Dry land farming in the semi-arid tropics of Kenya: ACIAR project experience

Summary

This paper reports on the outcomes and presents an impact assessment of two joint ACIAR-CSIRO-KARI projects which were both entitled 'The improvement of dry land agriculture in the African semi-arid tropics' and whose aim was to find effective management responses and affordable technological innovations as solutions to some of the problem of dryland farming in the semi-arid tropics. The projects lasted for 10 years and were conducted in three main phases. Phase 1 was funded under ACIAR project number 8326 from 1983 to 1987 and phases 2 and 3 were funded under ACIAR project number 8735 from 1988 to 1993.

The broad goals of the projects were: (i) to understand the climatic and soil-related constraints to increased crop and forage production in the semi-arid zones of eastern Kenya; (ii) to use this understanding to devise and test (mainly on farms) improved technologies for management of soil, water and soil fertility that might lead to reduced climatic risk and increases in production and that can be readily and profitably adopted by small scale farmers both in this region and in similar environments elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa; (iii) to improve the research capability of Kenyan scientists and institutions responsible for research on agricultural land management in semi-arid regions; and (iv) to conduct research in Australia to support and complement the research in Kenya using facilities and expertise at CSIRO laboratories in northern Australia.