Workshops

ECHO Partners' common motivating issues are using a Biblical approach to reduce poverty, promote smallholder farming, and in Burundi with a unique focus on the highlands, to improve nutrition, address the need for population education, reconciliation, and environmentally sound farming. The most mountainous regions of Africa are located in East Africa. The highlands generally have good soils supporting a high population density. Agriculture is very intensive and continuous cultivation predominates with few fallows. Integrated crop and animal production are the norm and with small landholdings of less than two hectares, subsistence is a growing challenge. The greatest population densities are in Rwanda and Burundi with an average of 180+ inhabitants per km2 but with some areas in excess of 300 per km2. Around 90 percent of the population lives in rural areas, many on severe slopes, with high erosion occurring. The agricultural production generally has to address population growth and movements such as settlement schemes encroaching on traditionally semi-nomadic livestock herding areas. Reafforestation programs have generally focused on very few exotic species mostly from Australia, (Eucalyptus sp., Grevillea) which have rapid biomass growth, but the more popular Eucalyptus sp. has a detrimental effect on crops beneath it. Government support has generally been for conventional agricultural approaches with intensified development programs such as dairy, coffee, tea, and highland horticulture, and in the adjacent lowlands, rice, palm trees. There is little emphasis on conservation agriculture or intensive contour farming. In some areas, population pressure has eliminated grazing lands, and a challenge is to promote appropriate agro-pastoral systems in areas of low rainfall where crops are not assured, or alternatively, more efficient agro-sylvo pastoral systems. Best practices have been learned from several projects in recent years based on a combination of food plants, cash crops and livestock. The symposium can bring these best practices for intensification to share with others. The focus should be on how to engage the poor in self-reliant, low-external input and sustainable production. Small livestock initiatives may feature. Sharing of successes in value-chain improvements for small farmers will bring innovation to the symposium.