PARADIGM SHIFTS IN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE LAND-USE IN AFRICA

Realizing full agricultural potential in Africa’s food systems requires significant technological, organizational and institutional paradigm shifts in the face of contemporary challenges. The desired technological changes include the management of genetic, soil, water, and energy resources, which has so far been the mandate of agricultural research.

A shift in organizational and institutional approaches on the other hand not only involve the organization and delivery of knowledge and services to benefit smallholders and entrepreneurs, but also the essential dimension of creating opportunity, be it through changing land tenure relationships, reducing over-exploitation, creating access to markets, or changing unfavourable policies and regulatory frameworks. 

Such transformations call for effective, contextually-appropriate and high-impact agricultural research that builds capacity of agricultural stakeholders to work in multi-stakeholder partnerships with the aim of increasing agricultural technology and innovation transfer, as well as adoption. 

It is against this background and the need to appreciate the importance of paradigm shifts in agricultural systems in Eastern Africa that  DAAD Agriculture-Alumni Training Network project organized a 6-day (March 28thto April 2nd, 2022) traveling workshop in Kenya under theme ‘Paradigm shifts in Agricultural Systems towards Sustainable Land-Use in Africa’. 

The workshop brought together German university alumni from Eastern Africa tonot only foster networks, but also share practical experiences on technologies, innovations, management practices and research in agricultural sector. The traveling workshop involved stop overs along predetermined routes to allow participants engage with concrete examples of paradigm shifts in agricultural systems in Kenya. 

The event was jointly organized by the University of Hohenheim, University of Nairobi, and the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture and Transdisciplinary and Social-ecological Land use Research (DITSL), University of Kassel in Witzenhausen.Dr. Oliver Vivian Wasonga is leading the 2-year project at the Department of Land Resource Management and Agricultural Technology, University of Nairobi.