Sustainable Intensification and Climate Change: An EARS-CGIAR Mega-program Initiative In support of the Government of

Ethiopia and the African Union

Barry Shapiro (ILRI)

Strengthening CGIAR - EARS partnerships for effective agricultural transformation in EthiopiaConsultative Meeting, 4 – 5 December 2014

EARS-CGIAR Program on Sustainable Intensification and Climate Change: Origin and Development

• The GOE accepted to be the lead country in the African Union (AU) on Climate Change

• MOA State Minister for Agriculture, HE Ato Wondirad asked ILRI to coordinate development of an EARS-CGIAR Mega-program on Sustainable Intensification and Climate Change

• Draft SI&CC Mega-Program concept note was developed and discussed with EIAR and CG center senior scientists. Research pillars identified and pillar concept note (CN) drafts developed

• More buy-in and contributions from more NARS and CG scientists through EARS-CG Partner Dialogue CN presentation

• Another round of pillar CN development• Integration/synthesis workshop end of January to finalize the CN • Share with donors and other stakeholders thru REF&FS TCs to get

funding

Sustainable Intensification and Climate Change

Background • As the world enters the Sustainable Development Goals

era (post MDGs), the challenge of feeding a growing population in Africa remains

• The challenge is easily stated but more difficult to achieve: How do we sustainably produce more food for people and feed for livestock?

• Recently the concept of ‘sustainable intensification’ or ‘sustainable agricultural intensification’ had been used to summarize the challenge (SDSN, 2013)

• How to define SI and how to measure SI remain issues?

Smallholder Agriculture is Crucial to the Future of Agriculture in Africa

The challenge is to:• Increase the primary productivity of both food crops

and feed for livestock (about 40% of agricultural GDP and growing)

• Produce higher incomes and improved livelihoods for smallholder farmers

• Promote social equity• Protect and enhance natural resources (soil, water,

biodiversity) and ecosystem services• Create an enabling environment and institutions• Increase social equity

The Critical Role of Research in Increasing Primary Productivity

Increasing primary productivity is critical, but to achieve this:• Research is needed to identify development pathways

and models – for SI of smallholder agriculture• Two ways research on increasing primary productivity

can contribute to SI:

- Research is needed on how existing technologies and information can be used to close the ‘yield gap’

- What new technologies and approaches can be developed to increase potential productivity (the ‘yield potential’)

The Challenge of Climate Change to productivity improvements

For agriculture the challenge is three-fold: • Agricultural production, via land use change and especially

livestock production contributes to global warming which is responsible for climate change

• Increased temperatures and altered precipitation patterns caused by climate change will sometimes radically change growing conditions for crops and livestock:

₋ Direct impacts on productivity but also key ecosystem services (water, soils, biodiversity, pests and diseases, etc.).

• Push for ‘climate smart’ agriculture creates incentives and constraints for farmer adoption of agricultural technologies and strategies.

Advantages of Creating “Laboratory Sites” in Ethiopia

We propose a new “laboratory site” approach to research on SI&CC to be started in Ethiopia and then extended to rest of Africa: • Ethiopia offers an environment in which many of the global

challenges are manifest• Ethiopia provides a unique location in which the research can

be conducted on SI&CC • Ethiopia has a varied topography which creates a range of

agro-ecologies found in Africa • 11 of the 15 global CGIAR Centres have offices in Addis

Ababa, plus ICIPE• Inter-Centre partnership could provide a model for R4D in

other parts of the world

Why Start Laboratory locations in Ethiopia and then Extend to Rest of Africa

• One of the fifteen most populous nations, with a high rate of poverty, mainly in rural areas – population is growing rapidly

• One of the countries in Africa most likely to be affected by climate change and must intensify

• Faces challenges in food and nutrition security• GOE embraced agriculture sector development as an engine

of economic growth and the development of a green economy - CRGE

• High potential for agricultural and livestock development to improve incomes and livelihoods and increase social welfare

• Headquarters to the Africa Union (AU) which provides an opportunity to link to the African agricultural research network and CAADP

Objectives for a new research program SI&CC in Ethiopia and Africa

• Create a world class research program focused on increasing productivity from small-holder farming systems

• Build capacity of EARS/EARS • Contribute to food security and economic development

in a way that takes does not degrade the natural resource base and future potential climate scenarios

• Focus on increasing primary productivity to produce more food and livestock fodder

• Extended to key laboratory locations in Ethiopia and then to the rest of Africa through a network of sites and organizations

Key Components of the program

• Targeting analysis: Ex-ante analysis of options for increasing productivity, based on agro-ecology, climate, market potential, etc., using a suite of modeling techniques

• Up-stream research using new biotechnology techniques to generate new plant materials with higher productivity, wider adaptation and greater environmental sustainability through lower input use per unit of usable yield

Key Components of the program (cont’d)

• Better use of the CGIAR gene banks (including the ILRI forage gene bank in Addis) will be a major resource for this research

• Long-term field research at “laboratory sites” to test new crop and forage material, including dual purpose crops providing food and feed in a range of agro-ecological conditions

• Farming systems research to pilot, test and develop options for increasing total farm productivity, income, and protecting environment

• Socio-economic and policy research to identify and promote the policy, institutional and organizational frameworks for “climate-smart” sustainable intensification, including market access and institutions and equity aspects including gender

• Capacity Development: The focus will be on on-the-project training for devising, adapting, and applying systems, tools and guidelines for benchmarking, reporting, disseminating, and improving capacity development across the project as a whole

Each component will have clearly defined outputs, outcomes and potential impacts.

Key Components of the program (cont’d)

Implementation Plan

• Phase 1 -- a number of ‘laboratory sites’ will be established within Ethiopia to undertake field trials and systems research.

• Phase 2 -- a network of ‘laboratory sites’ in different parts of Africa will be established.

• This research links to CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) -Drylands, Humid Tropics, Policy Institutions and Markets, several of the commodity CRPs, Water Land and Ecosystems and CCAFS.

• The program will also make use of research facilities in other locations, such as the ILRI-BeCA hub in Nairobi and the laboratories and facilities in other Centers and partners (capacity-building opportunities)

Potential SI&CC “Laboratory Sites” in Key Production Zones

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SI&CC -- Questions and Issues

• What is sustainability and how can it be practically be measured?

• How can policy promote or hinder sustainable intensification?

• What is the role of LTR in studying SI&CC?

• How can trade-offs in sustainability and intensification avoided to lead to improved incomes and livelihoods, and environmental protection?

• How can sustainable intensification be achieved in the face of climate change?

• How will livestock production fare versus crop production in the face of climate change?

• Can gene mining create crops and feeds that are climate smart?

• What will smallholder farming systems look like in the LT under likely climate change scenarios?

• Do we need to go beyond focusing on “hot spots” and also identify and work in “sweet spots”?

SI&CC Program Pillars

• What is sustainable intensification and how SI be achieved in the face of CC

• How can SI be measured -- what are practical indicators at all relevant scales

• How long-term trials in laboratory sites can be used to study the risk-resilience effects of CC and create lasting farming systems that are SI LTR

• Using gene mining to create crops and feeds which are climate smart

• Ensuring adequate supply of animal feed to lead to sustainable and intensified animal production to meet meat/milk demand in the face of CC

• How can trade-offs in sustainability and intensification be avoided to lead to improved incomes and livelihoods, and environmental protection

• Achieving NRM that is consistent with sustainably intensified agricultural production in the face of climate change

• How policy and impact assessment can promote sustainability

• Capacity development to promote and achieve SI in the face of CC

• What SI smallholder farming systems will look like under climate change

What Sustainable Intensification is? and How can it be Achieved?

More communities More communities

Local organizations and institutions

National organizations and institutions

Regional/global organizations

Scaling out (horizontal)

SCALING

UP

Sustainable Intensification Requires a Functional Scaling Strategy

How to Define and Measure Sustainability (Sustainability Indicators)

“[Sustainable development is] development that meets the

needs of the present without compromising the ability of

future generations to meet their own needs”

Brundtland commission, 1987

• “… without compromising the needs of future generations” immediately throws up the question of time-frames

• How can we measure an effect that may not express itself for decades, centuries or even millennia?

• Difficult to pick out direct measurements that could be taken in the short term

• How can we identify appropriate proxies and integrate them into robust (but ultimately untestable) predictive models?

• A definition of Sustainability?: Achieving development without compromising the needs of future generations --seems to be a tall order!

• There are often trade-offs – the longer the time-frame, the more likely we are to see outcomes that were not the ones intended by the original, purposeful action; some of these will, inevitably, be negative

• It would appear that we can only hope to minimize the adverse impacts of our current activities on the needs of future generations?

• Need to go beyond focusing on “hot spots” and also identify and work in “sweet spots”!

Key Issues around Sustainability Indicators

• Agricultural innovation is critical – but a constantly moving target. This is perhaps the most significant challenge to finding sustainable solutions:₋ Innovation that works for a population density of 200

people per square km may not work 20 years later, when each km hosts 300 or more people

• Values of environmental parameters (mean temperatures, rainfall availability and distribution) are shifting rapidly, only partially predictable and, we hope, under the influence of mitigation measures (at multiple scales).

How do we define the environmental ‘sweet spots’ on which to target sustainable innovation and how does this affect the indicators that constitute our evidence base?

Key Issues around sustainability indicators

A multi-scale framework for practical sustainability assessment

• Indicators established at nested scales:– Plot– Farm– Household– “Zone of influence”

• Sustainability assessment across five domains– Productivity– Economic– Human– Environmental– Social

How it will work – indicators and trade-offs

0.020.040.060.080.0

100.0Productivity

Economic

HumanEnvironmen

tal

Social

Plot - field scale

Plot 1

Plot 2

Plot 30.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0Productivity

Economic

HumanEnvironmental

Social

Farm scale

Aggregated / augmented

Productivity

Crop yieldYield stability

Economic

Gross marginGross margin variability

Human

Human Food qualityDrudgeryFood safety

Environmental

Active Soil C Cumulative vegetative coverSoil chemical properties

Social

Resource conflict intensitySocial cohesion

Addressing Risk and Resilience under SI&CC

Aim of the risk and resilience pillar:

• To study interactions between system components, people and their environment and model potential future scenarios to identify baskets of options to allow resource poor farmers to sustainably intensify their livelihoods and the environment under changing climatic conditions

Indicative LTR activities

Interdisciplinary Long-term Research (LTR) to test a variety of approaches within a range of agro-ecological and systems contexts including:• Identification and testing of “climate smart” agricultural

technologies to determine if they deliver what is promised in a changing environment (combined with modelling)

• Identification and long-term testing of mitigation options to document impact and trade-offs of productivity with environmental degradation

• Identification and testing of novel technologies to enhance screening and systems modelling

• Socioeconomic and anthropological studies on farmer acceptance and preferences for adoption of new technologies, species/crops and livestock breeds

Long-term Research Methods in Laboratory Sites

• Field and household surveys to collect data on farming system change and intensification and livelihoods indicators

• Farmer and community capacity building

• Working at watershed scale too to ensure SI

• Farmer participatory experimentation with crop and forage varieties, tree species and livestock breeds in on farm situations

• Remote sensing and modelling for scenario simulation

• Not just LT varietal trials, but also other potential systems like tree-crop-livestock systems

Messages: Communities, Partnerships, Capacities, Integrating Science and Local Knowledge, Incentives

1. Empower local communities & develop their leadership capacities

2. Integrate & share scientific and local knowledge; encourage innovation through “learning by doing” partnerships

3. Strengthen and transform institutional and human capacities with a special focus on DAs as the front line champions

4. Create, align and implement incentives for success

SSSustainability lessons learned so far:

Messages: Incentives, Tools, Integration, Value Chains

5. Adapt and use new learning and planning tools combined with effective learning processes

6. Integrate appropriate rainwater management interventions at watershed and basin levels

7. Acknowledge downstream and off-site benefits as well as up-stream and on-farm costs and benefits

8. Improve markets, value chains and multi-stakeholder institutions to enhance the benefits & sustainability of investments

Potential NRM to Improve Sustainable Intensification under Climate Change

• Establishment of a series of nested multi-stakeholder platforms from Woreda to Zone to Regional levels design interventions from bottom up

• Action research to apply practical interventions at woreda level that are designed to improve land and water management integrated approaches

• Experimentation with developing capacity and incentive structures at woreda level e.g new incentives for DA’s, training on systems approaches, rewards for outcomes not outputs

• Application of new planning and community engagement tools e.g. planning simulation games at community level

Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture and Forests in ‘Watershed Laboratory Sites’

With regard to the forestry sector, the GoE:

• Issued its Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy in 2011 with a green growth development path. The CRGE calls for reducing deforestation and managing forests and woodlands. It calls for increasing production without necessarily expanding area.

• In Sept 2014, GoE pledged to rehabilitate 22 m ha of degraded lands and forests (with ‘ex-closures’).

• The NEW Ministry of Environment and Forest is developing its plan for GTP II, and is keen on achieving convergence with the targets for the forestry sector set in the CRGE

What will be the implication of this to agriculture in general and the livestock sub-sector in particular?

Can this rehabilitation challenge be turned to an opportunity to intensify livestock farming?

Specific activities in ex-closures as “Watershed Laboratory Sites”

• Characterize selected watershed ex-closures as “Laboratory Sites” where area ex-closures with afforestation work are planned (in terms of governance of access and use)

• Identify opportunities and constraints to achieve forestry and agroforestry synergies with livestock to achieve both livestock and forestry objectives at landscape level

• Identify and rank system-level intensification options that will minimize trade-offs and maximize synergy between forestry/agroforestry and agriculture/livestock objectives at landscape level

• Ex-ante evaluation and on-site testing of selected options to simultaneously achieve agriculture and forestry objectives using participatory action research

Specific activities in ex-closures as “Watershed Laboratory Sites” - cont’d

• Strengthen forestry-agriculture linkages by nurturing learning/innovation platforms at different levels (from regional to local)

• Build capacity of frontline development practitioners, researchers, and local community groups (women, youth, vulnerable, watershed committee, etc.) and their institutions through tailored training and experience sharing

• Synthesize and share lessons on enabling conditions to sustaining impact and scaling up of good practices to simultaneously achieve forestry/agroforestry and

agricultural/livestock objectives at landscape level.

Socioeconomics and Policy Research to Support SI under Climate Change

• Understanding the current status of intensification and sustainability of agriculture in Ethiopia

More in-depth analysis of the status of sustainable agricultural intensification in the country with household surveys that have been collected under the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) and the USAID Feed-the-Future (FtF) Program

• Farm-level economic analysis and climate change simulations

Study samples of typical Ethiopian farming households and undertake economic analysis on how climate shocks will affect them

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Policy Research to Support Sustainable Intensification under Climate Change

• Economy-wide modeling

Based on Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models, we can investigate how climate change might affect Ethiopia’s economy and what the impact will of possible mitigating policies

• Impact analysis of new technologies and policy change

Impact analysis at the farm level by using Randomized Control Trials and/or analysis of impacts of policy changes; topics to be defined

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Capacity Development

• Capacity Development efforts go far beyond the transfer of knowledge and skills through training, and cuts across multiple levels –individual, organizational and institutional.

• Work in this area will follow the elements highlighted in the Capacity Development Framework for the 2nd round of CGIAR Research Programs

• The focus will be on devising, adapting, and applying systems, tools and guidelines for benchmarking, reporting, disseminating, and improving capacity development across the

project as a whole.

The CGIAR Capacity Development Framework for the 2nd

round of CGIAR Research Programs

• At its “heart” are the nine elements of Capacity Development.

• Need to leap from individual learning to demonstrating livelihood outcomes and impacts through relevant science and partnerships

• Effective assessment and strategy formulation tailored to the cultural, organizational and institutional contexts

• CapDev effective as a vehicle for sustainable development if it is embedded within Impact Pathways (IPs) of the project.

• NARS provide the unambiguous context and strategic framework for its implementation.

Required Program Investment

• Investments of about US$ 2M are being undertaken to upgrade the research facilities and general infrastructure on the Addis campus, including in feed and genetics laboratories

• More investment will be needed in laboratories, offices, housing, utilities, field sites, etc.

• Detailed costings are required but the capital investment is likely to be about US$ 5M

• It is envisaged that the operating costs of the program will be US$ 10M per year (US$ 50M over the first 5-year phase)

More information:B.Shapiro@cgiar.org