Agriculture in Africa has been severely impacted by soil and ecosystems degradation, driven by chronically low soil fertility, resulting in low productivity and food insecurity. African agricultural development requires ‘a healthy soil producing a healthy crop’. At the same time, with growing imperatives to address climate change, African agriculture is no exception to pursue soil fertility management solutions contributing to regenerative development pathways.

Regenerative Agriculture (RA) is an approach which is currently attracting global attention with its focus to restore soil health and reduce soil degradation. RA proposes practices that increase organic matters into the soil to promote microbial activity. It assumes that promoting biological, physical, and chemical improvement of the soil enhances crop productivity and helps optimizing the use of chemical fertilizers and argo-chemicals thus helping increased biodiversity and soil environmental health. It is further expected that improved cultivation methods such as reduced tillage and mulching will maintain soil organic matter, especially when combined with afforestation, reduce carbon emissions, and thus contribute to climate change mitigation.

On the other hand, in African smallholder contexts, Sustainable Agricultural Intensification (SAI) has been long advocated. SAI prioritizes improving productivity through integrated soil fertility management which may necessitate the judicious use of organic as well as inorganic fertilizers along with some tilling practices depending on local edapho-climatic and socioeconomic conditions. 

Realizing the vision of RA in African contexts requires its compatibility with SAI practices to achieve both improved soil health and food security. This event aims at offering a forum for research and development communities to exchange their experiences and insights on RA in different spatial/temporal scales and which technology portfolio and extension approaches would suit in the context of smallholder farmers in Africa.

On Friday, August 5, the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) and JIRCAS will co-host an online TICAD 8 side-event, "Healthy Soils for Food Security in Africa - Potential of Regenerative Agriculture”. This event will define what environmentally regenerative agriculture is, based on an understanding of the diversity of the environment surrounding small-scale farmers in Africa, and discuss technical initiatives and dissemination approaches to realize RA in small-scale agriculture in Africa.

Please click on the link below to view the program and registration site.

Healthy Soils for Food Security in Africa - Potential of Regenerative Agriculture
Date：5 August 2022 (Fri) 19:30 ～ 22:15 (JST)
Organizer：Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA)
Co-organizer：JIRCAS
SAA Collaborative Side-Events for TICAD 8 : https://www.saaticad8.com/en/
Japanese website for this event：https://www.saaticad8.com/healthy_soills.html　
English website for this event：https://www.saaticad8.com/en/healthy_soills.html　

JIRCAS HP Japanese: https://www.jircas.go.jp/ja/event/2022/e20220805　
JIRCAS HP English: https://www.jircas.go.jp/en/event/2022/e20220805　

Contributor: IIYAMA Miyuki (Director, Information Program)