Introduction

Millions of African smallholders—farmers, herders and fisherfolk—are resource-poor and suffer from food insecurity. Their low incomes mean they are unable to make investments and take on risks. Their agricultural systems are buffeted by sudden, acute shocks caused by natural and man-made hazards—drought, flooding, erosion, conflicts. Long-term trends, in part the result of international markets, national policy decisions and institutional frameworks, often move against them.

The food-security problem is not merely an inability to produce enough food to keep pace with population growth. Such a simplistic reckoning fails to take into account the ecological, cultural, social and economic features which are the bedrock of sustainable agriculture. Environmental degradation and a diminishing resource base seriously affect African farmers who depend on rainfed agriculture. As critical watersheds are deforested, water supplies have become unreliable and the climate less predictable. Local actors are seldom consulted when agricultural policies are formulated. Small-scale farmers (especially women) find it hard to get credit, seeds and other inputs, and the information they need to farm their land in a profitable, sustainable way. Some governments still control the prices of key farm outputs, and unscrupulous traders manipulate the prices of others. In addition, political instability is a major obstacle to food security and sustainable agriculture in many countries.

Access to sufficient food is a sustainable manner is a fundamental human right. Realizing this, NGOs, community organizations, research institutions and governments in Africa have been testing alternative agricultural technologies and approaches for over a decade. Such approaches as "conservation farming" and organic agriculture are becoming part of the technical packages of both international and national research and extension institutions. It is this growing experience and interest that has prompted IIRR and its partners to document and share the lessons learned so far.

The participants in the workshop that produced this manual took a broad view of sustainable agriculture, including not only farming technologies (contour planting, feeding cattle with crop by-products, and so on), but also its social and economic dimensions (for example, the marketing of produce and the organization of extension services). And around the core concept of the wise, sustainable and efficient use of natural resources for livelihood security, the workshop participants identified a range of policy issues that determine whether attempts to promote sustainable agriculture will be successful (see the diagram on the next page). This manual tries to show the relationships among the physical technologies, the social, economic and policy frameworks within which they are implemented, and the organizational processes that can be used to promote sustainable agriculture.

Purpose of the manual

This manual is intended for use as a field guide by development workers of community-based and non-government organizations, churches, government agencies and research institutions engaged in agricultural development. Further, it will serve as reference material for schools, vocational institutions and universities.

The manual provides an overview of selected problems and issues in sustainable agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa, and the various attempts by individuals, communities and development organizations to overcome these problems. It provides specific examples of technologies and approaches, as well as selected cases of individual farmers' and communities' experiences.

The book draws on experiences from a huge area—from Ethiopia in the north to Lesotho in the south. This region includes a wide variety of agroecosystems and socio-economic systems. Naturally, what has worked in one place may not be appropriate in another. So the reader should not view this book as a set of prescriptions to be followed word-for-word. Rather, it offers a range of options and ideas to be selected and adapted. It is hoped that these will stimulate researchers and field practitioners to test and adapt these options to local conditions, and to generate and share new approaches and technologies.

Because of the size of the area covered and the breadth and complexity of the topic of sustainable agriculture, a manual such as this cannot hope to be comprehensive. Its focus is on the less arid areas of Eastern and Southern Africa, where sustainable agriculture approaches have achieved most success. It does not include the mainly pastoral, semi-arid areas that cover much of the region. Nor is its coverage of the wetter areas complete: numerous organizations and countless farmers engage in sustainable agriculture, and have developed a wealth of technologies and approaches that are not yet reflected here.

So this manual is by no means a finished product. Rather, it presents a sampling of sustainable agriculture experiences in the region. It should be seen as an initial draft that will serve as a base for gathering feedback for revision and translation into several Eastern and Southern Africa languages—initially into Swahili. Comments and corrections are most welcome: please send them to IIRR at the address in the front of the book.

Parts of the manual

The manual falls into 10 parts. The first four focus on the social processes and issues involved in sustainable agriculture. Part 1 describes how organizations might promote the development, testing and sharing of farm technologies by groups of farmers, and gives examples of cases where such approaches have proved successful. Part 2 outlines some approaches to improving credit and marketing by farmers' groups. Part 3 describes methods of planning land use and strengthening users' rights, while Part 4 addresses the issue of gender.

Part 5 then turns to the physical technologies for soil and water conservation, many of which have been developed and promoted through the approaches described in Part 1. Part 6 describes ways of conserving and enhancing soil fertility using various types of organic matter. Part 7 details some technologies relating to cropping systems. This section, in particular, makes no attempt to cover all the many crops and cropping systems used in Eastern and Southern Africa; rather, the examples have been chosen to illustrate some of the principles involved in planning and implementing cropping systems in a sustainable agriculture context. Parts 8 and 9 address livestock issues: Part 8 focuses on approaches to livestock extension, while Part 9 provides some livestock management technologies.

Part 10 contains lists of resources and sources of further information, including profiles of the 60 people who contributed to the publication through the workshop (described below), a list of resource organizations with relevant expertise and experience in the field, and references and training materials on sustainable agriculture.

Manual production

The manual is a product of more than a year of intensive consultations with experts from various institutions. The final product was compiled through an intensive, participatory production workshop. The overall administration and technical management was guided by a steering committee composed of staff from Baraka Agricultural College, the Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Programme (SACDEP), the Regional Land Management Association (RELMA), Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG_Kenya), the Ford Foundation, and the Africa Regional Office of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). IIRR served as the secretariat of the steering committee and organized the production workshop itself.

Preparatory workshop

The scope of the manual, the range of topics to be included, and the institutions and individuals with the relevant experience and expertise, were determined in a two-day preparatory workshop. Participants included staff of NGOs, government departments, farmers, universities, research institutions and private individuals.

The participants in this preparatory workshop agreed on a common understanding of what constitutes sustainable agriculture, the major sections in the manual, as well as specific topics to appear in each of the major sections. They also drew up a list of institutions with relevant experience and contact individuals within each institution. They invited these individuals to draft manuscripts on their allocated topics, and provided them with detailed guidelines on how to do this.

Production workshop

The manual itself was the product of a second, two-week intensive workshop, which involved some 60 farmers, researchers, extension experts, field practitioners, artists, editors and desktop-publishing specialists. During the workshop, each participant presented his or her draft manuscript using overhead transparencies of each page. Copies of each draft were also given to all other participants, who critiqued it and suggested revisions.

After each presentation, an editor helped the author revise and edit the manuscript and incorporate the comments that had been received. An artist drew illustrations to accompany the text. The edited manuscript and artwork were then desktop-published to produce a second draft. Meanwhile, other participants were also presenting their manuscripts to the group. Each author then in turn worked with the team of editors and artists to revise and illustrate the text.

Early in the workshop, the participants generated ideas for new topics, and these were assigned to individuals with relevant experiences and expertise to draft. The editorial team also assisted the farmer participants to write and illustrate their cases and experiences, which the farmers also presented to the group.

Each participant then presented his or her revised draft to the group a second time, also using transparencies. Again, the audience critiqued it and suggested revisions. After the presentation, the editor, artist and desktop-publishing specialist again helped revise the manuscript and developed a third draft. Towards the end of the workshop, this third draft was made available to participants for their final comments and revisions. After this, only minor editing and adjustments were necessary before the finished manual could be printed.

This workshop approach had several advantages: it speeded up the production of information materials, taking full advantage of expertise of the various workshop participants. The process of writing, getting comments, revising and illustrating the manual took place at the same time, considerably shortening the often-difficult process of writing, editing and publishing. A large number of workshop participants were able to contribute to each topic: in effect, the workshop provided an opportunity for technical peer review by a large number of reviewers, as well as pre-testing for understandability and field relevance by a group of the intended readers.

In addition, the workshop brought together a large number of people from different institutions and walks of life, each with different perspectives and expertise in sustainable agriculture. It is hoped that the relationships and networks forged during the workshop will continue long into the future.