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Scaling up conservation agriculture

Sharing best practices to ensure increased crop production while safeguarding the environment in southern Africa










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    Book (stand-alone)
    Field guide to improve crop water productivity in small-scale agriculture
    The case of Burkina Faso, Morocco and Uganda
    2020
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    By 2050, the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion, which requires an increase of food production by 70 percent compared to 2005 (FAO,2018). Nearly all the increase will occur in developing countries, where agriculture plays a major role to provide employment, income and to improve food security. One of the major challenges of increasing food supply is the limited water resources. Agriculture, as the driver of freshwater exploitation has, therefore, to be transformed into more resource efficient production (FAO, 2003). The world’s limited freshwater resources are potentially threatened by the expansion of agriculture. Increasing the potential output per amount of water used is an appropriate practice to improve production efficiency while protecting water resources. Therefore, increasing the productivity of agricultural water use in a sustainable manner is essential to ultimately sustain the social and economic conditions of livelihoods. Crop water productivity has grown into one of the major approaches to cope with water scarcity and advance crop-water relation. The number of conceptual frameworks and implications is ample, but there is always a growing need to review the step-by-step approach beyond. In this Field guide, practical pathways are presented to provide a comprehensive approach for assessing and improving crop water productivity in small-scale agriculture. The Field guide draws lessons learned in three countries (Burkina Faso, Morocco and Uganda) within the framework of FAO project “Strengthening Agricultural Water Efficiency and Productivity at the African and Global Level” funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Conservation agriculture in northern Kazakhstan and Mongolia 2006
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    In view of the difficult agro climatic conditions, the seriously degraded soil resources and the need for heavy investment into new machinery inputs for agricultural production in northern Kazakhstan and Mongolia the introduction of conservation agriculture into this region appears to be timely. This report describes the experiences of two FAO technical cooperation projects, one in Mongolia and one in northern Kazakhstan, which aimed to introduce conservation agriculture practices into the regio n. Conservation agriculture projects by their nature are multidisciplinary and involved several FAO technical units working together in a Conservation Agriculture workgroup. Both projects were technically led by the FAO Crop and Grassland service (AGPC), while the Agricultural and Food Engineering Technologies service (AGST) carried out the main responsibility for the mechanisation components of both projects.
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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    Conservation Agriculture in Southern Africa
    Building partnerships for climate resilience
    2020
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    Southern Africa is warming at twice the global rate and with rainfall patterns growing increasingly unpredictable, floods and droughts are becoming more common. This means livelihoods are being threatened and in 2019 almost 42 million people in the region were food insecure. By adopting Conservation Agriculture (CA) though, farmers will become more resilient. The project Strengthening coordination, scaling up and governance of Conservation Agriculture in Southern Africa (SUCASA) is aimed at capitalising on the potential of CA by increasing collaboration among all partners in the region. By doing so, farmers will become more resilient to the effects of climate change and increase their food and nutrition security. In promoting CA in Southern Africa, FAO is working in close partnership with Norad, AUDA-NEPAD, SADC, COMESA, CCARDESA, ACT, CFU, CIMMYT, FANRPAN, Foundations for Farming, IITA, SACAU, Total Land Care & WWF. This factsheet provides an overview of the project and the benefits of conservation agriculture and is therefore a useful resource for all project stakeholders.

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