Photo: Farmer Anjeline Odero checks maize in her conservation agriculture plot in Siaya County, Kenya.

Purity Gachanga, a 65-year-old farmer living 200 kilometers northeast of Nairobi, shows how farming smarter– not harder – can build resilience and increase food production, despite mounting challenges from climate change.

Gachanga’s household is one of more than 300,000 across eastern and southern Africa that have put aside the plow and abandoned mono-cropping to pursue the principles of conservation agriculture, including reduced tillage, crop residue retention, and crop rotation or intercropping.

“I get a profit from each patch, so it makes sense to plan how to use it,” she said, noting that she rotates maize and legume crops to add nutrients to the soil, while keeping residues on the surface to protect it from harsh weather.

Those innovations and complementary practices such as drought tolerant maize and labor-saving machinery are spreading as part of efforts by the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project. They allow Gachanga and peers to care for soil and boost harvests on rain-fed farms, despite longer and more frequent dry spells and erratic rainfall.

Photo: A quality check at a soya collection point in Kasungu District, Malawi.

“Before, I would lose topsoil when it rained heavily,” Gachanga said. “I learned that planting certain varieties of fodder plants with deep roots holds the soil together, as well as improving soil fertility and giving good feed for my goats. I make money, keep my soil and animals in good health, and we have a varied diet ourselves.”

Research by SIMLESA shows that farmers who run their homesteads as a system and adopt complementary, climate-smart practices can reduce labor up to 60 percent, saving time and money while raising crop yields as much as 37 percent, according to Paswel Marenya, CIMMYT scientist and SIMLESA leader.

“That represents an immense addition to household food and income security,” Marenya said. “We’ve also seen that farmers who network are better able to exchange information about conservation practices and can negotiate collectively to get better prices for inputs such as fertilizer, improved seed, or mechanization, all of which facilitate climate-smart farming.”

Photo: Farmer Rukaya Hasani Mtambo weeds a plot of maize/beans grown using climate-smart practices.

As part of the above, SIMLESA has helped set up 58 agricultural innovation platforms across Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, connecting farmer groups, agribusiness, government extension, policymakers and researchers who work to enhance farm-level food security, productivity and incomes through maize-legume intercropping and crop rotations.

“Having a network of stakeholders allows farmers to test and adopt conservation agriculture-based techniques without the risks of going it alone,” said Michael Misiko, a CIMMYT agricultural innovation scientist who studies the role of social networks. “Researchers and governments learn and can use results to recommend best practices to other farmers in similar conditions.”

SIMLESA has also pursued competitive grant schemes to support 19 private and public partners, including seed companies, in those countries.

More than 51 policy briefs and dozens of reports, factsheets, videos, and other outreach materials are reaching regional decision makers regarding the benefits of conservation agriculture-based farming.

“We are delighted with SIMLESA’s unique strategy of involving multiple partners to implement conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification,” said Albertina Alage, the Technical Director for Technology Transfer, Mozambique. “This has accelerated dissemination of practices and technologies in more locations and to more farmers.”