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Scaling Up Climate-Smart Crop and Mechanization Systems to Promote Sustainable Crop Production in Sri Lanka and Zambia

Year of publication 2021

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Project

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Unsustainable agriculture practices contribute to land degradation, which impacts the fertility and productivity of soil and leaves land vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. These issues threaten food security and reduce livelihoods, particularly for smallholder farmers. To combat these problems, FAO implements the Save and Grow approach. This approach promotes and intensifies sustainable crop production through the use of high quality seeds and planting materials and the implementation of integrated pest management and conservation agriculture practices. Key to conservation agriculture are the planting and management of climate smart crops and the implementation of mechanization systems for land preparation, direct seeding, weeding and harvesting. The project will be implemented in Sri Lanka and Zambia. It was designed to create synergies with an ongoing project that is already supporting the implementation of the approach in the targeted countries. Several constraints to the adoption of sustainable crop production practices have been identified throughout the implementation of the ongoing project. These include a lack of knowledge of sustainable agronomy and its benefits among beneficiaries and inadequate market linkages, which limit the availability of sustainable agronomic inputs and mechanization services, as well as the sale of crop yields. The goal of this project is to help rural smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka and Zambia to overcome these challenges and to encourage them to adopt the Save and Grow approach.

Language English

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