ICRAF:
During my project I had the opportunity to work alongside the staff in the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) , in both Kenya and Malawi, on the Agroforestry Food Security Programme (AFSP).
ICRAF is a part of the CGIAR, and it is based Nairobi, Kenya and has five other regional offices.
ICRAF's main aim is the a rural transformation of smallholder agriculture. This transformation will increase their use trees and shrubs to improve food and nutrition security, and diversify lives and livelihoods.
ICRAF aims to generate science-based knowledge about the diverse roles that trees play in agricultural landscapes, and to use its research to advance policies and practices, and their implementation, that benefit the poor and the environment.
Agroforestry Food Security Programme (AFSP):
The AFSP was financed by Irish Aid to support various agroforestry interventions to complement government efforts to increase food security (CIE, 2011). The main purpose of the AFSP was to combine tested agroforestry practices, effective partnerships and informed policies to increase food security, income and livelihood opportunities for rural communities in Malawi (Beedy et al., 2013). This was to be achieved through the accelerated adoption of fertiliser trees, fruit trees, fuel-wood trees, and fodder trees. The AFSP program targeted over 200,000 farmers and was implemented in 11 districts throughout the 3 regions within Malawi (CIE, 2011).
