World Congress on Agroforestry 2014 – Side Events on EverGreen agriculture

Network• Updates from Southern Africa on the

EverGreen Agriculture Network in Southern Africa.

• BLEANSA - Building a Large EverGreen Agriculture Network for Southern Africa.

The BLEANSA Project

• 2-year project funded by FICA• Funding covers networking costs and some initial

seeding money for Research & Development • Currently active membership drawn from Malawi,

Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa• Members are Government (Dept. of Agric. and Natural

Resources R & D), NGOs, Universities• We plan to expand to other countries (ZM, Lesotho) as

funding improves.

The BLEANSA Network Objectives• To create a network of organisations for coordination of research and

development EverGreen Agriculture and Agroforestry.• To review experiences gained from past research, refine and optimize

EverGreen Agriculture, distil the experiences into policy recommendations, and share them widely.

• To sensitize policy makers to develop policies which facilitate the wide-scale promotion and adoption of EverGreen Agriculture;

• To mobilize extension staff, farmers and other land users and scale-up EverGreen Agriculture in southern Africa.

• To investigate and pilot alternative farm income streams from trees to optimise the economic, environmental and social outcomes of the various EverGreen Agriculture packages.

• To build the R&D capacity of the national institutions (including tertiary institutions) in EverGreen Agriculture.

EverGreen Agriculture

Leaf or Pod Meal stored in bags

Mopane worm Farming

Progress

• We have had 2 Project Steering Committee (PSC) meetings; the last was in Maputo last month.

• Among the key outcomes of the 2nd PSC meeting was to identify potentially fundable project proposals on EverGreen Agriculture as part of the fundraising strategy.

• The 1-page proposals will be ready by the end of mid March 2003.

• The proposals will be on:-

Potentially fundable proposals under development cover:

• Improving tree fodder production in drylands • Developing principles and practices underpinning

Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) in both Crop fields and range/grazing lands

• Improving tree establishment in dryland areas, • Improving the availability of high quality planting

material for fruit trees to smallholder farmers • Improving soil fertility to stabilize crop yields in

dryland areas.

Progress cont’d

• The website for the network was developed and is now operational. The website address is www.BLEANSA.Net. Further improvements to the website will be made whenever substantial suggestions are made by network members.

• South Africa (Limpopo Province) successfully established a National Evergreen Agriculture Action Network (NEACNs).

The Challenge!

• How do we balance the needs and expectations of the Network member considering their diversity (especially in resources)

Thank you!