Motivated by the need to reduce poverty and hunger, agricultural development is high on the policy agenda of most African countries, as exemplified by the Agenda 2063 of the African Union. Poverty and hunger are particularly widespread among farm households, which constitute the majority of the population. While agricultural development is much needed to improve livelihoods, it often clashes with biodiversity conservation. Sustainable intensification (SI) and agroecology (AE) may provide ways out of the trade-off between increases in agricultural productivity at the expense of biodiversity.
In this project, we combine socioeconomic and agroecological studies to examine the two alternative development trajectories SI and AE in a joint research framework, enabling insights into how to most efficiently minimize trade-offs and harness synergies between agricultural development, food security, and biodiversity conservation. We specifically investigate how do the two development trajectories affect food and nutrition security and biodiversity conservation as well as other aspects of sustainability (e.g., poverty, labor burden, well-being, resilience), and whether the trajectories minimize trade-offs and maximize synergies between food security and biodiversity conservation. The project strongly emphasizes stakeholder involvement and policy outreach to contribute to development efforts that are better suited to combat hunger in Zambia and beyond. The project is carried out in collaboration with Prof Dr. Thomas Daum (School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden) and Dr. Mary Lubungu and Fwasa Singogo (both at Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute, Lusaka, Zambia) and is funded by the Foundation fiat panis.
