Tanzania National Climate Change and

Agriculture Workshop: Sharing Evidence and Experience on Climate-Smart

Agriculture

New Africa Hotel,

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

15-16th October 2014

Strengthening the Capacity for Climate Change Adaptation through Integrated Land

and Water Management using the CSA approach in Kiroka Village, Morogoro.

Prof. Henry Mahoo (PhD)

On-behalf of Team

Tanzania

Partners

Partnership for implementation was built within existing extension system between:-

• Communities in Kiroka Village

• The Ministry of Agriculture Food Security and Cooperatives

• Morogoro Zonal irrigation and Technical Service Unit (MZITSU)

• Morogoro District Council,

• Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA)

• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Implementation Team

• Henry Mahoo (SUA)

• Filbert Rwehumbiza (SUA)

• Charles Pangapanga (SUA)

• Pendo-Edna Henry (SUA)

• Eng. Imani Nzobonaliba (Zonal Irrigation Unit, Morogoro)

• Geofrey Pyumpa (Morogoro Local Government)

• Edith Kija (Morogoro Local Government)

• Jackson Masakia (Morogoro Local Government)

• Moorine Lwakatare (FAO-Tanzania Office

• Meshack Malo (FAO - Rome

INTRODUCTION • Tanzania is highly vulnerable to the

impacts of climate change and vulnerability.

• Water scarcity is increasingly experienced by small-holder farmers.

• Climatic extreme events such as droughts with varying magnitude, complexity, and economic impacts have become a common feature in Tanzania.

cont

Opportunities exist to reduce the adverse effects of such events. Therefore,

We need to formulate effective and efficient adaptation strategies

We also need agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes greenhouse gases (mitigation), and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals.

Climate smart agriculture - CSA • CSA has no specific technologies or practices

that can be universally applied,

• Instead CSA is an approach to agriculture that requires site-specific consideration of what technologies and practices are most appropriate

• Practices can include sustainable soil and land management, drought and heat tolerant crop varieties, water use efficiency, integrated pest management.

Csa cont. • Many of these approaches are already used in

Tanzania, such as conservation tillage, agro-forestry, residue management, and others.

• Rather than promoting specific interventions and applying them across the country, it is instead about strengthening livelihoods and food security, especially of smallholders, through appropriate interventions that help to safeguard natural resources, build climate resilience, and reduce emissions while increasing productivity.

Case Study Kiroka Village, Morogoro-Tanzania

Location

The work is being carried out in KIROKA village in Morogoro Region in Tanzania.

KIROKA site -see Figure 1

.

Figure 1. Location of project site - KIROKA VILLAGE

CHALLENGES

Kiroka village, HIGHLANDS

• In the highlands farmers cultivate very steep slopes without soil and water conservation measures (Plate 1)

• As a consequence there is loss of soil fertility due to soil erosion leading to low crop production and low household food security

• Illegal logging for timber is also rampant-with the culprits never punished

Plate 1. Steep slope cultivation in the highlands

BUSH FIRES

• The highlands are also prone to frequent bush fires leading to environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity and enhances soil erosion and high runoff generation

population increase

Due to population increase, there is a lot of pressure on natural resources. This include:

Need for energy-leading to deforestation in search of firewood

Need for more food – leading to water sources encroachment (in search for water to irrigate their farms close to the water sources)

Conflicts among farmers arising from water shortages to irrigate their fields

IMPROVED ENERGY SAVING STOVES (LOWLANDS AND HIGHLANDS.)

• In order to cub deforestation and restore

biodiversity the project introduced simple energy saving technologies in the form of energy saving stoves.

• The common stoves normally used by many communities consist of three stones

• An improved cooking stove was introduced

Plate 5. Traditional 3-stones cooking stove

Woodlots establishment

This involved

• tree nursery establishment and

• tree planting (hard wood for economic uses)

• fruit trees e.g. mangoes, oranges and avocado

SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION - HIGHLANDS

FANYA CHINI CONTOUR BUNDS

• farmers were first trained

• After laying the contour line, the trench is dug and the soil is thrown on the down slope side

• The bund was strengthened by planting pineapples which are high value crops

• In between the bunds, improved bananas cultivars and some vegetables were planted

BEEKEEPING - HIGHLANDS

This activity is meant for the following

For Cash income (honey and wax)

For Home use

For protecting the environment

Kiroka Village - Lowlands

• The high runoff from the highlands cause flooding in the lowlands

• Flooding causes damage to: crops, property and infrastructure leading to low crop production and poor food security to many households (Plates 4 and 5)

• Due to water scarcity, water related conflicts also arise

Plate 17. Damage caused by flooding in the lowlands

Climate change impacts

• In the village, climate change has impacted on rainfall in terms of amount received and its distribution

• In both highlands and the lowlands, crops failure is very common

• For example in 2012, the short rainy season completely failed in both highlands and lowlands. (Plates 6 and 7)

• Water sources in the highlands also dried up (Plate 8)

Methodology used to arrive at the innovations

Participatory methods were employed

• Meetings – at village- district and national level

• Through the meetings, following innovations were agreed upon

• The innovations were selected to meet specific requirements in the highlands and lowlands while others were cross-cutting

Innovations – in the Lowlands

• Capacity building and awareness raising

• System of rice intensification (SRI)

• Establishment of woodlots

• Improved cooking stoves

In the highlands

• Capacity building and awareness raising

• Soil and water conservation (SWC) – with improved bananas and pineapples

• Establishment of woodlots

• Improved cooking stoves

• Bee keeping and water sources conservation

LOWLANDS SYSTEM OF RICE INTENSFICATION

PRINCIPLES OF SRI

• transplanting single seedlings,

• transplanting younger seedlings at 8-12 days old

• wide plant spacing of 25x25cm

• minimum water applications during vegetative growth period, keeping soils moist but well-drained and aerated,

• frequent weeding with a simple mechanical hand weeder, and

• application of organic matter, in preference to chemical fertilizer

Seed selection…

SRI: 25cm x 25 cm: 6o days after transplanting

Figure 2 Grain yield of rice from different treatments

Rooting under SRI (left) and conventional (right) at harvesting

SRI cont

• The combined increase in demand for food and scarcity of water in Tanzania and worldwide necessitates saving water and increasing its productivity of which SRI fits in.

CONCLUSIONS • Stakeholder consultations yielded a

substantial number of recommended CSA practices that would build resilience, especially among smallholder farmers

• In Kiroka, the majority of farmers and communities are buying this approach of CSA which looks holistically in solving community problems including livelihood issues.

cont.

• Climate smart agricultural practices have been promoted in a limited number of Districts in Tanzania, most notably practices in Conservation Agriculture (CA).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This work was supported by

FAO/Sida

Thank you for your attention