TheWaterChannel holds webinar on water-smart agriculture in East Africa
Online medium TheWaterChannel organises a webinar on smart use of water by small farmers in East Africa. The availability of water is surrounded with great uncertainty in East Africa, but a sound water management strategy can help farmers to increase their yields.
The webinar is based on the book 'Water-smart agriculture in East Africa' that was published in March 2015.
The webinar will be broadcasted on Wednesday, September 30 at 10:00 CET. Speakers are Alan Nicol (IWMI), Philip Osano (SEI) and Fethi Lebdi (FAO).
Smallholder farming
The webinar is about the establishment of water-smart agriculture (WaSA) as a key factor at the centre of smallholder farming.
WaSA is an approach that seeks to systematise thinking, enabling farmers and those working with them to make sound strategic choices within rapidly evolving social, economic and physical circumstances and amidst climate uncertainty.
Cover of the book on the WaSa-approach that holds many best practises in countries like Ethiopia and Tanzania.
Room for new ideas
The farmers in East Africa are faced with declining aquifers and changing rain patterns and to increase their resiliency they have to take water-related measures. Especially the capturing and storing of rainwater can improve the retention of soil moisture.
The farmers have been dealing with rainfall uncertainty for hundreds if not thousands of years. A crucial difference now is that institutional, policy, and communication environments have markedly changed. These changes enable substantial uptake of new ideas and approaches, across shorter time scales.
New farming approaches
Markets are now more accessible, information more readily acquired and shared—through mobile networks and the internet—and labor mobility is greater than ever.
This provides opportunities for farmers to become more productive, generate greater returns from farming, and become advocates of new farming approaches – including WaSA.
Sourcebook with best practises
Alan Nicol of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) provides an overview of this approach and how it may be applied in practice — as well as at a policy level.
He will present the major outcomes of the sourcebook on 'Water-smart agriculture in East Africa' with contributions from IWMI, CGIAR, Care and GWI.
The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on the declaration on unlocking the potential of rainwater that was presented in Addis Ababa in July.
There will be room for input from the participants during the panel discussion.
For participation go to: webinar 22: Water-Smart Agriculture in East Africa.
About TheWaterChannel
TheWaterChannel was launched in 2009, with the objective to build an open resource with video-based material on water management – available online and as long as the digital divide persists offline.
The website now offers hundreds of videos and dossiers on key water themes.
More information
TheWaterChannel
Wageningen, the Netherlands
+31 317 84 3939
www.thewaterchannel.tv