Extending Conservation Agriculture
benefits at landscape through
Agricultural Innovation Platforms
Michael Misiko
Agricultural Anthropologist, CIMMYT
1st Africa Congress on Conservation Agriculture (1ACCA)
Lusaka, Zambia
March 18– 21, 2014
Working definition of AIP
 A “network of organisations, enterprises, and individuals
focused on bringing new agricultural (products, processes,
forms of organisation into economic use, together with the
institutions and policies that affect their behaviour and)
performance”
(World Bank 2007)
Background
Rationale for agricultural IPs
Now
2000+
1990s
1970s
1960s
Agricultural Innovation Platforms
IAR4D
=
e.g. Interactive learning,
integrated resource
management, innovation,
partnerships, systems
approach
Participatory approaches
– farmer centred e.g. FFS,
PTD
Systems focus – farmer
consulted
Technology (linear
transfer) – research/
extension driven
In spite of this evolution of
approaches, agricultural
research is generally
sectoral and fragmented with
poor stakeholder linkages
(Lynam and Blackie, 1994)
Problem and objective
 Focusing CA promotion at farm-level only cannot ensure the range
of benefits and adoption possibilities
 Conservation Agriculture requires systematic approaches, especially
through multifunctional AIP formed along critical value chains
 The goal of this paper is therefore to illustrate how CA benefits can
be harnessed at landscape level, through AIP approach
Justification for AIP in CA
 Natural Resources Management is perceived as bringing
limited short term benefits
 CA has potential for short term/ farm-level benefits, necessary
for long term and communal benefits
 The scope for communal NRM at landscape scale is dwindling
 Farmers residing up-the-hill and down-the-hill need to work in
a structured, synchronised manner
 A structured entity is needed to ensure residents synchronise
their actions by having a mutual plan (Makini et al., 2013;
Nederlof and Pyburn 2012)
Methods
 Literature review, secondary sources on role of AIP
 The case of Bungoma South Farming Innovation Platform –
SIMLESA (BUSOFIPs) in western Kenya
 An illustrative and sequential evaluation
 BUSOFIPs has significance for many African smallholder contexts
 Field visits among CA practicing farmers
 Participant observation among AIP actors
 Institutional mapping and analyses of local Maize Value Chain in
Bungoma
Targeting sustainability at
landscape
 Africa has the twin problem of NRM and farm productivity
 Agriculture often happens at the expense of NRM
 Agriculture through CA can be a solution to degradation
 Smallholders share few resources
 they farm on individual plots and prioritise few landscape activities
 Initiatives that yield shorter term benefits can be conjoined with NRM
programmes that target elusive longer term results
 CA in SIMLESA is an entry point to conjoin many initiatives,
including incentives for short term and long term benefits
Agricultural Innovation Platforms, CA and
Natural Resources Management
 Like most NRM initiatives CA is difficult to recommend
 AIP brings together a diversity of initiatives for enabling CA adoption
 Synchronising complementary initiatives into structured multistakeholder processes with multiple benefits
 Combined or structured actions
 create many more immediate benefits – see figure 1
 assist residents to initiate, and
 sustain CA practices necessary to build longer term benefits for natural
resources management
 Fig. 1 innovation platforms for CA in SIMLESA (simlesa.cimmyt.org)
Targeting landscape through
complementarity of actors and actions
 BUSOFIPs is providing a framework for locals to engage outside
institutions for innovation
 AIP structures supporting multifunctional action for different
livelihood styles – figure 2 (Misiko et al. 2013)
 Cultivators, herders collaborate beyond mere efforts to adopt CA
 Figure 2. Different livelihood styles need to be coordinated to
support NRM (Misiko et al. 2013)
Conclusions
1) AIP ensure benefits do not simply add up, or are only generated,
but rather create new ones quickly to ensure long term ones are
realised e.g. reduced conflicts resulting from degradation, etc.
2) In the immediate term, farmers save production costs, labour,
produce commercially for markets, save money that would be
spend on fodder, save land from animal degradation, and so on.
3) Entry points may not necessarily be land management, but rather
in business models that bring farmers reduced costs, etc. critical for
sustained CA implementation to realise landscape benefits.
References
 Adekunle A.A. and Fatunbi A.O (2012). Approaches for Setting-up MultiStakeholder Platforms for Agricultural Research and Development. World
Applied Sciences Journal 16(7): 981-988.
 Makini, F.W., Kamau, G.M., Makelo, M.N., Adekunle, W., Mburathi, G.K.,
Misiko, M., Pali, P. and Dixon, J. 2013. Operational field guide for
developing and managing local agricultural innovation platforms. Nairobi:
KARI and ACIAR.
 Misiko. M., Mundy, P. and Ericksen, P. 2013. Innovation Platforms to
support natural resource management. Innovation Platforms Practice Brief
11. ILRI, Nairobi Kenya
 Nederlof, E.S. and Pyburn, R. 2012. One finger cannot lift a rock.
Facilitating innovation platforms to trigger institutional change in West Africa.
Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam.
 World Bank. 2012. Agricultural Innovation Systems: an Investment
Sourcebook. World Bank, Washington DC, USA.
Acknowledgements
 Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
 The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT)
 CGIAR Research Programme (CRP) MAIZE
 Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI)
 Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)
 SIMLESA Programme and partner institutions
 BUSOFIPs, Farmers and partners in Bungoma, Kenya
Thank you!
Foes for innovation!