PN5. Enhancing rainwater and nutrient use efficiency for improved crop productivity, farm income and rural livelihood in the Volta Basin.
Abstract
The project entitled “Enhancing rainwater and nutrient use efficiency for improved crop productivity, farm income and rural livelihoods in the Volta basin” is funded by the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) and led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). It is designed to address the major constraints that are encountered by small-scale resource-poor farmers in the Volta Basin, who rely on rain fed agriculture for their livelihoods. The overall research hypothesis is that using a systems approach that integrates water use efficiency, soil and nutrient management, and improved germplasm together with market opportunity identification and building rural communities capacity will result in significant benefits to the rural poor and the environment.
In both Burkina Faso and Ghana, the project has been able to stimulate and strengthen the farmers based associations and community based organizations to collaborate with researchers and other stakeholders. The research-extension-farmer linkage was strengthened and this is a good foundation for enhancing the adoption of new and promising technologies. Farmers understand better the importance of expressing their needs on their own: identification of needs of technology; identification of partners and project proposals for their villages within the decentralization and rural restructuring scheme.
Citation
CPWF Project Report. Project Number 5. 95 pp.
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