Overcoming the Road Between: Challenges Drive Adoption of Africa RISING Technologies.

Poor production practices are highly visible along the road in Africa, often right next to superior agronomy.  This is being addressed by Africa RISING such as by support to participatory implementation of research demonstrations. Preferential adoption of practices depends upon farmers’ current perceptions of opportunities and challenges. Three challenges of sustainable intensification in East Africa include climate variability, pest infestation of stored grain, and soil infertility. Enhanced access to agro inputs is key to smallholder impact such as through a system involving agrodealers and village based agricultural agents (VBAAs) who provide timely information and training. Drought tolerant maize varieties have been adopted by 60,000 smallholders in semi-arid areas of Tanzania since introduction in 2012 was a response to climate variability. Adoption of hermetic storage technologies has been a response to pest infestation of stored grain with 90% of adoptees planning to increase maize production because of improved ability to store grain without the use of pesticides. Addressing these major constraints has created demand for more robust integrated nutrient management to achieve more stable and profitable crop yields for poor-resourced farmers, as exampled by the doubled up legume technologies that have been adopted in Malawi. Fertiliser-driven productivity enhancement is appreciated, rising from 3.1 to 19.6% among farmers exposed to  productivity-enhancing campaigns during 2011-2014, but these require to be accompanied by mechanisms to increase fertiliser availability and affordability.