Water-smart agriculture initiative for East Africa

In May 2014, the Global Water Initiative (GWI) East Africa together with the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) and it's lead Center, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), convened a regional workshop on Transformations in Water for Smallholder Farmers in East Africa – towards a ‘Water-Smart Agriculture’ Learning Hub.

The meeting included over 50 researchers, practitioners and policy makers from East African countries to address the need to think and act more systematically in dealing with the water security challenges faced by smallholder farmers. A combination of factors – rainfall uncertainty, changing growing seasons, soil exhaustion and land competition – leave many East African farmers highly vulnerable and risk-prone.

Water-Smart Agriculture helps address this risk and build famers’ resilience through systematic support to combine rain-fed farming with sustainable, small-scale irrigation from surface and groundwater resources. Participants agreed that the concept of Water-Smart Agriculture was useful for bringing together different areas of agriculture water management.

Based on this, WLE, IWMI and GWI are establishing a “Water-Smart Initiative” that will include:

• consolidation of knowledge on Water-Smart Agriculture through briefing notes and a sourcebook
• improved capacities around the concept and practice of Water-Smart Agriculture
• development of a network/alliance of practitioners, communities and farmers working around Water-Smart Agriculture

Based on deliberations at the meeting, we will produce a series of five key briefing papers in addition to a sourcebook on Water-Smart Agriculture.

The sourcebook will consolidate existing knowledge on Water-Smart Agriculture. This resource will serve as a starting point in the development of a more effective approach to supporting smallholders. It will address the need to bring together knowledge and experience in the region, increase support to practitioners (and, where possible, policy makers) and provide a core for the development of a modular ‘Learning Hub’ on best practice and knowledge that can continually be developed through a web-based platform. Visit the wiki.

The core areas of Water-Smart Agriculture that will be addressed in the sourcebook are:

• developing and scaling up technologies and practices at farm level
• supporting value chains and markets
• establishing sustainable financing for water development
• creating local learning demonstrations that will help local and regional authorities in policy development and planning

The idea is to produce materials that can easily be translated into practical actions on the ground and that are ‘convertible’ into materials that can continually build the capacity of those supporting farmers, including extension agents, researchers and the private sector.

WLE and GWI are currently developing the Water-Smart Sourcebook which should be available in December 2014.

If you are interested in learning more please contact Deslaged Tadesse D.Tadesse(at)cgiar.org.