Discusses the historical context of ILCA's research, the principal types of animal production systems and the stages in ILCA's farming systems research. Describes the smallholder farming in the Ethiopian highlands & humid zone, the agropastoralists of the sub-humid zone, systems research in pastoral areas of eastern Africa (Kenya & Ethiopia), characteristics of the arid and semi-arid zones of West Africa and the role of modelling in the system. Ends with a summary of past experience.

The project validated and disseminated a large number of improved rice-based cropping systems technologies suited to upland agro-ecologies. These improved technologies have good potentials to raise the productivity of water, land, and labor. The innovative strategies employed by the project including the paradigm of landscape management, multi-institutional partnership, multidisciplinary teamwork, farmer participatory approach to technology validation, and community-based seed production led to successful generation and dissemination of technologies.

This working paper reviews the experiences of the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) with 14 “small

grants for impact” that were contracted in early 2006 and operated for periods of 12 to 18 months. For a total

investment of under US$1 million – less than the equivalent of a typical 3-5 year CPWF research for development

project in Phase 1, the small grant projects made significant contributions to identifying water and food technology

for specific end users (thus showing the potential of CPWF research in general); to better understanding of

Using family balance (i.e., combined net farm and non-farm incomes less family expenses), an output from an integrated model, which couples water resource, agronomic and socio-economic models, its sensitivity and uncertainty are evaluated for five smallholder farming groups (AeE) in the Olifants Basin. The crop management practiced included conventional rainfed, untied ridges, planting basins and supplemental irrigation.