Conservation agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Christian Thierfelder is a Senior Cropping Systems Agronomist specializing in Conservation Agriculture (CA) systems research with CIMMYT. CIMMYT and Christian have established a large network of on-farm and on-station trials for CA across Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This seminar presents a great opportunity to interact with a representative of a major CGIAR affiliated institute with extensive experience of research and implementation of climate resilient agriculture in Africa.

Biography

Christian Thierfelder is based in Harare, Zimbabwe and covers the whole southern African region. He trained as a Soil Scientist at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany and did his PhD-project with the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) on soil conservation in Cali, Colombia. He received his PhD with the University of Hohenheim, Germany in 2003. Since 2004, he has been involved in a number of CA related projects led by CIMMYT in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. He has conducted applied and strategic research on-farm and on-station to adapt CA to the needs and environments of smallholder farmers. Since 2009 he has been project leader of the sustainable intensification program of CIMMYT in southern Africa. His current research focus is on green manure cover crop and agro-forestry integration into maize-based CA systems besides climate smart agriculture. He guided the research programs of 30 Bsc, MSc and PhD students, and published more than 50 research articles in peer-reviewed high-impact journals and books. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christian_Thierfelder

Other presentions:

Two other, shorter presentations will highlight preliminary finings from the NERC/DfID funded project, Agricultural Climate Resilience to El-Nino in sub-Saharan Africa (ACRES).

Peter Steward: Manipulating climate in-situ to test maize yield resilience in a Malawian long-term CA trial

Eleanor Jew: Farming systems in Malawi: Can CSA help to alleviate health, labour and financial constraints?

To be followed by 60 minutes for questions and discussion of overlaps and opportunities between the GCRF-AFRICAP project and CIMMYT’s research agenda.
To confirm attendance, email Peter Steward (p.r.steward@leeds.ac.uk)