A project proposal whose aim is to promote more appropriate resource management on smallholder crop-livestock farms in East Africa is described. Prototypes of mixed farming systems will be developed to characterise farming systems according to their management objectives. These prototypes will then be used to map improvements of the farming systems by combining prototyping and simulation modelling. Scenarios will be explored to assess natural resource management interventions that promote sustainability of these prototype-farming systmes.

The world’s climate is changing rapidly and Africa will be severely affected by this, not only because of the effects on ecosystems but also because of the low adaptive capacity of communities due to poverty and lack of infrastructure, services, and appropriate policies to support adaptation strategies. A large share of Africa’s poor are dependent on livestock for some part of their livelihoods, most of these living in smallholder, rainfed mixed systems and pastoral systems, where livestock play a key role as assets providing multiple economic, social, and risk management functions.

One of the major constraints for domesticating widely used wild tree resources by local communities is the lack of adequate propagation techniques. In the case of Vitex doniana, seed propagation has usually been reported difficult and vegetative regeneration is rarely explored. To understand how stem cutting size or hormone application affect the regeneration and early growth ability in that species we used two categories of cutting diameter (1cmVitex doniana to reduce the pressure on wild tree population in Benin.

The 2009 drought in Kenya has had a devastating effect on pastoralists. Hundreds of thousands of cattle died and with them a way of life that had provided families a livelihood from the land. We met Lawrence in a quarry just out of of Nairobi. For many generations his family have reared cattle on the rangelands of Kitengela. Now he shifts rocks in order to pay his way through University and the dream of a better life. This photofilm was made by duckrabbit during duckrabbit training productions for ILRI in Nairobi August 2010. Photos (c) David White.