National Policy Makers

The presentation highlights the CSA Policy Frameworks and Programmes in Botswana 
 

 Presentation highlights the ACCRA project on Upscaling CSA and accessing climate finance; Zoom-in on the pipeline for CSA concept notes for financing, successes, challenges & climate finance streams
 

This presentation highlights the Herding for Health: Curriculum Development at SAWC

SADC Climate Change Overview 

The ELD Initiative; Problem dimension – Land degradation vs. sustainable land management; Natural capital and ecosystem services valuation – the rationale behind; Steps of an ELD study; Communication, outreach and policy impact; Identification and selection of ecosystem services; Evaluation of ecosystem services; Cost-benefit analysis

The Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative aims to create awareness about the costs of land degradation and the benefits of sustainable land management (SLM).

ELD Campus provides high-level training and capacity improvement for policymakers, scientists and academics who want to contribute to the prevention of land degradation across the world. It is available in French and English.

There are 9 thematic modules that cover the following topics:

1. The ELD Initiative
2. Problem dimension – Land degradation vs. sustainable land management
3. Natural capital and ecosystem services valuation – the rationale behind
4. Steps of an ELD study
5. Communication, outreach and policy impact
6. Identification and selection of ecosystem services
7. Evaluation of ecosystem services
8. Cost-benefit analysis

Besides lectures, scripts and exercises, there are also quizzes to test your knowledge afterwards. Moreover the modules include helpful links and further reading materials.

This article is about a meeting that was converned for the Lesotho National Conservation Agriculture Task Force. It was a revival meeting that was last held about two years ago. The importance of such a meeting is to bring stakeholders in the agricultural sector in Lesotho to deliberate on the issues of Conservation Agriculture and how it can be supported and strenghened in order to address this "monster" called climate change.

This article summarizes the findings of a research paper entitled “Problems Faced and Strategies Adopted by Farmers for Adapting to Climate Change in Xai-Xai District, Gaza Province” undertaken by researcher  from the Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique (IIAM) under a project called "Managing Climate Related Risk to Improve Livelihood Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in Agricultural Ecosystems in Southern Africa", for the districts of Xai-Xai and Chicualacuala, Gaza province, Mozambique. 

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is currently widely recognized as a viable approach for sustainable agriculture due to its potentially comprehensive benefits of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. In response to the aforesaid, Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (TARI) at Uyole Centre initiated intensive research on CA  technology practices since 1999. The research started on-station and widened the geographical coverage of CA trials and promotions on-farm from two to 18 villages (Mkomwa et al., 2007) in Southern highlands of Tanzania. An onstation study was undertaken to evaluate influence of CA planting methods on labour, weed and maize yields. The study results show that use of tractor ripper, ox-direct seeder and ox-ripper had high yields of 8.5, 8.5 and 7.6 t/ha respectively compared to hand hoe (4.7 t/ha).

A diagnostic survey was conducted in July 2017 in two northern districts of Zambia to investigate presence or absence of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) and its causal viruses. In total, 29 cassava fields were surveyed and cassava leaf samples were collected from 116 plants (92 symptomatic and 24 non-symptomatic). CBSD prevalence was approximately 79% (23 of 29) across fields. Mean CBSD incidence varied across fields but averaged 32.3% while mean disease severity was 2.3 on a 1-to-5 rating scale. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction screening of all 116 samples with one generic and two species specific primer pairs yielded DNA bands of the expected sizes from all symptomatic plants with the generic (785 bp) and Ugandan cassava brown streak virus (UCBSV)-specific (440 bp) primers. All 24 non-symptomatic samples were negative for UCBSV and all samples tested negative with primers targeting Cassava brown streak virus. The complete genome of a representative isolate of UCBSV (WP282) was determined to be 9,050 nucleotides in length, minus the poly A tail. A comparative analysis of this isolate with global virus isolates revealed its nature as a sequence variant of UCBSV sharing 94 and 96% maximum complete polyprotein nucleotide and amino acid identities, respectively, with isolates from Malawi (MF379362) and Tanzania (FJ039520). This is the first report of CBSD and UCBSV in Zambia, thus expanding the geographical distribution of the disease and its causal virus and further reinforcing the need to strengthen national and regional phytosanitary programs in Africa.