Bringing Climate Smart Agriculture to Scale: Experiences from the Water Productivity Project in East and Central Africa

Since 2010, six research organizations in the region have implemented a regional project that sought to combat food insecurity, poverty and climate change by up-scaling Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies across farms and landscapes using the Climate Smart Landscape (CSL) approach. Several CSA technologies were evaluated and promoted across landscapes using this approach with remarkable success. Maize yields in Kenya rose from 0.5 to 3.2 t ha-1, resulting in over 90% of the watershed communities being food secure. In Madagascar, rice yields increased from 2 to 4 t ha-1 whilst onion yields increased from 10 to 25 t ha-1, resulting in watershed communities being 60% food-secure. In Eritrea, sorghum yields increased from 0.6 to 2 t ha-1. Farmers in Ethiopia earned US$10,749 from the sale of pasture whilst in Madagascar, watershed communities earned additional income of about US$2500/ha/year from the sale of onions and potatoes during off-season. Adoption levels of various CSA technologies rose from less than 30% to over 100% across the participating countries, resulting in rehabilitation of huge tracts of degraded land. In a nutshell, the potential for CSL in the region is huge and if exploited could significantly improve our economies, lives and environment.