Implementing the millennium development food security goals – Challenges of the southern African context

Love, David W.; Twomlow, Steve; Mupangwa, W.; Zaag, Pieter van der; Gumbo, Bekithemba

doi:10.1016/j.pce.2006.08.002

Cited by 34 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on poverty reduction will be challenging in the southern African region where a majority of the population depend on agriculture for their livelihood 1 . In Malawi, agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, contributing nearly 35% of the gross domestic product (GDP).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation agriculture systems for Malawian smallholder farmers: long-term effects on crop productivity, profitability and soil quality

Ngwira

Thierfelder²,

Lambert

2012

Renew. Agric. Food Syst.

133

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Conservation agriculture (CA) systems are based upon minimal soil disturbance; crop residue retention and crop rotation and/or intercrop association are increasingly seen to recycle nutrients, increase yield and reduce production costs. This study examines the effects of CA practices on crop productivity, profitability and soil quality under the conditions encountered by smallholder farmers in two farming communities from 2005 to 2011 in Malawi, as part of the contribution to remedy a lack of supporting agronomic research for these relatively new systems. The drier agroenvironment of Lemu of Bazale Extension Planning Area (EPA) is characterized by sandy clay loam soils and lower rainfall. Here, CA showed positive benefits on maize yield after the first season of experimentation, with highest increases of 2.7 Mg ha (US$176) spent under conventional tillage practices. In Lemu, both CA systems resulted in gross margins three times higher than that of the conventional control plot, while in Zidyana, CA monocrop maize and CA maize-legume intercrop resulted in 33 and 23% higher gross margins, respectively, than conventional tillage. In Zidyana, the earthworm population was highest (48 earthworms m −2 in the first 30 cm) in CA monocrop maize, followed by a CA maize-legume intercropping (40 earthworms) and lowest (nine earthworms) in conventionally tilled treatment. In both study locations CA monocrop maize and CA maizelegume intercrop gave higher water infiltration than the conventional treatment. Improvements in crop productivity, overall economic gain and soil quality have made CA an attractive system for farmers in Malawi and other areas with similar conditions. However, for extensive adoption of CA by smallholder farmers, cultural beliefs that crop production is possible without the ubiquitous ridge and furrow system and residue burning for mice hunting have to be overcome.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation agriculture systems for Malawian smallholder farmers: long-term effects on crop productivity, profitability and soil quality

Ngwira

Thierfelder²,

Lambert

2012

Renew. Agric. Food Syst.

133

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“…In southern Africa, where environmental and water stress is increasing (Nyabeze, 2004;Sivakumar et al, 2005), this type of understanding is essential in building resilience to large or catastrophic environmental changes and in developing trade-offs between food and economic production and ecosystem services (Falkenmark et al, 2007). It is also important for addressing broader humanitarian and development needs, through the many water intensive interventions that have been proposed by development agencies and projects (Love et al, 2006). ; Blöschl & Sivapalan, 1995), internal heterogeneities are very important (Didszun & Uhlenbrook, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rainfall–interception–evaporation–runoff relationships in a semi-arid catchment, northern Limpopo basin, Zimbabwe

Love

Uhlenbrook

Corzo

et al. 2010

Hydrological Sciences Journal

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Characterizing the response of a catchment to rainfall, in terms of the production of runoff vs the interception, transpiration and evaporation of water, is the first important step in understanding water resource availability in a catchment. This is particularly important in small semi-arid catchments, where a few intense rainfall events may generate much of the season's runoff. The ephemeral Zhulube catchment (30 km 2 ) in the northern Limpopo basin was instrumented and modelled in order to elucidate the dominant hydrological processes. Discharge events were disconnected, with short recession curves, probably caused by the shallow soils in the Tshazi sub-catchment, which dry out rapidly, and the presence of a dambo in the Gobalidanke sub-catchment. Two different flow event types were observed, with the larger floods showing longer recessions being associated with higher (antecedent) precipitation. The differences could be related to: (a) intensity of rainfall, or (b) different soil conditions. Interception is an important process in the water balance of the catchment, accounting for an estimated 32% of rainfall in the 2007/08 season, but as much as 56% in the drier 2006/07 season. An extended version of the HBV model was developed (designated HBVx), introducing an interception storage and with all routines run in semi-distributed mode. After extensive manual calibration, the HBVx simulation satisfactorily showed the disconnected nature of the flows. The generally low Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients can be explained by the model failing to simulate the two different observed flow types differently. The importance of incorporating interception into rainfall-runoff is demonstrated by the substantial improvement in objective function values obtained. This exceeds the gains made by changing from lumped to semi-distributed mode, supported by 1 000 000 Monte Carlo simulations. There was also an important improvement in the daily volume error. The best simulation, supported by field observations in the Gobalidanke sub-catchment, suggested that discharge was driven mainly by flow from saturation overland flow. Hortonian overland flow, as interpreted from field observations in the Tshazi subcatchment, was not simulated so well. A limitation of the model is its inability to address temporal variability in soil characteristics and more complex runoff generation processes. The model suggests episodic groundwater recharge with annual recharge of 100 mm year -1 , which is similar to that reported by other studies in Zimbabwe.Key words HBV; interception; Limpopo basin; semi-arid hydrologyRelations précipitation-interception-évaporation-écoulement dans un bassin versant semi-aride (nord du Limpopo, Zimbabwe) Résumé La caractérisation de la réponse d'un bassin versant aux précipitations, en termes de production d'écoulement par rapport à l'interception, la transpiration et l'évaporation, est un premier pas important pour la compréhension de la disponibilité des ressources en eau dans un bassin. Ceci est particulièrement im...

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“…Governments in some countries for example Tanzania and South Africa have also gone a step further in decentralizing irrigation management by promoting farmer managed irrigation schemes so as to ensure effective management of community based land and water resources (van Koppen et al, 2004;Mudau, 2010). Irrigation is viewed as a mechanism for reducing the impact of climate change and climate variability (IPCC, 2007;Ncube et al, 2011;Chikozho, 2010;de Hamer et al, 2008;Love et al, 2006;Van der Zaag et al, 2010).…”

Section: Decentralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralising Zimbabwe’s water management: The case of Guyu-Chelesa irrigation scheme

Tambudzai

Mapedza

Zhou

2013

Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C

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a b s t r a c tSmallholder irrigation schemes are largely supply driven such that they exclude the beneficiaries on the management decisions and the choice of the irrigation schemes that would best suit their local needs. It is against this background that the decentralisation framework and the Dublin Principles on Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) emphasise the need for a participatory approach to water management. The Zimbabwean government has gone a step further in decentralising the management of irrigation schemes, that is promoting farmer managed irrigation schemes so as to ensure effective management of scarce community based land and water resources. The study set to investigate the way in which the Guyu-Chelesa irrigation scheme is managed with specific emphasis on the role of the Irrigation Management Committee (IMC), the level of accountability and the powers devolved to the IMC. Merrey's 2008 critique of IWRM also informs this study which views irrigation as going beyond infrastructure by looking at how institutions and decision making processes play out at various levels including at the irrigation scheme level. The study was positioned on the hypothesis that 'decentralised or autonomous irrigation management enhances the sustainability and effectiveness of irrigation schemes'. To validate or falsify the stated hypothesis, data was gathered using desk research in the form of reviewing articles, documents from within the scheme and field research in the form of questionnaire surveys, key informant interviews and field observation. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to analyse data quantitatively, whilst content analysis was utilised to analyse qualitative data whereby data was analysed thematically. Comparative analysis was carried out as Guyu-Chelesa irrigation scheme was compared with other smallholder irrigation scheme's experiences within Zimbabwe and the Sub Saharan African region at large. The findings were that whilst the scheme is a model of a decentralised entity whose importance lies at improving food security and employment creation within the community, it falls short in representing a downwardly accountable decentralised irrigation scheme. The scheme is faced with various challenges which include its operation which is below capacity utilisation, absence of specialised technical human personnel to address infrastructural breakdowns, uneven distribution of water pressure, incapacitated Irrigation Management Committee (IMC), absence of a locally legitimate constitution, compromised beneficiary participation and unclear lines of communication between various institutions involved in water management. Understanding decentralization is important since one of the key tenets of IWRM is stakeholder participation which the decentralization framework interrogates.

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Implementing the millennium development food security goals – Challenges of the southern African context

Cited by 34 publications

References 18 publications

Conservation agriculture systems for Malawian smallholder farmers: long-term effects on crop productivity, profitability and soil quality

Conservation agriculture systems for Malawian smallholder farmers: long-term effects on crop productivity, profitability and soil quality

Rainfall–interception–evaporation–runoff relationships in a semi-arid catchment, northern Limpopo basin, Zimbabwe

Decentralising Zimbabwe’s water management: The case of Guyu-Chelesa irrigation scheme

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