
Katrien DescheemaekerWageningen University & Research | WUR · Department of Plant Production Systems
Katrien Descheemaeker
PhD
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210
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (210)
The use of options for sustainable intensification of smallholder farming in sub-Saharan Africa is often limited by knowledge and resource constraints. To address both constraints, we developed and tested an integrated co-learning approach to improve farm level productivity. The approach was tested by differentiating a group of co-learning farmers...
In 2013, the Collaborative Crop Research Program (McKnight Foundation), initiated support for farmer research networks (FRNs). FRNs were envisaged as a general approach to networked participatory research aimed at supporting the agroecological intensification (AEI) of smallholder farming in ten countries in Africa and the Andes region in South Amer...
A deeper understanding of how smallholder farmers perceive and manage risks is crucial to identify options that increase farmers' adaptive capacity. We investigated a broad range of risks that play a role in farmers' decision-making processes. In the cotton zone of Mali opportunities and constraints vary with the resource endowment of farms. Furthe...
In the short term, conservation agriculture does not overcome problems of poor crop productivity and food insecurity of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
p>Rural households in sub-Saharan Africa earn a substantial part of their living from rain-fed smallholder agriculture, which is highly sensitive to climate change. There is a growing number of multi-level assessments on impacts and adaptation options for African smallholder systems under climate change, yet few studies translate impacts at the ind...
Contextualization of generic scientific knowledge to context-specific farmer knowledge is a necessary step in farmers’ innovation process, and it can be achieved using crop and farm models. This work explores the possibility to simulate a large number of scenarios based on farmers’ descriptions of their environment and practices in order to context...
Cropping systems in the North-Sudanian zone of Burkina Faso face significant challenges related to poor yields, declining soil fertility and harsh climatic conditions. Together these necessitate a shift toward more sustainable farming practices. Agroecology aims to enhance yields while minimizing environmental harm through the use of ecological fun...
Population pressure, land scarcity and deforestation are challenging sustainable intensification of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. While the transition of farming systems to a more sustainable future is necessary, the desired future state and pathways of getting there may differ among actors involved. Moreover, despite consensus that intensific...
Smallholder farming systems are vulnerable to disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic weakened the financial ability of the Malian government in the 2020-21 growing season to subsidize cotton farmers' access to mineral fertilizers and the cotton company (CMDT) could not offer a good cotton price. Consequently, farmers refused to grow cotton, leading to...
Context or problem: East African Highland banana is a main staple and cash crop for millions of people in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Reliable methods for banana yield estimation are lacking and factors underlying yield variability are not well understood.
Objective or research question: We studied the interrelations and relative importance...
Agriculture in semi-arid Burkina Faso is dominated by mixed crop-livestock smallholder farms with limited investment capacity in production factors, such as improved seeds, fertilizer and equipment. Hence, to make a living, farmers try to make the best use of available resources based on principles of agro-ecology, including crop diversity and nutr...
Smallholder farming systems face many adversities including poor soil fertility, poor access to inputs, and high dependence on climate variability. On top of that, ongoing climate change is expected to exacerbate the effect of abiotic and abiotic stresses on farm performances, and poses additional challenges of adaptation to climate change. This ch...
Achieving Zimbabwe’s national and international commitments to food systems transformation and climate resilience building is of high priority. Integrated simulation-based research approaches developed under the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) are important sources of evidence to guide policy decisions towards sus...
Climate variability is predicted to increase in sub-Saharan Africa. This will impact the food security of the populations who rely on rainfed cereal production. Sustainable intensification of cropping systems aims at increasing food production while adapting to future climate and mitigating environmental impacts. The opportunity to diversify cereal...
Sustainable intensification aims to increase production and improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Many farmers, however, are caught in a vicious cycle of low productivity and lack of incentives to invest in agricultural inputs. Moving towards sustainable intensification therefore requires support such as input subsidies...
In this study we describe how the economic performance of banana-based farming systems in Uganda has improved over the past decades, but how this improvement has been at the expense of the environmental and social sustainability domain. While a transition of these systems towards a more sustainable future seems necessary, the perceived need for thi...
Crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa need to increase to keep pace with food demands from the burgeoning population. Smallholder farmers play an important role in national food self-sufficiency, yet many live in poverty. Investing in inputs to increase yields is therefore often not viable for them. To investigate how to unlock this paradox, whole-farm...
Climate-related variability in crop production and market price variability affect food and income security of Uganda’s rural households. We used household surveys from two contrasting sites in Uganda to quantify the relationships between crop production variability, adaptation strategies and household resource characteristics. Variability of produ...
Despite many years of establishment of exclosures in the semi-arid environments of north Ethiopia for rehabilitation of degraded areas, its effectiveness is constrained by water deficit. There is lack of empirical data on the response of vegetation to additional water (spate irrigation) application. This study was aimed to evaluate the effects of s...
Abstract
CONTEXT
Despite recent improvements in living standards, a substantial proportion of farm households in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is food insecure, and increasing crop productivity could help address this problem.
OBJECTIVE
We estimated the effect of increasing maize yields with mineral fertilizer on household food security and on regiona...
This report provides the analysis of baseline surveys on mango farming systems in Kitui county, Kenya and on banana farming systems in Isingiro and Bunyangabu districts in Uganda, conducted in the context of the STEP-UP project. The analysis of mango and banana farming systems was done on the basis of a selected number of indicators that were consi...
A vision for a sustainable future of the mango and banana value chains was established as part of the STEP-UP project, together with the identification of the steps needed to reach the vision. From these steps, two concrete interventions were selected in both Kenya and Uganda, which the STEP-UP project would implement.
With the implementation of pr...
This report documents multi-stakeholder processes in Kenya and Uganda held to establish a shared vision, to identify the steps needed to reach that vision, and to select relevant indicators that could measure the project’s progress towards the vision. The STEP-UP project aimed to identify and implement strategies to upgrade production, processing a...
The STEP-UP project aimed to identify and implement strategies to upgrade production, processing and marketing of mangoes in Kitui county, Kenya and of cooking banana (matooke) in two districts of Uganda: Isingiro and Bunyangabu. A vision for a sustainable future of the mango and banana value chains was established as part of the STEP-UP project, t...
The STEP-UP project aimed to identify and implement strategies to upgrade production, processing and marketing of mangoes in Kitui county, Kenya and of cooking banana (matooke) in two districts of Uganda: Isingiro and Bunyangabu. A vision for a sustainable future of the mango and banana value chains was established as part of STEP-UP, together with...
Production of cereals (maize, sorghum, millet) in southern Mali is challenged by several hazards that affect yield and yield variability. The research aims to inform decision making towards effective risk management by quantifying cereal yield losses at field level due to production hazards under different management strategies. Five hazards releva...
The original article has been corrected. The copyright details have been updated.
CONTEXT
The semi-arid zone of Burkina Faso is characterized by strong climate variability and declining soil fertility associated with low biomass production.
OBJECTIVE
The main objective of this study was to identify key levers to improve biomass management in semi-arid Burkina Faso for diverse farm types.
METHODS
Farm diversity was captured wit...
With many of the world’s poor engaged in agriculture, agricultural development programmes often aim to improve livelihoods through improved farming practices. Research on the impacts of agricultural technology interventions is dominated by comparisons of adopters and non-adopters. By contrast, in this literature study, we critically review how tech...
In the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia (CRV), actual productivity of most cereals is less than 3 t ha⁻¹ associated with low input use and poor crop management. After calibrating and validating the Agricultural Production System Simulator (APSIM) using experimental data, we explored and prioritized promising intensification options for rainfed maize...
Agricultural production systems in Zimbabwe are facing high intensity of climate change impacts. Stakeholders require actionable information to direct investments towards a climate resilient future. The Agricultural Model Inter-comparison and Improvement Project, Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (AgMIP CLARE) uses an integrated multi-modeli...
In South-West Uganda, manure is highly valued for sustaining yields of East African Highland Banana, but it is in short supply. As a result, banana growers import manure from rangelands up to 50 km away. We aimed to explore the potential of this regional banana-livestock integration to meet crop nutrient requirements for sustainable intensification...
Climate change and adaptation impacts in mixed crop-livestock systems in south west Zimbabwe
Motivation
Most transaction cost economic frameworks, commonly used to examine and explain the co-ordination of agricultural transactions, use a linear approach for a single product transaction. This ignores the concurrence of multiple transactions by smallholder farmers in developing countries.
Purpose
This study aims to understand co-ordination...
Most food in sub-Saharan Africa is produced on small farms. Using large datasets from household surveys conducted across many countries, we find that the majority of farms are less than 1 ha, much smaller than previous estimates. Farms are larger in farming systems in drier climates. Through a detailed analysis of food self-sufficiency, food and nu...
Decision makers need accurate information to address climate variability and change and accelerate transformation to sustainability. A stakeholder-driven, science-based multi-model approach has been developed and used by the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) to generate actionable information for adaptation planning...
This presentation addressed the aim of the Landscape 2021 conference's session on "How research can be part of transformation in agricultural practice. While research usually ends with recommendations for action based on its findings, the actual implementation often take place after the research process has ended. Transformative research uses metho...
Achieving SDG2 (zero hunger) in a situation of rapid global population growth requires a continued focus on food production. Farming not merely needs to sustainably produce nutritious diets, but should also provide livelihoods for farmers, while retaining natural ecosystems and services. Rather than focusing on production principles, this article e...
This two-part handbook focuses on the work that the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) accomplished using a new method — the AgMIP Regional Integrated Assessment Protocol — in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA), with funding from the UK Department for International Development. Through this research, AgMIP...
Presentation held during the Farming System Design (FSD7) Webinars on Capacity Development in Systems Research for the transformation of agri-food systems to achieve Sustainable Development Goals under climate change, March 22-25, 2021.
Webinar 3: Multi-scale and multi-criteria trade-off analysis in the SDG1-SDG2 nexus, to co-design sustainable a...
The sustainability of agriculture is questioned due to major negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts. To improve the state of agriculture, various management changes have been proposed. Different tools, with varying characteristics, sustainability framing and indicators, have been used to evaluate the impact of these changes on sustainabil...
Physiological use efficiency (PUE), recovery fraction of applied nutrients and indigenous soil nutrient supply form the basis of site-specific fertilizer recommendations. To derive these parameters, and understand their variability, as well as yield responses and fertilizer use profitability, nutrient omission trials (NOTs) were conducted in farmer...
East African highland bananas and climbing beans are important crops for food and income in the highlands of Uganda. Intercropping of banana with legume crops is a common practice, yet climbing bean intercropping with perennials has rarely been studied in Uganda. To understand how best to improve the production system, we assessed the effects of pr...
The extreme poverty line is the most commonly used benchmark for poverty, set at US$ 1.90 by the World Bank. Another benchmark, based on the Anker living wage methodology, is the remuneration received for a standard work week necessary for a worker to meet his/her family’s basic needs in a particular place. The living wage concept has been used ext...
Socioeconomic factors that influence the adoption of management practices and technologies by farmers have received wide attention in the adoption literature, but the effects of socio-psychological farmer features such as perceptions and motivations have been analysed to a lesser extent. Using farm household survey data from three regions in northe...
Livestock play multiple roles for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Mixed crop-livestock systems are common in South Kivu, eastern DR Congo, but herd sizes are small and numbers of large livestock (i.e. cattle) have declined, due to high population density, recent conflicts and extreme poverty. Over half of the farmers keep cavies, a type...
Smallholder agriculture is an important source of livelihoods in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In these regions the highest concentrations of nutritionally vulnerable populations are found. Agricultural development needs to be nutrition-sensitive, and contribute simultaneously to improving household nutrition, farm productivity and environment...
This chapter highlights benefits from crop-livestock integration for enhancing ecosystem services in smallholder agricultural systems using a case study from Zimbabwe drylands. We illustrate challenges and opportunities for ecosystem services and demonstrate how systems transformation toward greater integration of crops and livestock leads to susta...
Knowledge of the geographical distribution of soils is indispensable for policy and decision makers to achieve the goal of increasing agricultural production and reduce poverty, particularly in the Global South. A study was conducted to better understand the soilscapes of the Giba catchment (900–3300 m a.s.l.; 5133 km²) in northern Ethiopia, so as...
Agricultural techniques and technologies that could foster sustainable intensification of farming (hereafter: SI practices) can originate from existing farm practices, from the adoption of externally suggested new practices, or from an adaptation of existing or new practices. The rate at which farmers use SI practices is often low and influenced by...
The Tigray region has won the UN-backed Future Policy Gold Award in 2017 by demonstrating that “the more people, the less erosion” can be a reality. Behind this success story stands a long-term policy with large-scale investments in soil and water conservation, exclosures and reforestation. Exclosures are areas where trees and vegetation can natura...
We evaluated the usefulness of a co-design process to generate a relevant basket of options for climbing bean cultivation in the context of a large-scale project. The aim was to identify a range of options sufficiently diverse to be of interest for farmers of widely-different resource endowment. The co-design process consisted of three cycles of de...
Agricultural production in Ghana should more than double to fulfil the estimated food demand in 2050, but this is a challenge as the productivity of food crops has been low, extremely variable and prone to stagnation. Yield gap estimations and explanations can help to identify the potential for intensification on existing agricultural land. However...
A highly seasonal and erratic rainfall pattern (Chapter 3) seems to provoke general water scarcity in Dogu’a Tembien for eight months a year. This chapter shortly describes the hydrogeological context and hydrodynamics of actual surface and groundwater flow of the mountain catchments around Hagere Selam. Further, some positive effects of water harv...
Although climate change is likely to affect a wide variety of sectors in Zimbabwe, the risk to agriculture stands out most since agriculture is the mainstay of the country’s economy. In addition, there is little information available on how to help smallholder farming systems and livelihoods respond to these risks. To determine the effects on crop...
The large diversity of farms and farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa calls for agricultural improvement options that are adapted to the context in which smallholder farmers operate. The socio-ecological niche concept incorporates the agro-ecological, socio-cultural, economic and institutional dimensions and the multiple levels of this context in...