September seminar: Researching climate-smart agriculture in Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi

On 25 September 2019, we were pleased to host University of Leeds doctoral researchers Ruth Smith (Sustainability Research Institute), Ndashe Kapulu (School of Food Science and Nutrition) and Emmanuel Likoya (Sustainability Research Institute) who presented their work on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi. Ruth presented initial results from her analysis of gender within Tanzanian CSA policy which has found that gender has been used inconsistently across such policy and that there is a lack of meaningful policy instruments to reduce gendered inequalities within agriculture as well as a lack of understanding of the relationship between gender and agriculture/development. Ndashe shared his insights into the increase in soybean production in Zambia, exploring reasons for the growth and its implications on rural households with reference to results from the recent AFRICAP household survey. Finally, we were excited to host our first remote speaker in the AFRICAP knowledge-sharing series! Emmanuel presented from Malawi where he is conducting fieldwork for his research into the implications of drought for irrigation-focused food production systems. The presentation outlined the methodology Emmanuel will use in his research, including a process-based evaluation of the risk of drought from meteorological, agricultural and hydrological perspectives and an evaluation of how improved understanding of how such processes could add value to decision (policy) making in and around irrigation farming and food system resilience in the context of climate change. The seminar was enjoyed by both our live audience in Leeds and webinar attendees participating remotely from 12 countries.

For those who missed out, you can download the presentation slides of Ruth Smith, Ndashe Kapulu and Emmanuel Likoya and watch the seminar recording. As always, please get in touch to find out more about our seminar series or GCRF-AFRICAP more generally.