Spatial Data and Analysis in Support of Improved Policy and Planning

Christopher Auricht / John DixonACIARCanberra 21 June 2012

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Talk outline Context and Background Needs Issues and status of spatial data Methodology used in developing an updated

farming systems dataset and analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa

Status and future work

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Facts According to CGIAR analysis

One billion of the worlds poor within Africa and Asia (those living on less than $1 per day) are fed primarily by: hundreds of millions of small-holder farmers (most

with less than 2 ha of land, several crops, and a cow or two), or

Herders (most with fewer than five large animals)

Solution ? Develop sustainable farming systems that

improve efficiency gains to produce increased food production without using more land, water or other inputs

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One Billion People Suffer Chronic Hunger and Poverty

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Scale of Rural Hunger Nearly one billion people experience debilitation,

health-threatening hunger each year 4 out of 5 of these people are rural farmers

Trends in maize shortage in ZambiaPercentage of farm households with maize shortage

The Hunger Period

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Population density and underweight children under five

Sources: CIESIN and Hunger Task Force (A and B, unpublished data)

And GAEZ database

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Background Business as usual investments in agriculture unlikely

to deliver sustainable solutions in many countries Numerous issues often identified as barriers to

progress e.g. inefficiencies in program delivery, political uncertainty etc. These are not the only problem!

Existing systems (often under stress) have been, and are expected to continue to accommodate large increases in population, increasing urbanisation, rising demand for animal products and competition for land and water

Forecasts suggesting that current practices will not stay abreast with population growth, environmental change and increasing demand for animal products.

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Needs Requires a strategic approach, an appreciation of

scale, and an understanding of the interactions between and within systems

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The current ACIAR project Builds on the work of Dixon et al 2001

www.fao.org/farmingsystems/

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2001 Farming Systems and Poverty Global study – part of the World Bank Rural Sector

Review Widely accepted as pioneering body of work Been extensively used to guide investment at the

program level. Approach focused on high level farming systems

within six developing regions Involved use of various thematic data layers to

underpin the delineation, characterisation / description and subsequent analysis of systems

Supplemented by expert opinion

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Sub-Saharan Update Farming systems website in FAO still one of

the most visited sites within the organisation

Previous study 10 years old Consistent seamless datasets somewhat

limited in original work In need of updating as spatial extent of

systems and frame conditions changed e.g. population, urbanisation etc.

Many updated and new datasets available

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Current Situation 2012 – Large quantity of potential datasets – approx. 300

alone in the Harvest Choice database longitudinal and some predictive data now available

GAEZ 3.0 - 1,000’s of thematic datasets representing 100’s of layers

Challenge – which ones to use and how Strategic approach

Access and collation Assess (fit-for-purpose) and Prioritise (currency, coverage,

scale etc) Process Disseminate

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Methodology Work in collaborative fashion with authors and other large

data providers e.g. IFPRI – Harvest Choice, UN-FAO, ILRI, ICRAF, IIASA, CGIAR others

.

Spatial and Tabular Data

Delineate new Farm-ing System Boundar-ies – Iterative pro-cess based on concept of central tendancy

Statistics and Anal-ysis

Characterise and describe systems

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Current Status Draft Farming System Boundaries Material for thematic areas covering

Population time-series avail for rural, urban and total

Poverty $2.00 and $1.25 /day Environment – LGP, Rainfall, Elevation, Major Envt

Constraints, Slope, Satellite Imagery Livestock Crops (major crops) Irrigation Time to market Yield gap

ElevationSlope, aspect, drainageSettlements, ports, marketsRoad, rail, river, ICT networksMarket travel times & costs

Hunger, Poverty & Productivity Spatial Covariates/Proxies & Analytical Flow

Port travel times & costs

Terrain, Demography,

Infrastructure, Admin Units

ProductionEnvironment &

Constraints

ProductionSystems &

Performance

Interventions/Responses

Agroecological ZonesCropland extent & intensityPests & Diseases (Maize Stem Borer)Drought Incidence & SeverityRunoffAdministrative Units Farming SystemsCrop Suitability: Rainfed WheatCrop Distribution & YieldsValue of Production per Rural Person

NA

010

2030

40

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

100 80 60 40 20 0

IrrigationThreshold

% of AvailableSoil Water

MaizeYield

Potentialt[DM]/ha

Fertilizer Application Ratekg[N]/ha

Yield Responses to Inputs, Management, CCProfitability of small scale irrigationQuantity of Nutrients RemovedFertilizer ProfitabilityDistribution of Welfare Benefits

Linkage toMacroModels

Aggregate to FPUs

Source: HarvestChoice 2010

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Total Population Time Series 1990-2015 1990

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Total Population Time Series 1990-2015 1995

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Total Population Time Series 1990-2015 2000

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Total Population Time Series 1990-2015 2005

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Total Population Time Series 1990-2015 2010

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Total Population Time Series 1990-2015 2015

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Issues Agreed work flow and dissemination Google space What spatial and analytical products are needed Sub-system and sub-regional analysis (new

boundaries and analysis) Other data

Climate change Access to groundwater Protected areas Satellite derived products – LGP, Land-use Incorporation of gap yield datasets

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Thanks Acknowledgements

ACIAR IFPRI – Harvest Choice CGIAR ILRI ICRAF FAO IIASA others

Questions & Discussion