs to find which ones perform best to replenish Sahelian soils - and improve crop yields. Contact: a.niang@cgiar.org \| Download Document (.pdf, 195KB)
	Stemming the terrestrial tide with trees for Rwanda’s thousand hills Every month on average, one tonne per hectare of soil is swept away from mountainous Rwanda’s steeply sloping farmlands. This is a loss Rwanda can ill afford, as one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in Africa. But agroforestry can stem this tide: within four to five years of terracing Rwanda’s windswept hills with suitable trees, shrubs or grasses, erosion can be reduced by up to 70%. Contact: agforest@rwanda1.com \| Download Document (.pdf, 186KB)
	United they care for the land – grassroots groups in East Africa take a stand against degraded land In the highlands of East Africa, the Centre is working with grassroots organisations that are leading the way in natural resource management. It’s called the African Grassroots Initiative for Livelihood and Environment and the concept is landcare. Case studies in Uganda and Kenya have shown that while the groups are formed to counter land degradation, their unity lies in sharing benefits - and risks. Contact: a.stroud@cgiar.org \|
	Dead fences come alive – spreading agroforestry solutions in the Sahel of West Africa During the long annual dry season in the Sahel, people rely heavily on dry-season gardens for food and income. To keep out livestock, they generally construct ‘dead’ fences with wood better left on trees, and crop residues needed to protect soils. The agroforestry solution is to plant living fences of valuable trees or shrubs - and scale up adoption of this technology through the collaborative project, ‘Fences Come Alive’. Contact: a.niang@cgiar.org \| Download Document (.pdf, 2.27MB)
	Improving on improvement - mixed tree fallows for better maize crops in southern Africa To help combat the famine stalking parts of southern Africa, agroforestry researchers and farmers have found that fallows of fast-growing, nitrogen-fi xing trees, such as Sesbania sesban, increase maize yields - approximating yields with purchased fertilizers, too expensive for most farmers. To improve these ‘improved fallows’ still more, they mix in more fertilizer t2pager_LP_Web002.pdfree species to prevent pest outbreaks and capture more nitrogen for food crops. Contact: p.mafogoya@cgiar.org \| Download Document (.pdf, 160KB)

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