This study was presented during the conference “Production and Carbon Dynamics in Sustainable Agricultural and Forest Systems in Africa” held in September, 2010.

1. Diversity, sustainability and resilience in
natural resource management in Africa
Jeff Sayer, Stockholm, 29thSeptember 2010
ABSTRACT: This paper will discuss some of the changes in policy that could reduce the threat to, and strengthen the resilience of small-holder
agriculture and forestry, and allow it to thrive in the future. For instance present programs to provide improved seeds, mechanisation and fertilizers
pose a threat to existing integrated, low input systems. The existing focus on a small number of commodity crops runs counter to the ecological
efficiency that could come from more diverse locally adapted crop and tree mixtures. The paper will argue that ecological efficiency and meeting local
needs and retaining environmental values should receive more attention in agriculture and forestry systems and should balance the present emphasis
given to provision of inputs, intensification and the export market orientation.
Africa has vast areas with unproductive soils and severe water shortages, however there are also significant areas with productive well-watered soils.
Africa has the potential to feed itself AND be a major exporter of food and other products whilst retaining its spectacular nature, in ways that
contribute to increasing carbon stores. Some of the major drivers of change tend to favour intensive, high input agriculture and forestry which in turn is
leads to demand for economies of scale. These will therefore push Africa in the direction of large, mechanised farms and forests. These may produce
food and fibre for Africa’s metropolises but if the purchasing power of urban people is not high the produce may be exported and the food insecurity
and environmental degradation in Africa may persist.
The paper explores the implications of different development strategies for alleviating Africa’s poverty, feeding its people and doing so in ways that do
not expose them to risk, whilst at the same time maintaining environmental values, during a period when the price of fossil fuels are going to increase.
The rich world may be prepared to pay for agricultural and forestry systems that maintain sequester carbon and preserve biodiversity. A degree of
aggregation of farm size and intensification is inevitable and desirable. But this process could increase the vulnerability of small farmers and forest
dependent people. They risk not being able to compete and they will be susceptible to the various climatic changes predicted. They will suffer most
from increases in input prices. Africa has some efficient small-holder agricultural and agroforestry systems. These are all at risk from intensification.

2. The challenge
• Producing more food and fiber
• Equitable distribution of benefits
• Driving economic growth
• Africa as net sink not source of Carbon
• Conserving Africa’s remarkable biodiversity

3. The dangers
Ideological drives
Limited influence
Not our role to make choices
Options limited by institutional weakness
All we can do is enhance capacity to make good
decisions and manage programmes

4. Conservation tillage
…there is an urgent need for
critical assessment under which ecological and
socio-economic conditions CA is best suited for
smallholder farming in SSA. Critical constraints
to adoption appear to be competing uses for
crop residues, increased labor for women etc
(Giller et al) .

8. Industrial Scenario
• Will grow economies
• But will have export orientation
• May push African food prices down – unpredictable impacts
on small farmers
• Borlaug hypothesis – land saving
• Could support trend to urbanisation
• Vulnerable to global market and climate changes
• Not good for carbon emissions

9. TNS - Landscape
• 44.000 km2;
• 3 countries, 3 national
parks – 17%
Lobeke - 2.178 km2
Dzanga-Ndoki - 1.254 km2
Nouabale-Ndoki - 4.250 km2
•Concessions – 60%
•Community forests – 10%
•Agroforestry – 10%
•Mines

10. The people
•Population ~191,000
•Bantou – 60%
•Baka, Ba’Aka – 30%
•Immigrants – 10%
•Employed in logging or
•Smallholder farmering
•Hunters and gatherers

11. GTZ
MEFE
Programme Régional de l’Afrique
Centrale pour L’Environnement
ROSE
Université
Autonome de
Madrid
MEFCP
MINEP
SEFAC
ALPICAM
FTNS
Aires Protégées
Dzanga-Sangha
(APDS)
Stakeholder platform - Landscape
PROGEPP

12. Sangha Tri-National
Africa’s richest biodiversity

13. And its poorest people

14. Household income – BAU/REDD
1. BAU, no REDD
2. REDD for agroforestry zone
3. REDD for agroforestry and protected areas
4. REDD for agroforestry, protected areas and certified concessions

15. Impact of the Global Financial Crisis
Endamana et al –
2010. Tropical
Conservation
Science

16. We need evidence and not slogans

17. Champions of Integrated, diverse, small-
scale agriculture
UNEP, Norway, Study, IAASTD
ICRAF, CIAT, Bioversity
Small scale
Biodiverse
Locally self-sufficient – low inputs
Labour intensive
Resilient
But will it get people out of poverty???

18. How important are Biodiversity and
natural ecosystem services for the poor?
Basic biology suggests that diverse systems are
more productive and resilient than simple systems
They should provide resilience to climate
variability, economic shocks etc
 But can smallholder farmers capture the
production benefits of diversity and move into the
cash economy?
Can these diverse systems yield an economic
surplus?

19. • Advocates make claims about value of diverse agriculture –
but little empirical evidence for these values
• Diverse systems safety nets for the very poor but:
• Are smallholders locked-into diverse systems because of risks
in transitioning to more intensive agriculture?
• Specialised monocultures have historically provided the best
route out of poverty – but is this because
• Agricultural knowledge systems are part of the problem? –
they can’t they handle the multiple needs of highly diverse
locally adapted systems?
Biodiverse agriculture – romantic
ideology or resilient, productive systems

20. Biodiversity, risk and transformation
• Lots of rhetoric but little action
• Can biodiversity be basis for transformational
change for smallholder farmers?
• Do we really understand the nature of actual or
potential value of biodiversity?
• Would changes in research priorities and modalities
help find a role for more biodiverse agriculture?

21. The glass half
empty
•Farmers only remain in diverse systems to
avoid risk and they get lower returns to land,
labour and capital (IFPRI)
•Therefore biodiverse farming systems may
be a poverty trap
•Specialisation and focus on simpler farming
systems provides best pathway out of
poverty
•Farmers move to specialised systems when
they have capital or “insurance” and then get
higher returns
•AGRA, the World Bank etc clearly favour
more specialised agricultural systems
The Romantic illusion?

22. The glass half
full
•Extremely poor still depend on
biodiversity, off-farm incomes and natural
ecosystem services
•Agricultural inputs – phosphates, fossil
fuels etc will become scarce
•Ecological efficiency may become more
important than single factor productivity
•Precision and conservation
agriculture, organic farming, eco-
agriculture etc
•Diverse systems do sometimes produce
more – e.g. Ruanda, Sri Lanka
•IAASTD clearly supports “small and
diverse is beautiful”
But maybe times are changing?

23. Global orchestration
The millennium Ecosystem Assessment
scenarios – best analysis yet
Adapting mosaicNatural habitat
Intensive production
Multifunctional landscape

24. What are African Governments
doing?
• Very diverse responses
• Asserting their own interests
• Responding to threats and opportunities
• Shifting allegiances to Brazil, China and the
corporate world
• Probably favouring the industrial scenario

25. What do the actors think?
 World Development Report 2008.
 Productivity – intensification – inputs – breeding
 Environment as externality
 Climate change as threat to be confronted
 IAASTD
 Integrated agriculture – multiple functions
 Ecological efficiency
 Local self sufficiency
 Resilience – from diversity
 AGRA
 Market access – value chains
 Private suppliers – distribution networks
 Fertilizers and improved seeds
 Millennium Development Villages
 Jump starting
 Technological fixes
 Fertilizers and improved seeds

26. Millennium Villages – not so different to what
many NGOs do
a prosperous society lifted on to a pedestal and
outside the reach of most of Africa’s citizens
IHT – September 2010

29. What can be done?
• Recognize the diminishing role of formal aid
agencies
• Understand the real drivers of change
• Develop realistic scenarios
• Support embedded research - contextualised
• Build local knowledge and innovation systems
• Exterminate seagulls

30. Mainstream agricultural research is:
Focused on narrow range of crops, attributes and
farming systems – promoting uniformity
Seeking breakthrough technologies – not
incremental change in diverse local systems
Organised around dominant commercial crops
Too supply driven – top down
Seeks technological responses to risk
Conservative and hierarchical?

31. Modernise Africa’s knowledge and
innovation systems
• On station On farm/landscape
• Controlled trials Action research
• Single variable Multiple variables
• Simple Complex systems
• Libraries Internet, web of science
• Written word ITC, cell phones etc
• Centralised Networks

32. Risk and transformation
Are specialised systems themselves vulnerable to
large scale “risks” - i. e. we replace lots of small risks
by a few big risks
Could research produce agricultural systems that are
both diverse and productive?
Is the existing aid system part of the problem?

33. Conclusions
• Research needs to be closely linked to users, locally
adaptive, networked, tapping traditional knowledge
etc, - flat hierarchy with multiple links to farmers
• Long-term and place based
• Need to move emphasis away from high input
models towards more ecological efficiency
• Use scenarios to explore radical changes? Don’t just
extrapolate from past trends

34. Thank you