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Nairobi Stakeholder Meeting/Workshop: 
Summary and synthesis of outputs


Process

A total of 43 participants attended the Workshop, coming from a diverse range of countries, institutions and disciplines. A total of 18 participants represented international agricultural research centers, including 9 CGIAR Centers and three non-CGIAR Centers. Eleven participants represented National Agricultural Research Institutes or Universities from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon and South Africa, and there were five international and national level NGO representatives. Five participants came from Municipal Authorities in Dar es Salaam, Kampala, Cameroon and Harare and finally, four persons represented two advanced research institutions, namely CIRAD and CABI.

The composition of participants was based on a number of factors:

• membership of SIUPA Steering Committee

• known interest or involvement in urban/peri-urban related work by IARCs/ARIs

• Donor-funded UPA projects in the region

• University/NGO involvement in UPA

• NARIs and/or Municipalities either involved in or with a need to deal with the reality of UPA

The workshop to some extent followed the process adopted during the earlier SIUPA planning workshop held in Hanoi for the South-east Asia pilot site by dividing the meeting into three sessions. First, there were presentations of case studies of what is known of UPA in specific settings and with a particular focus. Second, the presentation of ongoing or completed research activities addressing specific issues within UPA; and third, small group work based around key themes linked to the conceptual framework. However, there was an important difference between the two workshops. In the Hanoi meeting, an earlier consensus based largely on existing CGIAR and other IARC research activities had already selected Hanoi as the pilot site. The workshop was therefore able to focus in detail on a range of issues already identified as important in existing assessments, even if the details of those assessments were in some cases in need of further elaboration. The Nairobi meeting took place with no consensus on where SIUPA research should be conducted, or whether there should be a single "pilot site" or multiple research locations. This meant that the first session, instead of a multi-angled perspective on the same city (from city managers/planners, commodity researchers, micro-enterprise specialists, environmental scientists etc), there was a series of informed overviews of six cities in East, Central and Southern Africa, with variable emphases determined by the different agro-climatic, political, social and economic realities of the different urban settings and also of course by the particular interests and experience of the presenters.

The second session also provided a much more diverse inventory of R&D initiatives than was the case in the Hanoi meeting, discussing projects in several cities of East, Southern, Central and West Africa. Presentations covered a wide range of activities, including commercial and semi-commercial dairy and vegetable agro-enterprises and the marketing aspects of these enterprises, and more subsistence-oriented production of legumes and indigenous vegetables. Research attention to natural resource management aspects of UPA was evident in presentations dealing with use of fodder trees, support for supply of tree seedlings, IPM aspects of vegetable production and the management of solid wastes to improve soil fertility in urban areas.

The two sessions yielded a number of key points and topics which were captured both via rapporteurs’ notes, flip chart notation and synthesis reports, and these materials were made available to the third session, the working groups. The determination of topics for the working groups emerged from quite intense discussion around the conceptual framework and the types of issues that emerged during the discussions in Sessions 1 and Session 2. The outcome of these discussions was to propose three Working Groups:

• Production, use and supply of perishable and tree crops

• Production, use and supply of livestock and livestock products

• Integrated crop-livestock systems

The plenary group felt that these "core" production/post-production research areas should be the focus, and that discussion of them should be structured around the three levels of research intervention: household, institutional and policy. The group also proposed that the other three "research areas" identified in the conceptual framework, namely livelihoods; environment and health; and agricultural/non-agricultural resource use be considered as "guiding criteria" in discussions.

Composition of the groups was also considered. Formation of city groups was not thought to be a good idea. It would make the task of synthesis more difficult and fail to build onto existing expertise in various locations. In the end, participants chose group membership themselves.

1. The issue of defining the urban and the peri-urban

There was some sense that the urban is relatively easily defined by legal and land use criteria (the presence of city boundaries, the predominance of a built environment. The peri-urban on the other hand is more ambiguous, with different commentators focusing on different criteria for determining boundaries. In fact, peri-urban seems to require a multi-valent definition in which at least some of the following elements come into play:

• access to markets (product, labor?)

• mixed/alternative livelihood options

• distance

• alternative land uses

• systemically connected with city ecology (nutrient flows, water uses)

2. The concern about the "lack of data" in relation to defining urban and peri-urban and indeed, in quantifying urban and peri-urban agriculture in general

3. The importance of institutional aspects of UPA

• the socializing capacities of UPA achieved through providing a community focus

• the ability of UPA research initiatives to capture the systems qualities of urban areas (through economic and ecological understanding of UPA):

• the opportunity for UPA research to support proactive stance by cities with respect to food production and the environment

• documentation of perceptions of UA among stakeholders

  • negative perceptions among general urban population

  • lack of visibility to policy makers

  • mindset of researchers focused on rural issues

  • need for major research reorientation towards "city poor"

• the need for better understanding of the delivery systems for UA technologies, improved practices

4. Policy analysis and interventions

• need for clearly determining policy areas where research is needed

• need for technical support for decision-making ("scientific results automatically have a policy dimension")

• alternative view is tailoring research inputs to policy environment

• analysis of UA in relation to governance of public space, public health, nuisances

5. Capacities and comparative advantages of the International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs)

• ability to provide GIS, other technical skills for decision-making interventions

• Ability to do policy analysis for advice to city, national authorities. Or simply for orienting research?

• Focus on methods development for UA

• SIUPA well placed for supporting S-S learning on methods and approaches. Need to develop North-South linkages for learning as well.

• How far can IARCs make a difference in intra-city context?

• Are there relatively limited technical opportunities in UPA compared with more development or advocacy needs?

6. Technology needs?

• Crop choices

• seed supply

• nutrient recycling (capturing the fertile sinks of urban/peri-urban areas?)

• systems development

Discussions also touched on a possible alternative to characterizing and distinguishing urban, peri-urban and rural agriculture. Instead of trying to identify a criterion for establishing a "boundary" between types, could it be helpful to distinguish different "farming styles" distributed geographically along the axis from urban centre to rural setting? As elaborated by van der Ploeg and others (van der Ploeg 1994), farming styles are constructed through the engagement of exogenous structural elements as well as endogenous, cultural perceptions. Several variables contribute to the characterization of a particular style:

• spatial context

  • predominant land use in location

  • land allocated to farming

• demographic context

  • population densities

• Natural resource context (availability, use and (exchange)

  • land

  • water

  • nutrients/pollutants

  • labor (male/female, age-related, family/hired)

• Crop-livestock configurations and attitudes of farm families to them

• Marketing options/practices and reasons

• Level of dynamism in farming activity (a seasonal activity, an emergency option only etc)

• Role in livelihoods

  • contribution of farming to food, compared to other sources

  • contribution of farm produce to household nutrition

  • contribution of farming to income, compared to other sources

• Perceived contribution to livelihoods

  • Perception of the farming environment

  • Comparison of own farming approach with others

  • Level of priority in use of time given to farming

  • Variation in perceptions between household members (gender, age determined)

  • Farming in relation to long-term livelihood strategies

  • Farming contribution to quality of life

Main issues raised during Session 2

1. Livestock issues

• Will there ever be a city that will accommodate large livestock? Isn’t the likely institutional resistance to large animals in cities likely to make dairy for example essentially a peri-urban phenomenon?

• Given the climatic limitations on dairy production, important to consider more seriously other livestock as well as dairy cattle. For example, chickens, monogastrics and small ruminants.

2. Livestock-crop interactions

• Important to pay attention to manure markets

• Important to look at interactions with aquaculture systems

3. Seed/germplasm issues

• Need to identify seed availability for different crops, and dissemination techniques with associated costs

• What is the potential for the tree nursery model of seed production/dissemination being applied to other crops?

4. Great variation in UPA and limited understanding of this variation

• Need for characterization of different systems and styles

• Link research orientation to characterization of variation

5. The characteristics and dynamism of urban systems and effect on UPA

• Characterization of urban systems can highlight specific opportunities and needs

  • land-use patterns appropriate for dairy production

  • mapping of relations of dairy land use to other types of land use patterns

  • space-saving technologies eg. hydroponics, container farming, space-saving species like climbing beans etc

  • use of "idle" urban resources, eg. disused land, waste water, organic garbage

• urban change can make some types of UPA transient activities eg. livestock in city centres which will disappear

6. Health issues

• Milk quality

• Disease spread through seed diffusion

• Health risk in relation to malaria, for which new Inter-Center Initiative led by IMWI just initiated. Need for new methods of management (use of oil?) given environmental problems of DDT use and growing resistance of insects. An important research area for UPA.

• Health risks associated with use of human feces as compost. Common in Asia, but very rare in Africa. Cultural as well as health issues here.

7. Environmental issues

• Environmentally problematic industries associated with diary livestock (example, tanning).

• Rural/urban organic waste management, both domestic and agricultural. Experiences in Kumasi could provide lessons for other cities.

8. Institutional issues. 

Address the biases among decision-makers regarding urban planning versus UPA and health issues. Need to provide urban institutions with wider technical options for specific problems. Technical solutions should precede lobbying and marketing of benefits of UPA.

9. Impact issues

• Need to clarify who are the intended beneficiaries of UPA interventions. Urban farmers? Consumers? Traders? The Municipality?

• Timing of assessments

• Potential for scaling up

  • Choice of specific research site

  • Identification of dissemination pathways

• Collect success stories associated with work in different cities and an analysis of reasons for success, methods so that these can act as learning examples.

Other issues raised as guiding thoughts for the groups included the following:

• Constraints and issues have emerged from the earlier sessions. Working Groups need to aim for an integrated response to these issues through pooling of experiences.

• Short listing and prioritizing issues and research needs, especially in terms of how city representatives perceive their importance for their own cases.

• Determine desired outputs first, then decide on sites.

• One (two) relatively general proposals per group, with determination of necessity of needs assessment

• Possibility to regionalize before selection.

• If the objective is internal learning for SIUPA, then SIUPA should choose the site for the first year. Networking is still possible plus meeting after the first year.

• Initiative has already accomplished many of its objectives by bringing together people from different backgrounds. In most cases no additional funding necessary, but would make progress faster.

• WGs to make suggestions as to which sites could be pilot sites, and which could be satellite sites, then Steering Committee can make decision.

Candidate Pilot Cities

A key element of the idea of a single pilot site in each major region is the need to concentrate limited funds to permit significant start-up activities. Realistic coordination at a global level is also an important factor, given the size of the Coordination office. Although the original idea of the workshop was to pursue this idea and develop proposals for research work in a specific pilot site, this proved to be problematic. It emerged during the workshop that there is considerable ecological and socio-economic variability, a wealth of different experiences and a range of different on-going R&D activities amongst the candidate cities of Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Nairobi in East Africa; Yaounde in Central Africa and Kumasi in West Africa.

Following intensive discussions around the theme of pilot sites, it was agreed that candidate cities should carry out a self-assessment, based on an agreed set of criteria, in terms of suitability for pilot research activities. In terms of size, the cities range from just over one million persons in Kumasi to about 3 million in Dar es Salaam. All are experiencing quite high levels of population growth, from 3% to 5% per annum in most cases. Many of the cities straddle multiple agro-eco-zones, for example, savannah and coastal climates in Dar es Salaam, rain-forest and savannah in Kumasi etc. The presence of CGIAR capacity is especially notable in Nairobi, Kampala and Yaounde and limited in Dar and Kumasi.

There is a depth of experience with UPA in Dar es Salaam, especially in the way technical and institutional (local municipality) concerns are integrated. Though less long term, the evolving institutionalization of research on UPA in Yaounde is also very significant. For cities such as Kampala and Nairobi where research is less integrated and where municipal attitudes are more problematic there must be lessons to be learnt from the other two cities. It also has to be recognized that cities such as Nairobi and Kampala, though lacking institutionalization processes for research efforts, nevertheless have specific research experiences that are very important: on diary farming in the case of Nairobi, and the importance of nutritional issues in Kampala. Kumasi also has such specialized experiences with nutrient recycling.

Given these factors, the idea of a single pilot site was gradually replaced with the idea of key "anchor cities" and "satellite cities." It was proposed that possible candidates for both types of sites should be included in the proposals and that the Steering Committee would make the final decisions, based on the city self-assessments and other considerations. The issues of available funds for start up research and the need for coordination and support will both continue to be important.

Research objectives

1. Reduced health risks for consumers and urban residents.  

Consider health risks at the following levels:

• Household/farm level (risks due to feeds (heavy metals), wastes; transmission through water pollution (malaria, bilharzioze, coliforms, salmonella, etc.)

• Marketing and processing levels (Risks due to consumed product, e.g., raw milk)

• Policy levels (effects of regulations)

2. Improved economic situation for urban and peri-urban animal producers

(Intensification of production systems and adoption of less polluting processes may result on increased economic risks for producers and lead them to give up animal farming. This is why health risk reduction should be achieved in parallel with reduction in economic risks).

Research Output

1. Dynamics of urban and peri-urban animal production and commodity systems (UPAPCS) understood and anticipated

2. Impact of UPAPCS on urban livelihoods assessed and communicated to urban authorities

3. Health risks associated with UPAPCS quantified

4. Safer and more profitable UPAPCS proposed

5. Policy recommendations to urban authorities on optimal location of UPAPCS, as well as sound regulations (maximal size, norms, systems allowed, etc.)

Research activities

1. Characterization of the diversity and dynamics of urban and peri-urban production, marketing and consumption systems:

• Review of available methods and information

• Typologies

• Historical and prospective analysis

2. Quantification of health risks in terms of product safety and environmental pollution:

• Review of available methods and information

• Surveys (farms, traders, etc.)

• Laboratory measures and assessments

3. Quantification of income generation in the urban and peri-urban households involved in UPAPCS:

• Review of available methods and information

• Surveys (farms, traders, etc.)

4. Design of technologies and processes for less polluting production, marketing, packaging, processing:

• Recycling of water used for fodder

• Housing

• Waste recycling (including integration of poultry and dairy)

• Less polluting inputs and by-products

• Packaging

5. Information, dissemination and communication on options for health and economic risk reduction to policy-makers, extension agents and stakeholders (producers, traders, consumers, urban residents):

• Extension packages

• Forums and meetings

• Education programs.

Methods
TO BE ADDED (notes from working group)

Implementation

Proposed anchor cities: Yaoundé (for poultry and pig); Dar es Salaam, Nairobi (for dairy);

Proposed satellite cities: Kumasi (for poultry); Harare (for dairy)

Year 1:
Activity 1 in anchor cities
Part of activity 2 (surveys) in anchor cities
Part of activity 3 (surveys) in anchor cities

Years 2 and 3:
The other activities, in target and satellite cities

Working Group Composition

Facilitator: Paule MOUSTIER (CIRAD, France)
Rapporteur: Thomas DONGMO (IRAD, Cameroon)
Other group members:
Steven FRANZEL (ICRAF)
Susan KIANGO (Ministry of Agriculture, Urban vegetable production project, Tanzania)
Berhane KIFLEWAHID (CIP, Kenya)
Hubert LYIMO (Temere Municipal, Tanzania)
Amoudon MBANG (Ministry of Public health, Cameroon)
David MWANGI (KARI, Kenya)
Amos OMORE (ILRI, Kenya)

Goal
UPA production of perishables and multipurpose tree productions to enhance the livelihoods of the poor.

Research Problem
The development of sustainable intensified UPA systems for horticultural crops and tree crops with emphasis on leafy vegetables (and other commodities particularly important in consumption by the urban poor) in order to contribute to sustainable livelihoods

Three to Five Year Objectives

1. Increase the productivity and reduce seasonality in supply and in incomes derived from perishable commodities in order to increase and smooth the cash flow of the poor.

2. Develop a better understanding of the dynamic relationship between the livelihood strategies of the poor and UPA production of perishable commodities.

3. Develop replicable methodologies for framing and addressing specific problems of UPA production of perishables.

4. Develop sustainable practices for the management of soil, water, and pesticides in UPA perishable production.

5. Determine the implications of perishable UPA on health and the environment

6. Determine equitable means for ensuring and securing the access of the poor and women to land and water resources

Year 1 Objective
Develop a replicable methodology for framing the problems of urban and peri-urban perishable agriculture and apply it specifically to the problem of seasonality in production

Research questions

1. What are the underlying components that account for seasonality in prices and their relative contributions (to be addressed across the three levels—households, institutions and policy)

2. What are the principal agronomic constraints limiting UPA production of perishables in the off-season and at what level is action required to resolve the constraint (crop research, institutional intervention, policy recommendations)

3. What are the principal constraints of poor households which limit their production of perishables in urban and peri-urban areas in the off-season and at what level is action required to resolve the constraint (socio-economic or technical research, institutional interventions, policy recommendations)

4. What are the major conflicts between agricultural and non-agricultural land and water use that reduce the potential for increased off season production.

Expected Outputs in Year 1

1. Stakeholder analysis of principal actors involved in the issue

2. Assessment of institutional and policy aspects surrounding access to land and water sources highlighting seasonality issue; access to agricultural resources among the poor

3. Needs assessment/ livelihood diagnostic methodology developed and applied with UPA poor agriculturalists.

4. Testing of crop associations, staggered plantings, crop varieties for addressing seasonality issue

5. Testing of water quality and determination of appropriate water sources vis-à-vis public health concerns

Year 1 Activities

1. Literature review of technical, policy, and institutional issues pertinent to UPA production of perishables and issue of seasonality; linkage with other sites

2. PRAs and household surveys of UPA producers

3. Field trials and demonstrations of crop management and varieties to address issue of seasonality

4. Stakeholder meeting and analysis of stakeholder concerns

Methods
Research approach: Sustainable Livelihoods
(TO BE ADDED: details)

Implementation

Site selection:
Population density (intra-urban density differentials can be important correlates with poverty in some cities e.g. Nairobi)

Importance of supply from UPA

Importance in consumption baskets of the poor.

Agroecology (high versus low altitude)

Existing baseline information

Ongoing work with producers

Cities with both

Potential anchor cities:
Yaounde, Nairobi, Dar, Kumasi,

Potential linkage city:
Brazzaville

Working Group Composition
Facilitator: Pablo EYZAGUIRRE (IPGRI, Rome)
Rapporteur: Jim GOCKOWSKI (IITA-Yaounde)
Group members:
John ALUMA (NARO – Uganda)
Lowell BLACK (AVRDC Taiwan)
M. L. CHADHA (AVRDC Tanzania)
Sonniia DAVID (CIAT –Uganda)
Jacky GANRY (CIRAD, Montpellier)
Zarina ISHANI (Mazingira Institute, Nairobi)
Petra JACOBI (GTZ-UVPP, Dar es Salaam)
Gilbert KIBATA (KARI, Kenya)
Martin KIMANI (CABI, Nairobi)
Leonid KORENTAJER (ARC, South Africa)
Davinder LAMBA (Mazingira Institute, Nairobi)


Proposal 3: Integrated Crop-livestock Systems

Background
The starting point for looking at crop-livestock systems was seen as the need to deal with low budget inputs and focus on poor households, while emphasizing the availability of regional experiences (and thus taking the need for research as critical).

The working group process was to take the SIUPA conceptual framework as basis for deliberation, that is to say the guiding criteria (Livelihoods, Environment and Health, and Agricultural and non agricultural use of resources) and the three different levels (household, institution and policy).

1. Household Level / Livelihoods

• Food Security

  • Local breeds / varieties the focus

  • Diversified range of crops or livestock if food security is the issue

  • Food Security: best mix of crops and livestock for highest nutritional value to households (given the constraints)

• Income generation

  • When considering opportunities for income generation, food security concerns are considered resolved.

  • Gender dimension: are children better-fed under female managed households?

  • The contribution of chickens to substantial improvement in incomes (example from Dar)

  • In Uganda By-laws have changed towards greater acceptance of UPA: question still remains, is it economical to invest in urban agriculture?

  • What are the benefits of mixed UPA (crops and livestock) as compared with specialization?

  • Which of the two alternatives delivers most income? Is it worthwhile keeping a mixed system?

  • Is there a need for better topology of systems? Depending on amount of land and investment of labor time?

  • Focus continues to be small /poor farmers, in which cropping (??text read input) mix is attractive.

  • Which combinations of which types of livestock and crops are attractive?

What is Urban Agriculture?