IITA and CIMMYT collaborate to enhance adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Southern Africa
Lilongwe, Malawi. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently launched a project that aims to investigate the drivers and barriers to adoption of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in southern Africa and to develop strategies for achieving adoption and impact at scale.
The project, Understanding and Enhancing Adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Smallholder Farming Systems of Southern Africa (ACASA), will apply social and scaling science to understand the biophysical, socioeconomic, institutional, and policy drivers and barriers to the adoption of CA technologies and practices.
ACASA is supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and will be implemented in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in collaboration with the CA stakeholders and farmers in the region.
The project was officially launched virtually on 16 September 2020 by the Zambia Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. Michael Katambo. Hon Katambo noted it was a timely intervention as the livelihoods and food security of smallholder farmers in southern Africa are increasingly being threatened by climate change and variability that had led to a steady decline in the production of food staples and an increase in the number of food and nutrition insecure people over the last couple of years.
