Ethiopia

Australia’s strategic approach to aid to Africa during 2011–15 is to ‘contribute to improvement against African regional targets for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1), reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and increasing sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation’. The first objective of this strategy is to help selected African countries progress MDGs in areas where Australia has particular strengths, where progress is seriously off track and where strong frameworks exist for achieving effective results. One core element of reductions in poverty and hunger is the improvement of agricultural productivity and food security.

Africa is the most food-insecure region in the world, with one in three people suffering from chronic hunger. Low food crop productivity, rising food prices, increased fuel costs and the global recession have worsened food and nutrition security outcomes. ACIAR is assisting with delivering key elements of the Australian Government’s enhanced engagement with Africa through the ‘Overseas Development Assistance–Food Security through Rural Development’ initiative.

Australian support (of A$100 million over 4 years), which is strongly focused on country needs, is aligned with the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme and Australia’s international expertise in dryland and semi-arid mixed farming systems.

ACIAR has supported research partnerships in eastern and southern Africa for several decades. Since 1983 ACIAR has completed over 40 projects in southern Africa. Benefits to date have included the empowerment of individuals and farmer groups to market and receive a fair price for their cattle, vaccines for Newcastle disease in chickens in several countries, a tick-resistance diagnostic test and a tick-fever vaccine, selection of Australian trees for difficult sites, identification of low-input fertiliser strategies for crops in risky environments, and demonstration that cattle breeds preferred by emerging farmers have growth potential that is equal to commercial breeds.

ACIAR has supported IARC projects through International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) (Kenya), World Agroforestry Centre (Kenya), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) (Nigeria), ICRISAT and CIMMYT in a number of African countries. Australian technical knowledge and expertise is highly relevant because similar temperate, Mediterranean and subtropical production environments are found in both continents. Water constraints and soil-management requirements are also frequently quite similar. Australia’s advanced research, extension and farm-management systems experience, together with the capabilities of its formal tertiary agricultural education institutions, is relevant to human and institutional capacity building in a range of African countries.

The current emphasis lies on both income-generating livestock and cropping systems for previously disadvantaged farmers, including in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe; and food security in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. In relation to eastern and southern Africa, an ACIAR program entitled ‘Sustainable intensification of maize–legume cropping systems for food security in eastern and southern Africa’ was launched in March 2010. Discussions are progressing for the design of projects incorporating conservation agriculture in dryland cereal systems of northern Africa, e.g. Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Early joint research initiatives on production and irrigation efficiency are anticipated in Egypt.

An underlying theme is sustainable use of natural resources, particularly with regard to croplands and communal grazing lands. Engagement of African farmers with agricultural commodity markets is seen as an important means of increasing their incomes. Research is designed to assist farmers to develop as entrepreneurs and provide leadership to other groups. Partnerships with IARCs reduce research transaction costs.

ACIAR is assisting with delivering key elements of the Australian Government’s enhanced engagement with Africa through the Overseas Development Assistance–Food Security through Rural Development initiative.

The program is guided by the following principles:

• Research partnerships must be focused on delivery of benefits to small-scale African farmers, with significant impact within 5 years of the end of the project.
• Projects will be considered only in areas where Australian agencies and scientists have a relevant skill base and comparative advantage (researchers from four states and the Australian Capital Territory are involved).
• Project selection will recognise both the technological and socioeconomic challenges covering crops, soil, water, livestock and value chains.

Research will take account of the dominance of risk over farmer and value-chain decision-making. A broad systems approach will be applied that integrates production management, input and market chains (with agribusiness a dominant actor), and improved varieties and breeds.

The ACIAR research activities in Africa can be grouped under two priorities:

• increasing the profitability and sustainability of livestock farming systems
• intensification and diversification of mixed farming systems.

The first research priority responds to the opportunity provided by the growing demand in southern Africa for meat in both domestic and export markets, and also consumer preference for higher quality meats. There is recognition of the interdependence between livestock production management and marketing chains, in which feedlots are increasingly playing a significant role. One of the major challenges is smallholder access to these profitable market chains, especially for traditional indigenous cattle breeds.

The second research priority deals with the intensification and diversification of mixed farming systems in eastern and southern Africa. In northern Africa the focus is on dryland cereals. The projects closely align with the Comprehensive Africa Development Program priorities and address both dietary energy and nutritional quality and reliability challenges, and thus contribute to household and national food security.