Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

The capacity of communities to build resilience and adapt to climate change is strengthened. In particular this intervention will greatly contribute to the Seed Chain Strengthening Program of the Food and Agriculture Organisation with the main objective of improving institutional coordination to promote access to and increase availability of quality seed to producers.

Expected results

This contribution supports the 2017/18 and 2018/19 crop seasons and will result in restoring local capacity for production, conservation and commercialization of the guaranteed seed class, improved quality and quantity of conservation agriculture practices and enhanced capacity of the public services to deliver good quality and relevant services to the target group.

- Outcome 1: Availability of quality seed among targeted communities increased

- Output 1.1: 12 community seed banks with involving 240 small scale farmers are established

- Output 1.2: 36 small seed multipliers integrated in the seed value chain

- Outcome 2: Conservation agriculture widely promoted at central and decentralized level Conservation agriculture

- Output 2.1: conservation agriculture field activities with 12 farmers groups (300 farmer households) are implemented

- Output 2.2: 2 provincial meetings per year and 1 national meeting per year are supported to advocacy for further roll out of conservation agriculture.

Activities that will be implemented with the additional funding:

The project’s additional funding aims at providing urgent livelihoods assistance to 100,000 most vulnerable people (25,000 households) affected by the cyclone Idai in the provinces of Sofala and Manica, with seeds of early maturing crops and agricultural tools to allow for planting right after the water receding making use of residual moisture in the soil for the production of maize, beans and vegetables. This will contribute to food availability and reduce food insecurity and malnutrition at household and community level.

The interventions will:

i) replenish the agricultural inputs, in particular essential tools lost during the floods and provide seeds of early maturing crops that can be harvested from 90 days after planting. Crops selected for this intervention are maize, common beans and vegetables. Tools are hoes and machetes; and

ii) provide technical support for maximum crop production to ensure availability of nutritious and diversified food to beneficiaries.

Target group / Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries of the action, an estimated amount of 241,000 people in the targeted provinces of Manica and Sofala (the focal province of the Austrian Development Cooperation) will be identified locally following results of early assessments and in close consultation with local strictures and community. The selections will keep in line FAO standards and requirements and will include:

- vulnerable, food insecure, small-scale farming households that have accumulated more than 6% cumulative losses in the last two agricultural campaigns and

- small seed multipliers and conservation agriculture practitioners- women headed households will deserve priority in the selection process.

The main stakeholders for the implementation will be the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security through the relevant technical departments, namely the National Directorate for Extension and the National Seed Services, the National Institute for Disaster Management, the Provincial Directorates of Agriculture and Food Security and the District Agricultural Services. NGOs and/or CBOs such as farmer and women organisations will be strategically involved in the implementation of the action.

Additional beneficiaries:

Additional beneficiaries of the project will be 25,000 smallholder farmers from the most affected districts of Sofala and Manica provinces. Priority will be given to households whose food and seeds reserves were lost, crops damaged and livestock perished. The selection criteria will also prioritize woman headed households and other vulnerable groups. The selection of geographical areas and beneficiaries will be conducted in close collaboration with local government, including the Provincial and District Agriculture authorities, relief committees and in partnership with NGOs present in the project affected area.

Activities

The contribution will be implemented in selected districts of the provinces of Manica (Guro and Tambara districts) and Sofala (Chemba district) to up-scale current FAO interventions. The criteria for the selection of provinces and districts are based on their vulnerability

- exposure to adverse climate events

- food security and nutritional situation and

- the seed availability and security.

Context

The Southern Africa region and Mozambique in particular faced an intense drought during the earliest stages of the 2015/16 agricultural season as a result of the worst El Niño events of the last 35 years. This drought caused 1.5 million people to become food insecure in the provinces of Maputo, Gaza, Inhambane, Manica, Sofala, Tete and Zambézia.

In response ADC contributed to the FAO programme in Mozambique as part of the FAO’s Southern Africa El Nino Response Plan, focusing on (i) emergency free seed distribution, (ii) multiplication of seed of improved varieties and (iii) promotion of conservation agriculture.