By Sarobidy Rakotonarivo,
Last week (November 2023), my team and I had the pleasure of hosting a team from the African Academy of Sciences as part of their visit to monitor the ARISE pilot program. They saw first-hand degraded farmland soils in eastern Madagascar due to the continued use of swidden agriculture, which involves burning and rotating crops. This practice leads to decreasing yields and soil erosion.
Our project team and the African Academy of Sciences team posing at the School of Agronomy at the University of Antananarivo
Many smallholder farmers are unable to access affordable and safe credit which constrains their ability to invest in their production. This makes them more likely to continue with environmentally harmful, low input farming practices such as swidden agriculture, and engage further in forest clearing, which traps them in poverty and negatively impacts biodiversity.
Our ARISE project (entitled “An experimental approach to optimizing policy for scaling-up climate-smart agriculture in Madagascar’) uses a mixed-method approach (including a randomized controlled trial) to provide robust empirical evidence on how giving farmers credit and training them in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and farm entrepreneurship skills affects the adoption of CSA and food security. The training is implemented by our partner, the PrAda II project of GIZ.
We will be working with members of Village Saving and Loans Associations (VSLAs), which are self-managed groups of up to 30 members within a village that save money over time and lend these savings to members. We also employ field-based technicians to conduct real-time monitoring of the functioning of the VSLAs and farmer agricultural practices.
Our study sites are in southeast Madagascar, one of the country’s poorest areas, where farming depends on rainfall and is very vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. We hope our project will help farmers use more sustainable farming practices, which will improve rural life and protect biodiversity.
Degraded farmlands in eastern Madagascar
Hillside terrace farming using climate-smart agricultural tecniques
During their visit, the AAS team also saw lemurs and other animals unique to Madagascar’s rainforests. They talked to some farmers to learn about the challenges they face and how our project might help them improve their livelihoods and reduce their dependence on forest clearing.
I am extremely grateful for the Arise support, and with my African fellows will keep working to support environment and development policies using evidence-based and innovative approaches, and create the future we want for Africa.
The African Academy of Sciences team doing some sightseeing in Andasibe