The Conservation Agriculture Regional Working Group established in 2007 is an open knowledge and experience sharing platform that brings together Conservation Agriculture 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.

The vision of the Conservation Agriculture Regional Working Group and the National Conservation Agriculture Task Forces is that appropriate Conservation Agriculture practices are adopted by farmers throughout southern Africa leading to increased productivity, food security, farm profitability and sustainable farming systems.

This working group offers a platform that facilitates knowledge exchange between platform members through discussions and presentations. It gives members an opportunity to share latest developments in Conservation Agriculture and resilience in the region. Country representatives of various National Conservation Agriculture platforms/Taskforces are represented in the group and from time to time workshops are organized where members present current status of Conservation Agriculture activities in their respective countries.

This November the working group will convene a meeting to discuss the status of food and nutrition security. The rationale for this meeting is based on the premise that 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 left an estimated 40 million people (10% of the population in the region) food insecure. 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, Conservation Agriculture is dynamic under different circumstance. The Conservation Agriculture Regional Working Group 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 Conservation Agriculture in Southern Africa. This Working Group also recognizes the importance of working with other stakeholders in order to contribute to the strengthening of the resilience of smallholder farming households to drought and other climate related risks. The November meeting therefore comes with the opportunity for Conservation Agriculture research, learning and knowledge sharing.