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Solution for increasing farm system resilience and carbon sinks on sandy soils

Closed

Adaptation

Agriculture/fishery

Call 8

Kenya

Time consumed

Start: 01-Nov-19 End: 31-Oct-22

Lead Nordic partner

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

Country of Lead Nordic partner

Sweden

Local partner(s)

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology Enterprises (JKUATES), Nairobi, Kenya, International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Nairobi, Kenya

Other partner(s)

SWRT SOLUTIONS LLC, Michigan, USA

NCF grant size

449,695

Total project cost

582,195

Methods

Sustainable agricultural practices

Country of implementation:

Kenya

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Description

The project is based on demonstrating the utility of the Subsurface Water Retention Technology (SWRT) to increase farm system resilience, crop production and carbon accumulation in sandy soils. The technology involves the subsurface installation of impermeable water‐retaining membranes which disrupts large amounts of water and nutrients lost through natural deep percolation in sandy soils. With a life span of about 40 years, SWRT represents a...

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Objective

The project has three main objective. The first objective is to demonstrate the importance of Subsurface Water Retention Technology (SWRT) in increasing farm system resilience, crop production and carbon accumulation in sandy soils. This will be done on 20 farms. The second objective is to attract the interest of farmers, financial institutions and entrepreneurs and raise their awareness on the installation and short-term return on...

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Results

At the completion of the project, the project team achieved all the objectives. The innovation (SWRT) was demonstrated on 20 farms with maize, cowpea and kales for four seasons. The increased production ranged from 50 % to 72 % of the marketable crop part with increase in biomass doubling the quantity reached in plots without SWRT. The accumulation in biomass is a contributor to soil... At the completion of the project, the project team achieved all the objectives. The innovation (SWRT) was demonstrated on 20 farms with maize, cowpea and kales for four seasons. The increased production ranged from 50 % to 72 % of the marketable crop part with increase in biomass doubling the quantity reached in plots without SWRT. The accumulation in biomass is a contributor to soil fertility, therefore a contribution to system resilience. Beyond the 20 demonstration farms, another 60 households got plots with SWRT.

With the objective to increase the understanding of the socio-economic conditions and inform business scaling beyond the project region, cost-benefit analyses (CBA) of the technology were conducted using real data of maize as a crop model. The CBA is an important tool for JKUATES and partners in the future because it highlights the breakeven of investment under different scenario. The scenario can be used to negotiate financing mechanisms to lower the initial investment of farmers. In addition, new activities were conducted to further understand the best way to achieve scale up. These new activities included testing high-value crop (kales) and a study on the livelihood of the households. The latter was undertaken to feed the discussion on the financial mechanisms of initial investment, which do not necessarily has to come from agricultural produces.

To take advantage of the potentials of the solution and to garner support from different stakeholders, the project team initiated partnership building at the end of the project. The four main future partners are BObmil (membrane provider), farmer organizations (e.g. Kenya Smallholders Farmer Forum), World Relied (International NGO) specialized in provision of agricultural technologies such irrigation techniques, and Agrimech Africa Ltd (private company) specialized in mechanization to reduce the installation labour costs. These organizations have different focus and they have good relationship with JKUATES, the future promoter of the technology.

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Solution for increasing farm system resilience and carbon sinks on sandy soils

Time consumed

Lead Nordic partner

Country of Lead Nordic partner

Local partner(s)

Other partner(s)

NCF grant size

Total project cost

Methods

Country of implementation:

Description

Objective

Results

Sustainable Development Goals

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