Sustainability and Adaptive Capacity of Food System's Productive Base

This component targets the resilience of agro-sylvo-pastoral production systems allowing small

and medium producers, especially women and youth, to sustainably meet their nutritional needs

and raise incomes from the sale of surpluses in local and regional markets. This would be achieved through:

• Adapting and adopting technologies, innovation and knowledge to counter the evolving challenges of the food system; and
• Building resilience in food insecurity priority areas through multisectoral interventions including better access to innovation and technologies.

The two sub-components are:

Regional Sub-component 2.1 - Adapting and adopting innovations and technologies for resilient food systems:

This aims to strengthen the regional research and extension systems to deliver, in a sustainable manner, improved technological innovations including climate-smart, nutrition- sensitive, gender- and youth friendly technologies. Specifically, the sub-component would strengthen the capacity of the regional agriculture research system to fine tune existing technologies and accelerate technology transfer at the regional level from national research programs. The project will place emphasis on harnessing disruptive technologies with the objectives of:

    i. Improving advisory and information service provision for boosting agricultural productivity; Enhancing market linkages;

     ii. Improving farmers' financial inclusion; and • Providing data analytics and agriculture intelligence solutions backed by data infrastructure, remote sensing and mapping technologies, precision agriculture tools, and computing power, etc. This sub-component will scale up the introduction of digital agriculture (E-extension, electronic markets for agriculture technologies, inputs and products), support the strengthening of the seed system, soil fertility management (development of soil maps, promotion of soil testing, monitoring of soil fertility and introduction of targeted fertilizer blending). These activities may not require land acquisition.

National Sub-component 2.2 - Strengthen food security through sustainable practices in targeted area

Sub-component 2.2 will sustainably improve rural households' food security and their resilience to climate variability in targeted areas. Proposed interventions like land and watershed restoration, floodplains restoration, water mobilization and irrigation developments and delivery of farm/community level CSA packages of technologies will be coordinated through spatial/participatory planning and management at the watershed level.

Expected Outcomes of Component 2:
    a. Strengthened research & extension systems

       b. Rehabilitated irrigation schemes

    c. Developed inland valleys

    d. Support to farmers (maize, rice, soya, poultry) to improve production