By Johnson Siamachira and Gift Mashango
Sustainable intensification through conservation agriculture (CA) is not only necessary but urgent. This is the key message and approach that SIMLESA is focusing on, in collaboration with its international partners and national agricultural research systems (NARS) in Africa.
From 16-19 March 2015, the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Based Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern Africa (SIMLESA) organized a review and planning meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, with the objective of utilizing and building upon the results of the project’s phase (2010‐2013), to produce a work plan, and to get feedback about the plans formulated from partners.
About 120 SIMLESA partners, stakeholders and invited guests met to review activities to date and to plan for the 2015/2016 season. The second phase of the project (2014–2018) started in July 2014. Like Phase I, it is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and managed by CIMMYT.
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Fifty-year – old lead farmer Catherine Kariza lives in one of drought –ravaged village in Ntcheu district , , Malawi. Kariza has been growing maize since 1985, but without water for irrigation and using traditional farming practices, her yields were very low. With erratic rainfall, she harvested less than 1 ton of maize per hectare, forcing her to register for government food relief services.
The Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume cropping systems for food security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) is a multi-stakeholder collaborative research programme managed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and implemented by national agricultural research systems (NARS) in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique with backstopping inputs from other partners. The programme focuses on leveraging science and technology to develop and deliver technological and institutional innovations in relation to maize-legume production systems. In turn it is envisaged that these will make significant measurable positive changes in the livelihoods of all categories of smallholder farmers.
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The Malawi Government is very grateful that after hosting the project Formulation workshop in September 2009, the launch of SIMLESA –Phase 1 was also here in Lilongwe in May, 2010. Now, four years after successfully implementing Phase 1, we are gathered here again to launch SIMLESA -2 and plan activities that will have to be implemented in the next four years up to 2018. Our experience has been that many projects hardly make it to the final stage. It is gratifying to see SIMLESA -1 which was approved and launched here in Lilongwe, was successfully implemented and has contributed substantial results in building capacity of farmers and staff through trainings, research equipments, vehicles for easy mobility in conducting research work and above all improving food security of our smallholder farmers in Malawi and across the region in all participating countries.
