The main goal of this project is to apply the integrated Communal-Commercial Lowland Family Farming (COCLOFF) approach to (a) increase multi-cropping rice production system through improved efficiency of irrigated swamp rice production technologies and (b) better postharvest management and marketing of nutritious rice. This approach to sustainable agriculture has two direct environmental benefits: (1) reduce the current pressures on upland farm land that is resulting in poorer yields due to soil infertility and other factors and (2) enhance biodiversity by reducing pressures on animal habitats.
To address these challenges we propose to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate a multi-crop irrigated low land rice production system where farm equipment is managed communally at one central location with each family farm managed privately to become a commercially viable profit making venture. By combining an equipment ?kuu? with the commercial interest of farmers we can grow rice in an environmentally sustainable way. Improved land use management is integrated with biodiversity in four interlinking components of this project:
Component I: organize farmers to provide farming inputs (farm tools and high yielding disease resistance rice seedlings) to fifty farm families
Component II: provide technical support and extension services to layout minimum of four 20ft by 20ft plots per farm family to grow and harvest rice in three farming cycles per year; as opposed to one yield per year in the traditional upland ?slash and burn? farming.
Component III: support field training in intercropping rice with other crops to promote biodiversity, low land irrigation and crop management support and
Component IV: purchase and use (a) one power tiller, (2) one rice mill (3) two motorbikes, (4) one rice thrasher and (5) one rice destoner provide technical support in milling and marketing and sell rice at a commercially viable profit
Not all components of the approach is scaled up at the same time; rather scale up is evidence driven to sustain adaption of innovative in accordance to strategic choices and capacity of each farm family. These decisions are made within the ?kuu? system with farmers.