Periodic Reporting for period 2 - UPSCALE (UPSCALING THE BENEFITS OF PUSH-PULL TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION IN EAST AFRICA)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-05-01 do 2023-10-31
Closing the yield gap in African smallholder agriculture is a critical challenge which must be met in order to achieve food security goals for millions of farmers. In sub-Saharan Africa, this challenge is compounded by the need to adapt cultivation practices to extreme dryness and ongoing climate change, and by the recognition that conventional methods of agricultural intensification are environmentally costly, unsustainable, and poorly adapted to low-income farming.
Nature-based solutions that harness the benefits of biodiversity and the environment for productive, low input and climate-resilient agriculture are increasingly suggested as promising avenues for sustainable intensification of agriculture in Africa and beyond. Push-pull is an integrated mixed cropping system that involves driving pests away from the main crop using a repellent intercrop (the push) while attracting them out of the crop with trap plants. Push-pull also improves soil health and water retention, provides economic and high-value livestock fodder, and a recently developed climate-smart variant making use of traditional cereal varieties (sorghum, finger millet) increases system resilience to climate change. Through its growing success in staple cereal crops, push-pull has enormous potential to be the most important discovery for food security and environmentally friendly agricultural management of the 21st century.
The UPSCALE project is taking key steps to realize the transformative potential of push-pull technology by expanding its scope and applicability from individual fields to whole landscapes and regions, and from cereal to other important crops and cultivation systems. The overall goal is to address food security, livelihoods and climate change resilience in the sub-Saharan region of East Africa, while reducing the environmental impact of agricultural practices. To achieve this, the project is fostering design, adaptation and adoption of strategies for integrated agro-ecological management based on push-pull technology for wide-spread and climate-resilient sustainable intensification in East Africa.
UPSCALE is active in five countries of East Africa where the push-pull technology is practiced: Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Nature-based solutions that harness the benefits of biodiversity and the environment for productive, low input and climate-resilient agriculture are increasingly suggested as promising avenues for sustainable intensification of agriculture in Africa and beyond. Push-pull is an integrated mixed cropping system that involves driving pests away from the main crop using a repellent intercrop (the push) while attracting them out of the crop with trap plants. Push-pull also improves soil health and water retention, provides economic and high-value livestock fodder, and a recently developed climate-smart variant making use of traditional cereal varieties (sorghum, finger millet) increases system resilience to climate change. Through its growing success in staple cereal crops, push-pull has enormous potential to be the most important discovery for food security and environmentally friendly agricultural management of the 21st century.
The UPSCALE project is taking key steps to realize the transformative potential of push-pull technology by expanding its scope and applicability from individual fields to whole landscapes and regions, and from cereal to other important crops and cultivation systems. The overall goal is to address food security, livelihoods and climate change resilience in the sub-Saharan region of East Africa, while reducing the environmental impact of agricultural practices. To achieve this, the project is fostering design, adaptation and adoption of strategies for integrated agro-ecological management based on push-pull technology for wide-spread and climate-resilient sustainable intensification in East Africa.
UPSCALE is active in five countries of East Africa where the push-pull technology is practiced: Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Achievements so far
Multi-actor Communities of practice (MACs) for upscaling push-pull technology in East Africa were formed in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia. Synthetic guidelines and advice are being derived on best practices to accomplish transformative impact on agricultural practices, policy and stakeholder perspectives. Transdisciplinarity has been embraced to diffuse barriers and bring to the view of agriculture a coordinated knowledge, skill and practice platform to promote sustainable agricultural production.
Socioeconomic surveys were performed in over 1500 households to evaluate the critical factors which promote or hinder adoption and upscaling of push-pull technology. A joint agroecological study design has been implemented in 160 field sites and 60 grasslands across 5 countries. Field protocols to assess the determinants of pest control and other functions in maize push-pull and non push-pull systems, including methods for remotely sensing the distribution of plant volatiles, are in use for ongoing assessments of local and landscape-scale impacts of push-pull technology for farmers and ecological communities.
High-resolution land use maps have been developed and maps of biophysical and climatic conditions, social and farming systems to identify optimal target regions for push-pull upscaling are under development. Climate models have been developed as a basis for scenarios. Frameworks for analyzing social-ecological systems are being used to participatively model the push-pull system across ecological, socio-economic and governance levels.
After synthetic review of the options for expansion of push-pull and integration with other crops and practices, multi-actor needs assessment to identify priority crops and systems for integration was performed. Field experiments and trials including 'mother-baby' participative trials are underway in all 5 countries to test the identified options and the efficacy of push-pull integration.
To ensure that farmers are linked to the main value chain players in the market, value chain analyses for push-pull products were carried out and key elements of the push-pull value chains are being stimulated for increased market integration and to facilitate farmers' access to push-pull inputs, notably seeds of companion plants. Insights from the MACs and ongoing partnerships have been synthesized to develop policy guidelines and advocacy for high-level push-pull integration in national and international policy settings.
Communication materials are leveraged along with the project website and Knowledge Exchange Hub (KEH). Farmer mobilization is using cost-effective dissemination pathways developed in connection with MACs including e-extension. 78 demonstration plots have been set up, training materials are developed and farmer trainings are being performed in all 5 countries. To date 7,5 million people were reached with push-pull messaging, and 11,947 farmers and extension staff were trained to implement the technology. Push-pull technology is furthermore being included in national guidelines for sustainable and climate-resilient farming practice, notably in Ethiopia and Rwanda, and push-pull companion plants are valuable components of enhancing livestock value chains e.g. In Uganda through the production of fodder.
Efficient project and data management structures and Ethical guidelines are in place including a project management platform and a database for FAIR archiving of the data generated in UPSCALE.
Multi-actor Communities of practice (MACs) for upscaling push-pull technology in East Africa were formed in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia. Synthetic guidelines and advice are being derived on best practices to accomplish transformative impact on agricultural practices, policy and stakeholder perspectives. Transdisciplinarity has been embraced to diffuse barriers and bring to the view of agriculture a coordinated knowledge, skill and practice platform to promote sustainable agricultural production.
Socioeconomic surveys were performed in over 1500 households to evaluate the critical factors which promote or hinder adoption and upscaling of push-pull technology. A joint agroecological study design has been implemented in 160 field sites and 60 grasslands across 5 countries. Field protocols to assess the determinants of pest control and other functions in maize push-pull and non push-pull systems, including methods for remotely sensing the distribution of plant volatiles, are in use for ongoing assessments of local and landscape-scale impacts of push-pull technology for farmers and ecological communities.
High-resolution land use maps have been developed and maps of biophysical and climatic conditions, social and farming systems to identify optimal target regions for push-pull upscaling are under development. Climate models have been developed as a basis for scenarios. Frameworks for analyzing social-ecological systems are being used to participatively model the push-pull system across ecological, socio-economic and governance levels.
After synthetic review of the options for expansion of push-pull and integration with other crops and practices, multi-actor needs assessment to identify priority crops and systems for integration was performed. Field experiments and trials including 'mother-baby' participative trials are underway in all 5 countries to test the identified options and the efficacy of push-pull integration.
To ensure that farmers are linked to the main value chain players in the market, value chain analyses for push-pull products were carried out and key elements of the push-pull value chains are being stimulated for increased market integration and to facilitate farmers' access to push-pull inputs, notably seeds of companion plants. Insights from the MACs and ongoing partnerships have been synthesized to develop policy guidelines and advocacy for high-level push-pull integration in national and international policy settings.
Communication materials are leveraged along with the project website and Knowledge Exchange Hub (KEH). Farmer mobilization is using cost-effective dissemination pathways developed in connection with MACs including e-extension. 78 demonstration plots have been set up, training materials are developed and farmer trainings are being performed in all 5 countries. To date 7,5 million people were reached with push-pull messaging, and 11,947 farmers and extension staff were trained to implement the technology. Push-pull technology is furthermore being included in national guidelines for sustainable and climate-resilient farming practice, notably in Ethiopia and Rwanda, and push-pull companion plants are valuable components of enhancing livestock value chains e.g. In Uganda through the production of fodder.
Efficient project and data management structures and Ethical guidelines are in place including a project management platform and a database for FAIR archiving of the data generated in UPSCALE.
UPSCALE is a highly ambitious project that advances both science and technology beyond the state-of-the-art, addressing and involving ‘critical levers’ at all levels and scales of society including applied research, policy and multi-actor value chains in Africa and Europe. In practice, UPSCALE introduces a novel application of ecological methods, modelling tools and social-ecological approaches to the barely explored ground of providing data-driven, quantitative and qualitative tools to assess and improve social-ecological resilience of ecosystem services and farms. UPSCALE examines this under state-of-the-art scenarios of climate change, closing the gap between small-scale models and coarser large-scale models, to build an improved cross-scale social and ecological modelling framework which yields key information for management, dissemination and policy decisions. Moreover, UPSCALE is developing and adapting dissemination toolboxes including a Knowledge Exchange Hub, mobile app, interactive integrative maps for spatial targeting of dissemination as well as long-lasting MACs. Multi-actor design and integration of empirical models for push-pull adoption and effectiveness are the basis for targeted and rapid spread of push-pull and sustainable intensification information to key stakeholders, thus ensuring the relevance of research, as well as the feasibility and increased uptake of proposed solutions and implementation of results.