Advancement and adaptation of agricultural biologicals to meet sub-Saharan Africa smallholderfarmers´ needs and build sustainable food systems

The challenge to feed a growing population in a sustainable way on increasingly limited land puts agriculture practices at the focal point of attention of scholars and policy makers.

Climate change is worsening food insecurity, not least in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and has devastating effects on economic growth and poverty.

The recent pandemic and current interruption in global food trade call for a more regionally driven agriculture.Agricultural biologicals are alternatives to agrochemicals that can increase yield and improve plant health.

Their use is currently doubling every 4-5-years worldwide, but SSA is lagging behind, and there is a limited knowledge among smallholder farmers.Here, we reach out to smallholder farmers by establishing two living lab sites in SSA to support stakeholder interaction by experiments and demos concerning different aspects of biologicals.

In a rural setting, living labs is a novel way to inform, explore stakeholder interactions and co-create knowledge.

This project is based on knowledge from previous work, especially a KAP analysis of stakeholders and smallholder farmers’ in Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa regarding of agro-inputs.Based on the project outcomes we will create a blueprint that can strengthen the links between researchers and smallholder farmers, and point at future tasks.

This project creates networks and capacity building for researchers, policymakers, industry and smallholder farmers to advance the use of biologicals in SSA.