Spatial Targeting of Agricultural Sustainable Intensification Investments

Linking Household Surveys with Spatial Data in Africa
Principal Investigator
An Notenbaert, CIAT
Collaborators
Mark van Wijk, ILRI
Evan Girvetz, CIAT
Wageningen University and Research Center (WUR)
Geographic area of interest
Tanzania, Ethiopia
Description
Globally, and particularly in Africa, there are rapidly growing populations and rapidly growing demand for food production occurring in the face of natural resources already under pressure. There is thus a need for sustainable intensification. Development organizations and international aid donors want to know how to target their efforts for greatest potential of success in promoting sustainable intensification. They want to know where interventions are needed to promote agricultural intensification and where they are likely to have the greatest potential for success, while avoiding unsustainability of these efforts. However, the information and frameworks to support this decision making are weak. There is no common understanding of how to quantify and map sustainable intensification, or of what characteristics provide the conditions for investments. This project aims thus to define sustainable intensification in quantitative terms, then map out information across gradients of both intensification and sustainability to provide an analytic framework for targeting interventions.
Objectives
Map the current gradient of agricultural intensification and sustainability of this intensification in Eastern Africa, focusing on Ethiopia and Tanzania and map the conditions that could support investments in agricultural sustainable intensification.
Key Achievements (last update: Sep 2016)
  • Cleaned and prepared Worldbank LSMS ISA 2010 database of 3440 households in Tanzania
  • Benchmarking of Sustanability Intensification indicators (HH-level indicators)
  • Created spatial database with 50+ indicators
  • Mapping of indices for Sustanability Intensification analysis
  • ArcGIS/Python tool for mapping suitability of Sustanability Intensification interventions developed
  • Sustanability Intensification working definitions prepared
  • Conceptual framework for data analysis (linking HH-level and spatial data) proposed
Publications/presentations/workshops
Workshop for vetting conceptual framework, September 27-28, 2016 in Arusha, Tanzania
Status
Ongoing