June 4, 2012, MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala., USA – IFDC has released “Nourishing Soil and Stability: A Farming Revolution in the Great Lakes Region of Africa,” a video that documents its work to increase regional agricultural productivity and food security, reduce poverty and protect the environment in Central Africa’s Great Lakes Region (CAGLR). IFDC’s Catalyze Accelerated Agricultural Intensification for Social and Environmental Stability (CATALIST) project is funded by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Directorate-General for International Cooperation. CATALIST has been focused in Burundi, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The project began in October 2006 and ends shortly. A second phase of CATALIST is expected to begin this summer.
CATALIST employs four central tools to accomplish its goals in CAGLR: Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM), Competitive Agricultural Systems and Enterprises (CASE), increasing the availability of financial resources to value chain members and labor-intensive infrastructure work (HIMO). CATALIST combines these technologies and strategies to promote social and environmental stability in CAGLR.
CATALIST supported Helpage, a national non-governmental organization, by sub-granting one-third of its funding to the organization. CATALIST-supported Helpage activities have resulted in the production and planting of more than three million tree seedlings, the establishment of more than 840 hectares (ha) of agroforestry plantations and the improvement of more than 182 kilometers of feeder roads. Local economies received a boost of approximately $350,000 and the short-term employment of 13,500 people as a result of these activities.
CATALIST officials helped increase yields by 60 percent for 225,000 farmers who adopted improved agricultural production systems, promote a 40 percent increase in agricultural produce trading, launch more than 400 new local agro-dealers and implement environmentally sustainable production on an additional 170,000 ha of farmland over the life of the project.
The video was produced for IFDC by Clare Kemp and Joan Poggio of CKMultiMedia, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
###
IFDC Contacts:
Courtney Greene
cgreene@ifdc.org
256/381-6600 ext. 357
