Official launch of the FAIR Sahel project: ecological intensification of agriculture to increase the resilience of farms in the Sahel

Ensuring the sustainable intensification of agricultural production in the Sahel, by creating the enabling conditions to allow smallholders to implement innovative technical systems for agroecological intensification: this is the objective of the FAIR Sahel project funded for a four-year period by the European Union DeSIRA programme and the French Development Agency.

Underlying the project is the fact that agriculture in the Sahel is exposed to many different risks: climate change, an extremely unstable market, and anthropogenic pressure that drives competition for the use of agricultural and pastoral land. This critical situation is exacerbated by insecurity linked to terrorist movements.

“Agroecological intensification can provide lasting solutions to help producers in the Sahel to develop agricultural systems that are more resilient to climate change and thereby boost their food security”, says Eric Scopel, a researcher at CIRAD and coordinator of the project.

Technical solutions exist: plant biodiversity management, agriculture-livestock integration, soil fertility management, etc. However, these need to be adapted, optimised and combined within innovative systems through direct support for communities, taking a new approach to collaboration between researchers, development actors and producers.

Creating enabling conditions for the emergence of the agroecology of the future

Scaling up the dissemination of innovations is only possible if the services available to producers and their links to markets can effectively support these producers.

This is why the FAIR Sahel project will accompany institutional actors at the regional level to ensure they are able to support the deployment of agroecological intensification. The project will focus, for example, on market gardening in the Niayes region in Senegal, on sorghum- and legume-based systems in the central regions of Burkina Faso, and on cotton-producing zones in the three countries covered by the project.

At the national and sub-regional levels, the experience and results of the project will be shared with policymakers from each country and from the Sahel region, to contribute to a science-based call to action that is socially driven by the project stakeholders.

A project with a regional focus bringing together 13 partners

FAIR Sahel is a project with a sub-regional focus implemented in Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal. The consortium brings together three African research centres, five European research centres, and five development organisations.

According to Amadou Hebie of the Delegation of the European Union to Burkina Faso, “FAIR Sahel is a flagship project that is perfectly integrated into our strategy aimed at promoting sustainable agricultural intensification in order to make smallholder farmers less vulnerable to the effects of climate change”.

Coordinated by CIRAD, for a four-year period, the project brings together a consortium of 13 partners from West Africa and Europe: INERA (Burkina Faso), UNPCB (Burkina Faso), AMSP (Burkina Faso), ISRA (Senegal), ENDA Pronat (Senegal), IER (Mali), AOPP (Mali), AVSF (France), CSIC (Spain), ZALF (Germany), University of Wageningen (Netherlands), IRD (France), and CIRAD (France).

Five other development partners will be associated with the project on a more ad hoc basis: DIOBASS (Burkina Faso), GRAAP Afrique (Burkina Faso), GRET (France), AGRISUD (France), and CARI (France).

“This project is a new illustration of research based on high quality partnerships that are built to last between all of the actors concerned. It is part of CIRAD’s global research system, which aims to accompany actors in the agroecological transition”, says Serge Marlet, CIRAD’s Deputy Regional Director.

Total funding for the FAIR Sahel project amounts to 9 million euros, with 7 million provided by the European Union, 1.5 million by AFD and 0.5 million by IRD and CIRAD.

Several other projects in Burkina Faso are financed by the European Union DeSIRA programme, including IRRINN, ACCESS and BIOSTAR.

*Present at the official launch (from left to right on the photo):

• Amadou Hebie, Representative of the Delegation of the European Union to Burkina Faso,
• Maminata Traoré Coulibaly, Minister for Scientific Research and Innovation,
• Pr. Roger Nebie, Delegate General of CNRST,
• Serge Marlet, Deputy Regional Director for West Africa - Dry zone, CIRAD.