eNews: July2015

Welcome to the Sustainable Intensification Database
 

We are all aware of the huge challenge that lies ahead of us; we will have 9 billion people to feed by 2050, of which 2.5 billion will be in Africa. Climate change adds further pressure on our natural resources as land suitable for farming becomes scarcer and the productivity of major crops decline. As the latest Montpellier Panel policy brief points out, agriculture is both a victim and a contributor to climate change. In the face of these growing challenges to food security, we need to produce more with fewer resources, in a sustainable way. Never has there been a greater need for a new paradigm in African agriculture.
 
A4I believes that Sustainable Intensification is that paradigm. Sustainable Intensification integrates innovations and practices from the fields of ecology, genetics and socio-economics to build environmentally sustainable, equitable, productive and resilient ecosystems that improve the well-being of farms, farmers and families. Sustainable Intensification is a practical pathway towards producing more outputs with more efficient use of all inputs on a durable basis, while reducing environmental damage and building resilience. It involves intensifying food production, while ensuring the natural resource base on which agriculture depends is sustained, and improved, for future generations. Although Sustainable Intensification has plenty of support, the term is still contentious. Some use the term synonymously with industrial agriculture but from our perspective, this is not the case. We hope to dispel some of these myths.
 
During the past few months, the A4I team has been hard at work preparing the Sustainable Intensification Database. Launched today, this database aims to showcase, in an unbiased way, some of the ecological, socio-economic and genetic approaches that help to contribute to Sustainable Intensification. Equal importance is placed on ‘sustainable’ as is on ‘intensification.’, thereby illustrating that Sustainable Intensification is an efficient and environmentally sustainable way of creating inclusive and productive farming systems for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
 
The database includes more than 80 downloadable case studies depicting the benefits and limitations of Sustainable Intensification; a useful resource for policy makers and researchers who are looking to implement these approaches. This list is by no means exhaustive, nor do the case studies necessarily represent the best examples of a given intervention or technology, rather they are a starting point for offering insights on Sustainable Intensification, innovating within the field and facilitating open sharing of knowledge on these subjects.
 
We intend to update this resource with new information as the discussion on Sustainable Intensification develops. If you have information you would like the team to consider for inclusion in this database, please contact them by email at info@ag4impact.org.
 
Finally, we are very sorry to be losing Stephanie from our team. She was hired in 2014 as our Administrator and then was subsequently promoted to become our Project & Communications Officer. She has been a great member of the team full of energy and enthusiasm. Her most recent work has been to develop the on-line site for Sustainable Intensification database. Stephanie is moving on now to study for a PhD under Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland at Oxford. We wish her all the best!

I leave you with the fantastic new infographic that we hope helps to explain the interconnectedness of Sustainable Intensification within a farming system. Thank you for reading and I will be in touch next month with more updates! 




Yours ever,

Gordon