Governments across East Africa should place agroecology at the center of their agricultural, climate and food security policies, according to two new reports drawing on projects in Tanzania and Burundi, which found the approach boosted crop yields and household incomes while reducing farmers’ reliance on costly synthetic inputs.
The reports were released under the Civil Society Partnership of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP). The Tanzania study, based on the Baridi Sokoni project overseen by the African Development Bank, found that farmers using agroecological methods — including mulching, composting and diversified farming systems — saw horticultural yields rise by 25 to 40 percent, alongside improved resilience to drought and erratic rainfall.
A companion brief from Burundi drew on the PARE-COVID project, run between 2023 and 2026 by the Confederation of Agricultural Producers’ Associations for Development (CAPAD) under the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). That report linked agroecological practices to gains in food security, women’s economic empowerment, and preparedness for future public health emergencies.
Though based in different countries, both studies concluded that agroecology should be mainstreamed across East and Southern Africa as governments look for ways to address climate change, food insecurity and rising production costs, and called for the approach to be integrated more broadly into regional agricultural and climate policy.
