English

Rainfall defines livelihood patterns among agrarian communities of the climate-change vulnerable semi-arid SubSaharan Africa. However, it remains inadequately studied, resulting in ineffective water management policies and weak agricultural growth in the region. Monthly rainfall data collected between 1987 and 2018 at four stations along a 1200 km climatic gradient in northern Namibia were analyzed for annual, seasonal, and monthly trends and variability. Descriptive measures and the Mann-Kendall test were used for rainfall characterization and trend detection, respectively. Results showed an annually increasing rainfall trend, but with a downward trend in the dry season decreasing by -0.14 mm year–1 and an upward trend in the rainy season increasing by 7.74 mm year–1 across the study area. The rainy-season mean monthly rainfall showed predominantly increasing trends, while the dry-season ones exhibited insignificant decreasing trends. The study detected a decreasing rainfall gradient from the northeast towards the northwest with a range of 156.8 mm and concomitant increasing spatial-temporal variability. The upward rainfall trend has implications for rainy season floods, whereas the downward trend suggests dry season drought intensification in the area. These results could be useful for rainwater management planning in the study area and other dryland regions.

This a short article on the mini exhibition that farmers under the Tale Agricultural Resource Centre did. The purpose was to show to other farmers the maize and bean varieties that were planted under the APPSA funded sub project, so that they can learn how they perform, where to get the seed and try them in this up coming summer cropping season. This is important because these varieties have been proven to withstand calamities of climate change. 

This document is a survey of competences of CCARDESA stakeholders in virtual platforms .

The article was published after a Training of Trainers (ToT) for the Smallholder Empowerment Programs (SHEP) at Bunda College with support from the SAFE initiative. SHEP originally emerged through trial and error in the process of technical cooperation between Kenya and Japan for improving Kenya’s agricultural extension services. The cooperation started in 2006 and the SHEP Approach was developed as an innovative
method of agricultural extension services backed by the disciplines of economics and psychology. SHEP is an approach in agricultural extension that facilitates small-scale farmers to conduct market-oriented agriculture. The above-mentioned agricultural extension project in Kenya that utilized this method doubled the farming income of 2,500 targeted farmers in just two years. In the opening speech of the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African  Development in 2013, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his desire to change African Agriculture from “Grow and Sell” to “Grow to Sell”. Building off of this, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been working with the Kenyan government to spread the knowledge of SHEP to agricultural extension officials and extension staff in other African countries. Currently, over twenty African countries are implementing the SHEP Approach.

In this Fourth Edition of the Sustainable Agriculture Production Program (SAPP) Success Stories, we present achievements of Smallholder Farmers who have adopted various Sustainable Good Agriculture Practices with the support from SAPP.
 

Terms of Reference for a Consultancy to Map Climate Relevant Satellite Data Sources

Terms Of Reference for Enagagement of AICCRA Project Officer 

Terms of Reference: Development of Information, Communication & Technology Based Knowledge Products in 3 Selected Countries

The article is about Post Harvest Losses. 

Video on CCARDESA Backstopping Mission to APPSA Lesotho held from 13 to 17 September 2021.