This document discusses some of ILRI's (International Livestock Research Institute) crop-livestock research projects that are relevant to SIMLESA. It summarizes three projects: 1) Africa RISING which improves food security and farm income in Ethiopia through sustainable intensification of crop-livestock systems, 2) LegumeCHOICE which realizes the potential of multi-purpose legumes in East and Central Africa, and 3) N2Africa which increases nitrogen fixation to benefit smallholder farmers in Africa through increasing legume production and use. Potential livestock activities for SIMLESA Phase II are also outlined.

1. Some ILRI crop-livestock work
relevant to SIMLESA
Alan Duncan, Peter Thorne, Endalkachew Wolde-Meskel
SIMLESA planning meeting , Addis Ababa, 7-11 April 2014

2. Introduction
• Africa RISING = Africa Research In Sustainable Intensification for
the Next Generation
• Three research-for-development projects supported by the United
States Agency for International Development(USAID) as part of
the U.S. government’s Feed the Future initiative
(www.feedthefuture.gov).
• Create opportunities for smallholder farm households to move
out of hunger and poverty through sustainably intensified farming
systems that improve food, nutrition, and income security,
particularly for women and children, and conserve or enhance the
natural resource base.

3. Projects
 Three project are located in
 the Ethiopian highlands,
 West Africa
 East and Southern Africa
 Managed by ILRI and IITA
 Monitoring and Evaluation, IFPRI

4. Ethiopian Highlands
Africa RISING in Ethiopian highlands:
improve food security and farm income
diversification through sustainable
intensification of crop-livestock
systems
 Integrated approach: strong
participatory base to identify
technologies and management
practices that could work for farmers
whilst accounting for the wider
contexts in which these must operate
(e.g. market access, effectiveness of
institutions, policy environment).

5. ResearchOutline:
Ethiopian Highlands

6. LegumeCHOICE: Realizing the underexploited potential of multi-
purpose legumes towards improved livelihoods and a better
environment in crop-livestock systems in East & Central Africa
• Donor: BMZ
• Duration: April 2014 for Mar 2017
• Consortium
– International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
– Université Catholique de Bukavu (UCB), DR Congo
– Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Kenya
– Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR),
Ethiopia
– University of Hohenheim, Germany
– International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
– World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)

7. LegumeChoice problem tree
Figure 1: Problem tree defining the core problem addressed by the proposed research along with tracing selected causes to outputs and effects to SLO’s.

8. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
N2Africa
www.N2Africa.org

9. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
Introduction to N2Africa
• Led by Wageningen University; main
partners IITA and ILRI; many national
partners
• Originally eight countries in 2009
• Extension in 2012 to Ethiopia,
Tanzania, Uganda
• Phase II five core countries and tier
countries

10. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
Main goal: increasing inputs from N2-fixation
 Increase the area of land
cropped with legumes
(targeting of technologies)
• Increase legume productivity
(agronomy, P-fertilizer)
• Select better legume varieties
• Select better rhizobium strains
and inoculate
• Link to markets and enterprises to
increase demand
for legumes

11. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
N2Africa – target regions and legumes
West Africa
• Cowpea, groundnut, soybean
East & Central Africa
• Common bean, groundnut, soybean
Chickpea Faba bean
Southern Africa
• Common bean, groundnut, soybean
Throughout all regions
• Forage legumes

12. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
N2Africa is a development to research project
• Dissemination and
Development are the core
• Monitoring & evaluation
provides the learning
• Research analyses
and feeds back
M&E
D&D
Research

13. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
Great potential to link to SIMLESA -CIMMYT

14. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
ChickpeagrainyieldinplotswithPand/orI(t/ha)
Chickpea grain yield in control plot (t/ha)
+I
+P
+P+I
Farmers are missing out the benefit of applying P with out N being sufficient

15. Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
Benefits (yield + soil fertility) maximized
FTC, intercropping of maize and common bean, at Dambi Dima, Bako tibe
woreda (promoted by Bako ARC

16. Potential livestock activities in SIMLESA Phase II
• Assessment of the Role of Livestock in Livestock-Maize-Legume
systems
– Participatory assessments, livelihoods analysis and qualitative and
quantitative ex ante impact assessments (including modelling
studies)
• Assessment of Demand for and Supply of Feed
– FEAST (Feed Assessment Tool) - analysing the seasonal dynamics of
feed resource availability and use and their relationship to resource
use issues in other components of the system
• Identification of potential feeding interventions
– Techfit: Simple scoring tool for prioritizing feed interventions
– Could be used by partners to identify a “basket” of viable
interventions for testing and adaptation via SIMLESA II

17. Potential livestock activities in SIMLESA Phase II
• Integration of forage and other legumes.
– the evaluation of the livestock feed ‘pull’ for forage, grain and multi-
purpose legumes;
– the nutritive value of different legumes for livestock and their
suitability and contribution to livestock feeding;
• Opportunities for optimising crop residue use.
– Choose with crop improvement/agronomy partner, cereal and
leguminous cultivars that are better than currently available/used
cultivars at matching farmers needs for food, feed and fodder, and
other uses (fuel , construction etc.) where appropriate;
– Improve utilization of cereal and leguminous crop residues better
through supplementation, on farm processing etc;
– Encourage small scale feed/fodder processing business around
transit of crop residues .

18. Potential livestock activities in SIMLESA Phase II
• Analysis of trade-offs (issues and potential
solutions) in Livestock-Maize-Legume systems
– Build on Systemwide Livestock Programme work on
biomass trade-offs: feed vs. mulch and other uses.
Some bio-economic modelling?

19. Innovation platform briefs

20. The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is given to ILRI.
better lives through livestock
ilri.org