Isaac Nyoka, Coordinator of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Southern Africa Node, discussed BLEANSA (Building a Large Evergreen Agriculture Network for Southern Africa) at the Beating Famine Conference in Malawi. BLEANSA is a network of organizations and innovation platforms aimed at spreading EverGreen Agriculture across the region.
“The network reviews experiences gained from past research, refines and optimizes EverGreen Agriculture, and distils the experiences into policy recommendations. These recommendations are then shared widely,” said Nyoka.
The network is working to sensitize policy makers to develop policies which facilitate the wide-scale promotion and adoption of EverGreen Agriculture and mobilizing extension staff, farmers and other land users and scale-up this type of climate smart farming in Southern Africa.
It is also investigating and piloting alternative farm income streams from trees to optimize the economic, environmental and social outcomes of EverGreen Agriculture application.