Project Description

The agro-biodiversity and land restoration for food security and nutrition in Eastern Africa project aims at mobilizing agricultural and biological resources to support targeted restoration interventions through diversifying farming systems and landscapes in Uganda and Ethiopia. The project is being implemented through a partnership between ICRAF and Bioversity in collaboration with national partners from both countries.

The project is building on previous work done by the two participating CGIAR Centers, which independently assessed and promoted local fruit/nut tree species and crop varietal diversity. Working in collaboration with the national partners, specific sites have been jointly selected in Uganda and Ethiopia in areas where land degradation has occurred due to inappropriate land use practices, and where communities have been mobilized through earlier projects in diversifying their crop and food tree resources.

A key output of this project is based on working with national partners to support national and local systems’ ability to provide diverse and high-quality planting material of suitable crop and food tree species/varieties, building on national partners’ community seed banks, seed networks and decentralized tree nurseries supported by the project.

Goal

The overall goal is to contribute to landscape restoration by harnessing food tree and crop portfolios in ways that enhance livelihoods and landscape resilience while addressing food insecurity and improving nutrition.

Objective

The project’s objective is to identify ecologically suitable and socio-economically and culturally acceptable food trees and crop portfolios (i.e. combinations of a diversity of species and varieties) and make available their planting material, provide technical training and capacity strengthening of the national partners’ and smallholder farmers’ engagement in integrating these portfolios into existing farming systems and restoring landscapes for increased food security and improved nutrition.

Outputs

• Output One: Current agro-biodiversity assessed, and suitable priority food tree and crop species identified.
• Output Two: Food tree and crop portfolios for optimal species and systems productivity and resilience developed and validated in the project sites.
• Output Three: National partners have access to quality planting materials of validated food tree and crop portfolios for wide distribution to farmers’.
• Output Four: Innovative communication materials developed, and capacities of farmers and national partners developed.

Sites

The project is on-going in two sites in Uganda, Nakasongola and Nakaseke, and Ethiopia, Ziway and Debre Ziyet. The sites represent areas where land degradation has occurred due to inappropriate land use practices, and where communities have been mobilized through earlier projects in diversifying their crop varieties and food tree resources. 

Contacts:

Project PI & Theme leader – Tree Productivity and Diversity: Ramni Jamnadass

Email: R.JAMNADASS@CGIAR.ORG

Project Lead: Stepha McMullin 

Email: s.mcmullin@cgiar.org

Project Manager: Erick Ngethe 

email: e.ngethe@cgiar.org