Investing in sustainable intensification for smallholders: quantifying large-scale costs and benefits in Uganda

Abstract

In Uganda, upgrading smallholder agriculture is a necessary step to achieve the interlinked sustainable development goals of hunger eradication, poverty reduction and land degradation neutrality. However, targeting the right restoration practices and estimate their cost-benefit at the national scale is difficult given the highly contextual nature of restoration practices and the diversity of small-scale interventions to be adopted. By analysing the context-specific outcomes of 82 successful case studies on different Sustainable Land and Water Management (SLWM) in Uganda, we estimated that out-scaling of existing successful practices to 75% of agricultural land would require a one-time investment of US$ 4.4 billion from smallholders. Our results show that, besides the many social and environmental benefit commonly associated to SLWM, a wide outscale of SLWM could generate US$ 4.7 billion every year, once the practices are fully operational. Our context-specific estimates highlight the profitability of investing in smallholder farming to achieve the SDGs in Uganda, with geographical differences coming from specific social-ecological conditions. This study can guide sustainable intensification development by targeting the most suitable SLWM practices and plan for adequate financial support from government, investors and international development aids to smallholder farming.

Large‐scale siting of sand dams: A participatory approach and application in Angolan drylands

“…Debating with the communities and facilitating their internal discussions from the early siting phase can increase local awareness about long‐term water supply needs and water harvesting options (Rajabu, 2005; Everard, 2019) and allow the researchers to incorporate useful criteria to siting modeling. This has resulted in increased integration of biophysical and socio‐economic components in suitability analysis at different scales, from local to national and even global (Al‐Adamat et al, 2012; Piemontese et al, 2020, 2022), although the depth of integration between the social and the ecological components varies (Ammar et al, 2016). These integrated assessments often rely on indicators, which provide a quantitative and scalable measure.…”

“…[Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] increased integration of biophysical and socio-economic components in suitability analysis at different scales, from local to national and even global (Al-Adamat et al, 2012;Piemontese et al, 2020Piemontese et al, , 2022, although the depth of integration between the social and the ecological components varies (Ammar et al, 2016). These integrated assessments often rely on indicators, which provide a quantitative and scalable measure.…”

Archetypes in support of tailoring land-use policies

“…First, archetypal patterns of social-ecological contexts deliver essential information for the tailoring of policies. For instance, Piemontese et al (2022b) analyzed 82 cases of sustainable land and water management practices in Uganda to demonstrate how archetypal social-ecological conditions influence the cost-effectiveness of management practices. Ceddia et al (2022) investigated how policy implementation differs across regions in Argentina due to specific configurations of pro-and anti-deforestation coalitions of actors, the presence and extent of capital-intensive agriculture and differences in forest cover.…”

“…For example, archetypal patterns of agri-environmental potential (Beckmann et al 2022) provide an indication of mediating conditions that can be used to discuss where particular agri-environmental schemes fit best. Moreover, Piemontese et al (2022b) showed that the suitability of sustainable land and water management practices in Uganda varied according to archetypal land system and social-ecological conditions, as did the investment costs and benefits.…”

Large-scale siting of sand dams: a participatory approach and application in Angolan drylands

“…debating with the communities and facilitating their internal discussions from the early siting phase can increase local awareness about long-term water supply needs and water harvesting options (Rajabu, 2005;Everard, 2019) and allow the researchers to incorporate useful criteria to siting modeling. This has resulted in increased integration of biophysical and sopcio-economic components in suitability analysis at different scales, from local to national and even global (Al-Adamat et al, 2012;Piemontese et al, 2022Piemontese et al, , 2020, although the depth of integration between the social and the ecological components varies (Ammar et al, 2016). These integrated assessments often rely on indicators, which provide a quantitative and scalable measure.…”