Context & Objectives
African countries suffer from high levels of food and nutrition insecurity exacerbated by the increasing impact of climate change on agricultural production. The Sustainable Intensification (SI) approach offers practical ways to increase agricultural yield while preserving natural resources (water, soil, biodiversity, and land) and the flow of ecosystem services. SI requires fitting interventions according to local needs and contexts. Based on these assumptions, the EWA-BELT project aims at promoting food production systems through SI in representative small-holder farming systems of different agro-climatic areas of East (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania) and West (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Sierra Leone) Africa and, consequently, to realize an interregional African “belt” able to promote SI by assessing and exchanging best practices and experiences among different contexts.​
Case study areas
FFRUs
Farmer Field Research Units
Research activities on SI technologies are based on a multi stakeholder approach that foresees the direct involvement of farmers and other relevant actors at different levels along the value chain through Farmer Field Research Units or FFRUs, a learning and exchange space.