Africa Research in sustainable intensification for next generation

Sustainable intensification of mixed crop livestock systems is a key pathway towards better food security, improved livelihoods and a healthy environment. As part of the US government’s Feed the Future initiative to address hunger and food security issues in sub-Saharan Africa, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting three multi-stakeholder agricultural research projects to sustainably intensify key African farming systems.

Intensification of production can take many forms, for example, the one that underpinned the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s helped humanity keep food production at pace with population growth. However, the present context has changed and ensuring sustainability is of vital importance. But how can we evaluate sustainability? Is a systems perspective essential for integrated crop-livestock systems?

In 2018, the Africa RISING team in Malawi initiated a pilot activity to establish the efficacy of interactive voice response (IVR) in disseminating maize agronomy messages to farmers. This blog presents some of the lessons learnt so far from the activity.