ifwfabs1

=2-Pager Abstract Template for NBDC Contributions to South Africa Forum=

1. Authors
Authors names: Tilahun Amede Project Number: Nile 5 E-mail address of lead author: t.amede@cgiar.org, NBDC, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

2. Forum session
4. Basin story – at the beginning of each day we will highlight basin stories these should be persuasive inspiring stories of change



3. Title
Farmer innovations to improve the productivity of rainwater management systems

4. Key message/highlights
There is a long list of farmer innovation in SSA that could be used to improve food security and resilience using water as an entry point. The local innovations in managing water, improve soil fertility, rehabilitating degraded lands, managing pests and diseases should be given attention by CPWF BDCs in assembling, analyzing, improving and disseminating them to wider users. We display examples of innovations in transporting manure and rehabilitating bad lands from the Nile BDC.


 * //Short abstract//** //(150 words) including://
 * 1) Given high price of chemical fertilizers, farmers commonly apply manure and household refusal to their plots, preferably around homestead fields. Because transporting large volume of organic fertilizers from homesteads to the far away fields demands a huge amount of labour. One innovative farmer in the Nile basin, residing on the hills but farming on the valley bottoms used irrigation canals to transport a large volume of manure from his homestead to the valley field, about 3 kms, by spreading the manure on the irrigation water passing nearby his house. By introducing this innovation Ato Hailu G/Micheal from Tigrai (Chelekot), Ethiopia won a regional innovators’ prize (about 1100 USD) awarded in a regional assembly in the presence of high government officials. Local people from about 10 villages visited the winner’s farm and witnessed the innovations.
 * 2) Mrs Romas Haile Silasie is a widow, 67, without a family labour. She did not also have land but inherited one after her daughter passed away few years a go. Moreover, the land she has inherited is not part of the irrigation command area marked by the engineers and she was not a beneficiary. During the construction of the scheme and lining canals, her farm was partly destroyed; covered by stone, sand and silt, but she didn’t get any compensation. On the other hand, she was happy that the water canal was crossing her farm. She decided to remove tonnes of debris from her farm, for at least 3 months, and developed it as a fruit and vegetable garden, replacing the wheat fields, using buckets of water crossing her farm. She is currently producing high value crops including tomatoes, cabbages and pepper, and fruit trees like mangos, avocado, citrons, oranges, papaya and kazmir. Her field became a demonstration site for the whole community, with her net income of about 12,000 birr per annum. She has been improving the productivity of her farm using resources cycling.


 * //A focus on what makes this piece of work new/innovative and exciting//

//Building on local innovation could improve adoption of new technologies and create confidence of local communities in trying out new interventions.//

//What is particularly relevant to the other basins or topics?//
 * //Farmer innovations are existing all over the basins, particularly in rainwater managment systems. Basins should assemble these innovations, analyse the benefits, gaps and share it to the wider users beyond the respective communities.//


 * //Your preliminary highlights for the Forum capitalizing sessions//**

//There is a huge farmer knowledge base in SSA and elsewhere on how to solve agricultural and water managment problems that we all shoudl give attention to and use it to promote local innovation to solve system-specifc challenges of food security and environmental concerns.//


 * Target groups**: Agricultural Practitioners and researchers, who should assess the relevance of farmer innovations beyond the specific socio-economic situation and diffuse the knowledge to wider users, beyond their countries and basins.