By Laura Eggens
15-16 March, Cairo - Normally on a Learning Route, the ruteros visit successful cases in the field. This time, the field came to us. Members of the Water Users Union (WUU) in the Tenth of Ramadan village near Port Said joined us in Cairo, accompanied by representatives of the East Delta Agricultural Services Project and the ICARDA research station in the area. Their visit opened our flow of thoughts about what makes collective water management work – or not.
Because of the security situation in Egypt, the Learning Route on water management is a bit unusual. Instead of visiting the Tenth of Ramadan village in the East Delta, we received our third host case in our meeting room in the capital. Luckily, a variety of stakeholders from the region could make it to share their experiences with the ruteros.
On the salt-affected soils of the South El-Husainia plain in the East Delta, it is a challenge to cultivate crops. Like West Nubaria, this region is inhabited by recent settlers who received plots of land from the government. However, the soil structure and lack of fresh irrigation water, in addition to poor social and cultural services, made the region unattractive for many farmers. The East Delta Agricultural Services Project (EDASP) took on the challenge of improving infrastructure, agricultural services and institutions.
Among its activities, the project established WUUs for farmers to collectively implement and control irrigation schedules and mediate in water conflicts. The union of Tenth of Ramadan village is well organised and even won a visit to Spain because of their level of organisation and farmer empowerment. They manage to supply all members with water, even at peak moments.
Despite the success of the WUU in this community, it were its shortcomings that provided the most important learnings of the ruteros. The visitors’ introduction to the WUUs in their region sparked a discussion on farmer ownership. The WUUs and Water User Associations (WUAs) in Egypt were initiated by projects in the region, not by farmers themselves. This top-down approach led ruteros to have serious doubts about the sustainability of the associations after the projects leave the area.
Challenges often give the same – if not more – opportunities for learning. In this heterogeneous group of ruteros, ideas and recommendations came from all corners of the MENA region. Building ownership from the beginning of any WUU or WUA is crucial, the group believed. Letting farmers invest in the associations financially, for example, will secure their participation in it. Additionally, including a marketing aspect in the water associations – or including a water management aspect in marketing associations – will raise benefits from marketing activities for irrigation systems and increase the integration of the associations in farmers’ lives. But what can be done to support this? Extensionists in Egypt are not adapted to current rural contexts anymore. What can the role of universities be to facilitate change?
This case and discussion provided one of the most important learnings of this Learning Route. “I will take these lessons back to Lebanon with me,” says rutero Georges Chemaly. “We have another way of seeing the subject now. We want to build Water Users Associations to manage irrigation systems, but from the experience here we learned that it is better to first assess what farmers want and what their existing system is. We should adapt the plan so it will be adopted by them, to ensure the sustainability of the associations and the ownership felt by its members.”
IFAD is funding Learning Routes across Africa, Asia and Latin America through the international knowledge-broker Procasur.
A global catalyst for change and knowledge sharing, Procasur's work
positively impacts the lives and livelihoods for rural talents across
the globe.
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Ever come across a truly ‘wicked problem’? The term comes from social planning theory, describing a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve for a number of reasons: Incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems. So essentially, it is hard to say where the problem stops and starts, or to formulate it in such a way that all stakeholders would agree on its definition. Ask what the problem is and you will get a different answer from each stakeholder.
The CGIAR programme for Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has a lot of experience dealing with wicked problems. The favourite topic of the 70-odd researchers who are meeting in Bodega Bay/USA this week is the ‘super-wicked’ interface between agricultural production, food security and climate change. Ask anyone in the room if a specific problem in one of these spheres is a symptom of another problem in another sphere, and they would all nod their heads and probably roll their eyes at the complexity of it all. Irrespective of the fields of research these top scientists are engaged in - There is universal understanding that the variety of problems at the interface between agricultural production, food security and climate change is truly inter-connected and linked with lots of other problems. Pulling them apart is almost impossible.
One of the questions these leading scientists are asking is whether the old model of research, in which knowledge is generated through research projects, written up in papers, reviewed by fellow researchers and then disseminated through conferences, is still fit for purpose. The alternative model that is emerging is the theory of social learning: A way of participatory ‘action research’ in which researchers co-learn and co-experience with local communities, public and private sector entities, development partners and financial institutions. The key question is not so much who is paying for the research and who is writing it up, but who is generating and using knowledge. Rather than a linear process leading from research to dissemination, social learning is a continuous and iteractive cycle of action and reflection which eventually results in institutional and behavioural change. Sounds complicated? Check out the animated video on partnerships for behavioural change, which tries to explain why a partnership-based approach to learning is often more effective than a linear process based on sector-based research.
In the context of IFAD’s work on climate change, the approach of action research and social learning is especially relevant. Programmes such as the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) empower local institutions to understand and tackle growing risks in a rapidly changing environment. Social learning is key for these institutions deal with uncertainty, change and surprises, and we won’t be able to understand the impact of IFAD investments if we approach our monitoring job with a static view of the world. Our measurement systems need to become more dynamic, reflecting on processes as well as outcomes. Who is gaining knowledge from IFAD-supported projects? Which partnerships are emerging in which this knowledge is being communicated? Do we see evidence of behavioural change? Applying a perspective of social learning might be just the right ‘wicked’ solution to these questions.
Find out more about climate change, agriculture and food security
By: Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development
Peter Sinon, Seychelles Minister of Investment, Natural Resources and Industry
Through an “agrotourism” approach that brings together private and public sectors, where a working small-scale fishery and farm simultaneously operate in parallel with an up-market resort, this tiny island is almost completely self-sufficient. It produces its own fish, pork, chicken, duck, eggs, fresh milk, and a range of vegetables and fruits for its inhabitants. For a country that has to import 90 per cent of the food consumed, the success of Denis Island could be a lesson for the rest of Seychelles, and beyond.
With a population of about 86,000 and per capita income of more than US$11,000, Seychelles is an upper-middle-income country with a gross domestic product of $1 billion in 2011, generated primarily through fisheries and tourism. Industrial fishing has surpassed tourism as a source of foreign exchange earnings, with the emergence of Port Victoria as the principal tuna trans-shipment port in the region during the mid-1980s and the development of tuna canning in the late 1990s. Artisanal fishing, however, remains underdeveloped, and like many small island states, unpredictable weather patterns associated with climate change have adversely affected the productivity of small-scale fishers and farmers in Seychelles. In 2010, for instance, the country suffered its worst drought in decades, followed by severe flooding.
Small island developing states like Seychelles are the first to be afflicted by climate change and struggle with its consequences. Plagued by limited natural resources, scarce agricultural land and remoteness from major markets, Seychelles, like other small islands states, are unable to depend on the income of any specific industry. This makes the country financially and food insecure, which in the case of Seychelles is further exacerbated by the scourge of piracy that severely inflates prices or in some instances, completely block the precious food imports it relies on.
While Seychelles aims to be an active participant in regional and global trade, the country is at a severe disadvantage because of its small market size and almost non-existent economies of scale. Imported food is sold in local markets at substantially lower prices than locally-produced food. In some instances local producers of poultry, for example, have been forced out of markets because they are unable to compete. To address this, Seychelles is looking to diversify and promote fresh, locally produced livestock and vegetables, including organic produce, to supply the “haut de gamme” or upscale tourism establishments and local markets. Mixing agriculture and tourism can provide high-quality, organic products to hotels, supermarkets and other markets, as well as increasing employment opportunities for youth. This kind of approach allows the two sectors to not only coexist but complement each other. Such partnerships are critical to enhance agricultural and rural development.
In addition, as one of the world’s most environmentally conscious nations, Seychelles has also legally protected more than half of its total land area from development. The experience of Seychelles and success stories like that of Denis Island are important to share with other small island states looking for ways to strengthen partnerships between agriculture and tourism.
When knowledge is shared across borders, and information, technology and support are directly transferred to smallholder farmers it can be the most effective way to reduce poverty and increase food security. An ongoing International Fund for Agricultural Development grant supports the Regional Initiative for Smallholder Agriculture Adaptation to Climate Change in the Indian Ocean Islands. This initiative is creating a regional knowledge-management platform on adaptation strategies for small-scale farmers. The platform actively disseminates information on conservation agriculture practices such as farming with low or zero tillage, as well as composting, integrating livestock and farming activities, and other environmentally sustainable measures.
This kind of sharing between countries or regions facing similar challenges allows for policies and agricultural projects to be based on a broader risk assessment and a better understanding of interconnections between people and their environmental landscapes. Replicating best practices can drive a major scaling up of sustainable agricultural intensification approaches, which, in turn, can build climate resilience that goes beyond just one island, or one rural community. At the same time, we must be careful not to take a one-size-fits-all approach to agriculture and rural development, but rather tailor solutions to the specific problems of rural communities.
As we look ahead to further progress in the agricultural sector in small island states, let us keep in mind that the challenge of growing more food will be met only if we continue to look for complementary solutions that allow farmers to adapt and develop. Scaling up public-private initiatives not only supports resilience to climate change, but also contributes to meeting the world’s food security, environmental and poverty reduction challenges. In a globalized world, no longer can the solutions to problems of people on one side of the world be ignored by those on the other side – especially when a small island “at the end of the world” may hold the key to solving big problems.
As featured on AllAfrica
March 14-15 - Old Lands of Sharkia - After a visit to the New Lands in West Nubaria, the Learning Route continued its journey to a completely different area in Egypt: the Old Lands of Sharkia in the Nile Delta. Here, farmers have been using traditional agricultural methods and crops for centuries, inherited from their grandparents. But inheritance also resulted in highly fragmented land. This context of small plots in one of the poorest areas in Egypt requires a different approach to water management, the ruteros found out.
Walking through the fields around Zankaloun village, the difference with the New Lands is obvious. The village is full of people, the fields are small and the land is green. Using traditional flood irrigation systems, farmers maximise use on their pieces of land of around 1-1.5 acres. Typically, a farmer family in the Delta devotes part of the farm to livestock, part to nourishing their own family, and part to cultivate for the market. The area in Sharkia that we visited is located at the end of the irrigation system using Nile river water, so the communities here suffer from bad quality water and badly managed water distribution.
The ruteros were warmly received by a group of farmers and researchers at the ICARDA water research station in Zankaloun. Here researchers work with farmers, assessing their needs, to develop a package of water management techniques that are most suitable for the farms in this region. They studied the optimal dimensions for raised bed farming, which allows farmers to save on water use while increasing their production. Dr. Atef Swelam, technical coordinator of the Learning Route and himself a farmer in this area, also developed a machine suitable for small plots for creating the raised beds while sowing at the same time – which is becoming a great success.
“At first, to be honest, I wasn’t convinced,” farmer Hajj Mohammed confessed. “I looked closely at the machine and at how much seed would be lost. Then I saw with my own eyes that it worked!” The ICARDA researchers selected Hajj Mohammed, an experienced farmer with a leadership position in the community, as a pioneer farmer to test and demonstrate the raised bed technology on his field. “My field is on the main road,” he explains to the ruteros. “Everyone who saw my crops wanted to know how I did it.”
The ruteros identified a number of reasons why this technology became a success. Yes, the machine was simple and well adapted to the small plots, but one of the crucial success factors was the good relationship between the farmers and the researchers. The research station lies between farmers’ fields and research outcomes are shared with farmers in an understandable manner. This makes the farmers of this area, who are generally reluctant to adopt new technologies, open to learn new things.
Perhaps it is because of this relationship that the farmers who received the Learning Route were happy to exchange knowledge with us, as visiting outsiders, as well. The different nationalities in the group of ruteros aroused the curiosity of some farmers. What are the success stories from all these countries, they wanted to know. Ruteros from Sudan, Palestine, Morocco, Syria, Tunesia, Lebanon and Yemen shared some interesting initiatives, creating an inspiring atmosphere of mutual knowledge exchange. “When we thought of the Learning Route methodology,” said Guillen Calvo, the general coordinator of the Learning Route, “this is exactly what we had in mind!”
IFAD is funding Learning Routes across Africa, Asia and Latin America through the international knowledge-broker Procasur. A global catalyst for change and knowledge sharing, Procasur's work positively impacts the lives and livelihoods for rural talents across the globe.
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By Ilaria Firmian
The objective of the one-day event was to share, disseminate and replicate successful experiences of Bolivian women. Almost 80 participants came to present their managerial experiences that resulted in economic returns, to describe the processes through which they and their families went, and also to talk about achievements and difficulties.
The very first thing that hit me were the colours and the shapes in the room: from traditional hats to coloured fabrics, to babies carried on their mothers’ shoulders.
The meeting was organised around three sessions, focusing respectively on:
- Entrepreneurship
- Food security
- Traditional knowledge
Actually, the debate in the last session was all on traditional knowledge, and participants admitted that they started realising even more the importance and the richness of their culture (both immaterial and material – in fact, presentations also illustrated traditional handcraft and ways of weaving and dyeing lama and alpaca wool) when foreigners showed interest to it.
Someone said that "their future comes from their past" – and this of course refers as well to the economic value that tourism and market attach to that “past”.What came out clearly from the event, is that women, especially when they get organised into groups, become economically powerful - especially by adding value to production - and can play a big role in supporting the economic development of their families and communities. Therefore capacity building and technical assistance for value-addition are necessary interventions. However, there are still too many women who do not get access to trainings because of cultural or “logistical” reasons.
Events such as this one play a role in helping women feeling empowered, strengthened and recognised.
By Laura Eggens, ILEIA
The Learning Route set course for West Nubaria, an area where “the desert has been reclaimed”. Overcrowding in the fertile land of the Egypt Delta led to resettlement of a number of farmers in this so called “New Land”. Initially, infrastructure, social services and proper irrigation structures were missing in this area, making it an incredibly hard place for farmers to thrive. On March 12, ruteros learnt how an initiative in West Nubaria turned the fate of these farmers around.
Thirty years ago, small-scale farmers, landless farmers and “graduates” (educated Egyptians with some funds to invest) started their move to the New Lands. Canals from the Nile were directed to West Nubaria, irrigating the infertile desert land. Not only were many basic services like schools and clinics missing, but the available water was not enough to irrigate the 100,000 hectares of this area. Fortunately, when the ruteros arrived in this region yesterday, the farmers’ situation was very different. What happened here to turn this inhospitable area into a success story? What did the ruteros learn?
We visited the office of the West Nubaria Rural Development Project (WNRDP), funded by the Egyptian government, the Italian cooperation and IFAD, where we were introduced to a number of initiatives in the area – not only in the field of improved water management techniques, but also in terms of community development, marketing support, credit facilitation and farmers’ organisations. We experienced the changes in the lives of two types of farmers: the “investor”-farmer Atef Hafiz, owning and innovating on his almost 100 acres of land; and small-scale farmer Ahmad El-Far with a diversity of crops on his farm of approximately 17.5 acres. The last stop at the ICARDA research station in West Nubaria showed us where farmers in the region can learn from experimentation with varying amounts of irrigation and fertilizer applied on different crops, to discover the ideal water saving combination for this type of soil.
Seeing the different aspects of this case, the ruteros paid special attention to innovations and what were critical factors for success, making these innovations possible. But they also looked at some challenges that remain, and recommendations they could make based on the experiences in their own country. In this way, the Learning Route becomes a vehicle for knowledge exchange in both ways!
The ruteros saw in the West Nubaria case the importance of farmers’ willingness to change. It was a great advantage that land was given to small-scale farmers as well as graduates and investors, educated and experienced farmers who are able to experiment and develop techniques suited for this harsh environment, with the financial and organisational backing of the WNRDP. Farmers like Atef Hafiz and Ahmad El-Far share their positive experiences with other farmers. “This farm is open for anyone to learn from,” says Atef, who also produces his own videos for others to learn from. “I had an education, but not everyone here has that. People can use my real life experience, which is specific to the New Lands water and soil situation.”
Interested in learning more? Read the first blog
A few days ago I sat in the learning event on satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) organized by PTA, ECD and the European Space Agency (ESA) thinking this will probably be a different and interesting event, but will be somewhat removed from IFAD and its projects. Well, I was literally star struck!
Remotely sensed satellite data is one of the tools that can be used both on its own and with GIS to analyse our environment, help answer questions or find solutions to problems.
Well, you are now thinking fine but how exactly does that fit in with IFAD and its projects? How can satellite imagery support IFAD in its operation for rural poverty reduction?
Not only is satellite data useful for IFAD projects, it is an absolutely essential tool in the long term. Satellites, also referred to as remote sensing , enables objective observations of the status of remote rural areas consistently over space and time. This information can be used to design, plan, monitor and assess the impact of development projects. How about receiving invaluable information on crop state monitoring, biomass forecasting, inundation areas and land parcels which allows IFAD to better monitor their projects?
Emily and Francesco, through their work on weather index-based insurance with the IFAD-WFP Weather Risk Management Facility, have been researching the world of satellite information for a current project which is trying to develop and test different remote sensing methodologies to see if they can accurately record and predict crop damage caused by adverse weather events, particularly drought. This is not the only activity where satellites are being used for IFAD activities.
In Botswana, EO will help to improve crop production by boosting cereal/maize yields in the arable lands in the Agriculture Services Support Project (ASSP) as the heavy rainfalls and flooding in the semi-arid regions has led to a decline in productivity.
In the Gambia due to yield difficulties because of the rainy season, EO assists in the Participatory Integrated-Watershed Management Project (PIWAMP) to help to improve the rice production yield given the limited growing season. Moses Abukari – CPM for Gambia said ‘this is an important tool for policy dialogue, I am able to demonstrate to the Ministers that this has been useful for their country”.
In Niger, IFAD is concentrating its operations in the Tahoua, Zinder and Maradi regions, that has been experiencing severe droughts and food insecurity. IFAD is now helping to increase agricultural and pastoral household productivity, and EO can be part of the monitoring and evaluation system by providing up to date statistical analysis on changes in farm land use. The results can monitor crop type, crop acreage and responses to changes in irrigation patterns.
In Sao Tome and Principe IFAD is involved in the Participatory Smallholder Agriculture and Artisanal Fisheries Development Programme (PAPAFPA) . EO’s services’ here can help determine the extent of forests and provide up to date information on main forest types, cover and logging. Andrea Serpagli, CPM for Sao Tome and Principe agrees that it is important to show the government that it could become an ‘eco paradise’.
Finally, in Vietnam under the COSOP Results-based country strategic opportunities programme IFAD is supporting Vietnam to develop long term strategies for natural climate change adaptation and EO can document it by satellite maps and statistical analysis, in particular how the delta can develop over time. The learning event was the first time colleagues had got together to discuss these topics, and given the interest, it will not be the last.
As Adolfo Brizzi, Director of the Policy & Technical Advisory Division of IFAD said in his introduction to the event – “this time, it really is rocket science…….”
More food for thought checkout the ESA press release
