Presented by Jeroen Groot, Charlotte Klapwijk, Carl Timler, Mateete Bekunda, Tom van Mourik, Katrien Descheemaeker, Pablo Tittonell, Ken Giller, Sieglinde Snapp and Bernard Vanlauwe at the 4th International Symposium for Farming Systems Design, Lanzhou, China, 19-22 August 2013

1. Rising to the challenge of sustainable intensification of agricultural
production in Africa—Farming systems design to support action
research for development
Jeroen Groot, Charlotte Klapwijk, Carl Timler, Mateete Bekunda,
Tom van Mourik, Katrien Descheemaeker, Pablo Tittonell,
Ken Giller, Sieglinde Snapp, Bernard Vanlauwe
Wageningen University, IITA, ICRISAT, Michigan State University
4th International Symposium for Farming Systems Design
Lanzhou, China, 19-22 August 2013

2. Introduction
 Entry points for sustainable intensification:
• Farm components: crop and animal yield gaps
• Farm yield gaps: configurations of components and inputs
• Interactions with social-ecological and economic environment:
networks, markets, resources
 Integrated farming systems analysis needed:
• Context-specific
• On-farm testing
• Embedded in communities

3. Africa RISING project
 Create opportunities for smallholder farm households to
move out of hunger and poverty through sustainably
intensified farming systems
• Improve food, nutrition, and income security
• Particularly for women and children
• Conserve or enhance the natural resource base
 Three regional projects:
• West Africa (Mali and Ghana)
• Ethiopian highlands
• East and Southern Africa (Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia)

4. Farming systems analysis
Describe
Explain
Design
Explore
Stakeholder interactions
Diagnosis & design phases

5. Niches, regimes, transitions

6. Farming systems analysis
Survey
Rapid
characteriz.
Detailed
description
Exploration
innovations
Functional
typology
Structural
typology
Systems
(re)design
Extrapolation
Farm
diagnoses
Tradeoff
analysis
Farm
innovations
Potential
impact

7. Farm selection – Y frame

8. Data collection

9. Preliminary results

10. Preliminary results
Proposed improvement
mentioned by farmers
Babati
(Tz)
Kongwa
(Tz)
Dedza
(Mw)
Ntcheu
(Mw)
New crops, cultivars, processing 0.43 0.60 0.88 0.74
Inputs (fertilizers, seeds) 0.25 0.31 0.38 0.23
Land availability 0.23 0.13
Economic resources 0.07 0.15 0.20 0.26
Advice, education and research 0.23 0.13
Improved farm management 0.22 0.06
Technologies and machines 0.17 0.33
Natural resources (soils, manures) 0.14 0.14 0.03
Subsidies 0.02 0.05
Social initiatives, groups 0.01

11.  Large diversity of farm sizes and endowment
 Farmers identified large sets of improvements
 To be explored:
• The role of functional and human/social farm
characteristics in grouping and targeting
• Role of exploration (solution spaces) and design steps in
the delivery of entry points for farm improvement
• Cross-country comparison of farming systems, their
constraints and potential entry points
Discussion

12. Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation
africa-rising.net
Thank you for your attention
jeroen.groot@wur.nl