Sustainable Intensification of Key Farming Systems in the Sudano-Sahelian Zone of West Africa N. Karbo, F. K. Avornyo, H. K. Dei, B. Alenyorege, E. Osafo, S. Konlan, A. Fall CSIR-ARI, UDS, ILRI

ACTIVITIES/OUTPUTS Planning meeting and team formation  Core team for coordination  Regional teams for coordination  Committee on planning for Regional workshop, training course  Areas for protocol development identified

Regional workshop on constraints and opportunities for intensification of integrated crop-livestock systems  Proceedings Technologies tested/generated On-station  False yam for guinea fowls (8 feed formulations)  False yam fro pigs (9 feed formulations out of which two were promising)

On-farm  Feed supplementation under wet season management of small ruminants – 1 promising feed formulation  Sorghum spent malt for guinea fowls (cheaper feed formulation) Best-bet technologies in milk hygiene and processing  Appropriate pasteurization equipment  Posters on milk hygiene, milk platform, salt wagashi, good wagashi, quesco blanco cheese and yoghurt

Capacity building Training of implementers  Improvement in understanding of crop- livestock systems  Benefited from biometry training Training of farmers  Sensitization on protocol  Demonstration on feed formulation

Training of students  Demonstration on feed formulation  Data collection  Crop-livestock systems  Protocol

Dissemination  Farmer field visits (75 men and 42 women)  Feed millers’ visit to project site  Community experience-sharing and learning (120 participants)  Posters distributed (3,000)

Challenges  Harmonization gaps of the protocols due to limited information on socio-cultural settings  Time and area to cover  Managing in the absence of a project vehicle  Support needed by farmers for technology/innovation uptake  How to sustain the process/interventions – farmers are wondering if we will come back

Lessons  Team work contributed greatly to the achievements  Regional teams required monitoring due to peculiarity of data collection - without which project might have failed

 Element of long term relationship, commitment and trust  Wet season intervention is justified particularly for restrained animals  Land is an issue for intensification - In UER where crops are failing diversifying into livestock production for integration with crops can improve livelihoods

Opportunities  Community members are more receptive and are organizing themselves into groups  Some feed formulations were promising and this provides an opportunity for scaling up – development of feed market  New partnerships formed present an opportunity for future collaborations (internal and external partners)

 Presence of milk groups presents an opportunity for the development of the dairy sector in northern Ghana  Availability of synthesized knowledge for uptake – proceedings, reports  Working as a consortium for future projects

Thank you