Burundi Food Security Program
Projects beyond CGIAR - Burundi Food Security Program
Sara Delaney - Episcopal Relief & Development (in partnership with Cornell University & Anglican Church of Burundi) sdelaney@episcopalrelief.org
Research within this project is looking to capture impacts of community processes, farmer uptake of practices, as well as the technical aspects of different varieties and techniques on yield, resilience to climate extremes, etc.
Description of Burundi Program Episcopal Relief & Development partners with the Anglican Church of Burundi to implement a comprehensive community development program aimed at transforming livelihoods through support in the areas of agriculture and the environment, health, and gender-based violence. The program has recently created a five-year strategic plan that lays out a framework for operations from 2013-2017.
Burundi was given a score of 37.1 (extremely alarming) by IFPRI in their 2012 Global Hunger Index, placing it at the very bottom of the 2012 rankings. Under-nutrition has been identified as the foremost concern by program staff in all regions of the country they are working. While Burundi is still recovering from a widespread conflict which lasted from 1993-2005, the nation also has the second highest population density in sub-Saharan Africa (~330 people/km2), an extremely hilly topography prone to soil erosion, a climate which is becoming increasingly unpredictable and has already experienced both prolonged droughts and heavy flooding, and the well-known challenges of crop disease, seed supply, infrastructure and market access which exist throughout East and Southern Africa.
The Anglican Church of Burundi’s (ACB) food security program includes a number of linked activities:
- Working closely with farmer groups on the adoption of a variety of practices aimed at increasing yield and agricultural resilience.
- Improving soil fertility through the planting of agro-forestry trees amongst crops, use of locally produced compost on fields, reducing erosion on hillsides through the planting of trees to increase forest cover, and the digging of anti-erosion trenches and planting of stabilizing grasses along the length of slopes.
- Sourcing improved, climate-appropriate and disease resistant seed and managing regional seed multiplication centers with the objective or trialing and then distributing successful varieties to local farmers. Crops targeted include maize, beans, cassava, banana, pineapple and sunflower.
Objective of Partnership We would like to be able to both better capture the work of the Program, as well as identify and target any areas that could be improved.
Activities to Date
- Initial brainstorm meeting: December 2012
- Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Professional Affiliation: May 14 – July 31
- Visit to Program in Burundi by Cornell professor: July 2013
- Planning meeting in New York: July 31 2013
Focus Areas A number of issues were commonly identified. These include:
Soil management
Farmers in Burundi have a number of interlinked soil management challenges. They are often farming on erosion-prone hillsides, many on slopes of up to 45%, and many of which have been slowly deforested in particular during the years of conflict. Also, due to lack of sufficient nutrient input in relation to nutrient removal over many decades, most soil is low in fertility. This challenge only increases with the more erratic and intense wet and dry periods the country is expected to experience.
A number of activities have been promoted by the program in recent years in order to address soil fertility and decrease erosion. Therefore, it would be logical to start by establishing a qualitative and quantitative baseline on the effectiveness of these measures, to the extent that this is possible. The most obvious indicator for impact is crop yield, although other factors of course contribute to yield.
A baseline survey was done in March which may give us some historical yield data. We may want to do a small-scale survey to gather farmers’ perceptions on the impact of the different strategies they have tried so far. These include:
1) Use of compost
2) Planting of agroforestry trees amongst crops.
3) Digging of trenches along with planting of grasses along length of trenches
We could then work on designing research which would test the impact of these activities going forward. We could also consider adding additional strategic interventions that have not yet been used to compare effectiveness, such as:
1) Use of lime to address acidity.
2) Use of cover crop(s) to further improve nutrient levels and further reduce erosion.
Seed Access Farmers universally mentioned the lack of sufficient seed supply. This included a lack of enough seed in general, as well as a lack of enough improved seed for particular crops. Desired traits include short-duration varieties to adapt to changing lengths of rainy seasons, and disease and pest resistant varieties to combat recurring and newly emerging threats.
While the program is working on this issue through its currently operating five seed multiplication centers, it will be a priority to look further into this issue. Proposal to start with a scoping study to identify current situation and main challenges. Can then work to network with possible suppliers, and to improve effectiveness of the seed multiplication work, in particular as it relates to crop disease control.
Plant disease An issue which has been brought up by the Program Manager before to Episcopal Relief & Development, but which had not been raised as a serious problem, is the challenge of two plant diseases that are currently present in the region - cassava mosaic virus (CMV) and Banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW).
Challenges with these two diseases were brought up by farmers during recent visits, and both Cornell visitors believe the problem poses a serious challenge to farmers’ overall production prospects. The ACB has been working to lessen damage from these and other crop diseases as they enter the region over at least the last 5 years. They have for example already been able to source more tolerant varieties of both cassava and banana for distribution to farmer groups in affected areas.
The perception of the Cornell visitors, however, was that these efforts are not yet nearly enough, and that if farmers are going to be sufficiently motivated to put efforts into improving their land and soil, than they need to have reliable access to plant varieties which work for them and will not be wiped out by disease. Cornell has proposed working more closely with IITA, and discussions have begun.
Banana and cassava are two big calorie sources in Burundi. See chart below. Note that ‘Dried roots and tubers’ is most likely predominantly cassava flour, while ‘cassava’ is fresh cassava, so together cassava is by far the largest source of calories.
Partnership components/options 1) Pairing of students Suggested that it might be a good idea to pair each visiting Cornell student with a local student from the university for the duration of their stay in-country. This could help with sustainability, capacity building, language/translation as well as cultural exchange.
2) Partnering with other Research Institutes Discussions with other specific crop research institutes, such as IITA, IRRI, ISABU area already underway. We will need to monitor and see if any such institute should be brought more formally into partnership at any point.
3) Farmer involvement A key to the success of all of this work will be farmer involvement. ACB, through its large network, and in particular its local animateurs, has a good connection to farmers and farmer groups in the communities where they are working. In the design of any operational research and/or monitoring and evaluation, an awareness of opportunities to actively involve farmers in each and every stage where it may be appropriate should be encouraged.
