Conservation Agriculture Regional Working Group (CARWG) Annual Meeting, Lusaka, Zambia, November 2- 3, 2016 (Venue to be advised).

Participants arrive Nov 1 and depart Nov 4, 2016.

Objective: The objective of the meeting is to facilitate Conservation Agriculture knowledge exchange and experience sharing among platform members and other stakeholders so as to strengthen capacity in scaling up of the approach across the region.

Introduction

The Conservation Agriculture Regional Working Group (CARWG) established in 2007 is an open knowledge and experience sharing platform that brings together Conservation Agriculture (CA) interest groups, practitioners and stakeholders in Southern Africa. It advocates for increased awareness and understanding on the role of CA in increasing productivity, food security and farm profitability through better management of the land resource and mitigating the impact of climate risks such as drought. CARWG membership is drawn from representatives of CA National platforms/Taskforces, farmers unions, regional academic/research organizations, the private sector as well as NGOs. At country level the ideals and vision of the CARWG is anchored and mirrored by the CA National Taskforces/platforms, whose structure may vary from country to country to reflect the contextual needs.

CARWG Vision: The vision of CARWG and the NCATFs is that appropriate CA practices are adopted by farmers throughout southern Africa leading to increased productivity, food security, farm profitability and sustainable farming systems.

Workshop Rationale

Over the last decade or so, most of Southern Africa has been enjoying positive economic growth. Despite this, attaining stability in food and nutrition security has remained elusive for governments across the region. The vulnerability of Southern African food security has once again been demonstrated by the impact of the 2015/16 El Nino drought which has left an estimated 40 million people (10% of the population in the region) food insecure. Of course, even in years of normal rainfall, the productivity of many smallholder farmers remains below viable threshold levels. This points to a failure of conventional farming as practiced by smallholder farming households across the region. With the added dimension of frequent shocks such as drought as well as ever increasing prices of agricultural inputs, the need for smallholder farming households to adopt alternative farming approaches that ensure more returns under climatically challenging environments has never been greater. Conservation Agriculture is premised on the adoption of good agricultural and risk reduction practices.

Like many other concepts, CA is dynamic under different circumstance. CARWG recognizes the need to constantly learn from each other and to increase understanding of the various farmer production environments to identify good practices and to share them widely so as to increase the adoption of CA in Southern Africa. CARWG also recognizes the importance of working with other stakeholders particularly those involved in DRR in order to contribute to the strengthening of the resilience of smallholder farming households to drought and other climate related risks. The 2016 CARWG meeting has been slated for Zambia. The country is among leaders in CA. With this comes the opportunity for CA research, learning and knowledge sharing. The CA platform in Zambia is thus going to host the CARWG meeting this year.

Scope of the workshop:

The workshop will facilitate knowledge exchange between platform members through discussions and presentations. The event is expected to attract an estimated 45 participants from the Southern Africa region. It will afford members an opportunity to share latest developments in CA, and resilience in the region. Country representatives of various National CA platforms/Taskforces will present CA *update/activities. Updates could include information about activities undertaken by the National CA platforms or other stakeholders in terms of learning or awareness events, new CA projects or initiatives, advocacy/engagement with government, farmer trainings, field days and CA policy or strategy development etc. They will also share their country work plans for 2017. The CARWG will as appropriate, invite other non CARWG members who could contribute to advancing the CA agenda in the region. This could include guest speakers on specific topics, senior government officials, donors, farmer representatives, and the media.

Venue: The CARWG meeting will take place in Lusaka (Venue to be advised)

Travel and logistics