Ciara Varley, Angharad Johnston, John Recha, Charles Spillane
As a partnership between the EU-funded LEG4DEV and World Bank-funded AICCRA research project, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is working with government stakeholders in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and other countries in Eastern and Southern Africa to co-develop a Climate-Smart Legume Production Manual for Smallholder Farmers. The findings from the consultative stakeholder workshops in each country have been published in a new LEG4DEV AICCRA workshop report.
Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia are three LEG4DEV partner countries within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region experiencing significant effects of climate change on agriculture and food security, with smallholder communities being the most vulnerable. Unpredictable rainfall patterns, prolonged droughts and rising temperatures are negatively impacting agricultural production, food security and livelihoods across the countries in the SADC region.
While many climate challenges are similar (e.g., soil degradation, water scarcity and reduced crop productivity), each country also faces specific challenges. Climate change is altering the dynamics of some crop pests and diseases by expanding their geographic ranges; increasing their reproduction and survival rates; reducing efficacy of natural predators and creating more favourable conditions for outbreaks; and threatening food security and crop production stability. The application of climate smart practices and agroecological principles has the potential to develop more climate resilient production systems and landscapes that can deliver more stable crop yields, food security and enhanced livelihoods.
The scaling of legume production is a strategic entry point for the broad-sense scaling of climate-smart agriculture across countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. As nitrogen-fixing crops, legumes can improve soil nutrition and health, reduce the levels of inorganic nitrogen fertiliser used in cropping systems, and reduce the impacts of major pests and diseases. In addition, legumes provide a source of high quality protein, dietary fibre and micronutrients for improved nutrition and health outcomes across the region. Overall, legumes can support more resilient and sustainable farming systems, while enhancing income and livelihoods for smallholder farmers and others across legume value chains. Many legumes are also predominantly cultivated by women smallholders, positioning them as a lever for promoting more gender-responsive development and inclusive rural livelihoods.
Despite these benefits, legume-based cropping systems and value chains continue to face systemic challenges and barriers limiting their potential to deliver climate resilience, health, livelihood and equity outcomes for the smallholder farming communities across the SADC region. To directly address these barriers, the LEG4DEV and AICCRA projects within ILRI joined forces to run a number of stakeholder participatory workshops in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia to co-develop a climate smart legume production manual for each country. To generate wider benefits across the region, the workshops were run in partnership with the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA).
Each of the three national workshops gathered insights from key legume stakeholders at the national level who worked together to identify the limitations and opportunities of current legume production practices. Across the three workshops, 90 key stakeholders from the three countries across government, NGOs, agricultural research institutes, universities and the private sector participated in the workshops and contributed to drafting of the structure and planned content for each legume manual.
Through a participatory process, the structure and content of the legume production guides was defined – acting as the starting point from which the manuals can now be specifically developed for their application by the government extension systems to support smallholders in Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. The agreed structure and outline of each national manual represent the first step in a three-step implementation plan to enable scaling of legume-based climate-smart agriculture within Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. Some of the key topics that the stakeholders identified as critical for inclusion in the national climate smart legume production manual included:
- The impacts of climate change on legume production
- Soil characteristics (including land preparation and management)
- The role of climate-smart legumes in food and nutrition
- Legume species and varieties
- Legume seed systems
- Agronomic management practices
- Harvesting and post-harvest management
- Mechanisation of legume cropping systems
- Supporting an enabling environment for grain legume production
Over the next year, the ILRI-based LEG4DEV team, in partnership with the workshop participants, will integrate these topics into each of the production manuals. These manuals will provide specific and practical advisories for smallholders, including information related to improved resilience of legume production; more sustainable farming practices, such as the use of crop rotation and intercropping to enhance soil health and reduce risks linked to climate variability; and gender-sensitive approaches to farming that ensure that women farmers have full access to legume-based options and innovations.
Overall, the LEG4DEV-AICCRA enabled co-production of the national Climate Smart Legume Production Manuals with the Ministries of Agriculture and other key stakeholders in each of the countries, will provide a key resource for each national extension system to better support efficient, productive and impactful scaling of legumes for more climate-smart farming systems of smallholder farmers across the SADC countries.
The LEG4DEV – AICCRA Report entitled ‘Co-Designing Climate-Smart Legume Production Guides in the Southern Africa Region: Consultative Workshops in Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia’ is available in open-access on CG Space at the link: Co-Designing Climate- Smart Legume Production Guides in the Southern Africa Region: Consultative Workshops in Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia.