Reduce-Reuse- Recycle Rice Initiative for Climate Smart Agriculture (R4iCSA)

Year: July 2020 – June 2022

Country/Area: Kenya and Uganda

Client: IKEA Foundation

Description:

The project goal was to increase adoption of sustainable rice production practices for 5,000 smallholder rice farmers and other value chain actors in Kenya (2,000SHFs) and Uganda (3,000SHFs).

This was pursued through two objectives:

1. To promote the use of innovative technologies and management practices for sustainable rice farming systems.
2. To generate empirical evidence of the developed and tested business models in the utilization of products and by-products of rice farming systems to drive scaling up the models.

The R4iCSA sought to deliver the following outcomes:

1. Increased adoption of sustainable rice practices (SRPs)
2. Business cases on utilization of products and by-products from rice and other complementary farm enterprises
3. Adaptability and economic benefits of rice-legumes (cow peas, chickpeas and short duration pigeon peas) rotational system documented.
4. Evidence based knowledge products on circular and regenerative models to influence policy shift.

Achievements:

1. 6,126 (3,693 males, 2,433 females of which 804 are youth) farmers adopted Sustainable Rice Practices.
2. 573.08Ha of land is under Rice-Legume-Rotational-Integration in the project area.
3. 2,624.2Ha of land is under Sustainable Rice Practices (SRP).
4. 711Mt of biochar worth $284,400 carbonized from rice husks.
5. 25,086.2Mt of organic fertilizer worth $1,505,172 made from rice straws using vermicomposter and BM innovation.
6. 553 liters of liquid organic fertilizer (vermijuice) worth $553 from rice straws using vermicomposter innovation.
7. 8 knowledge materials developed by the project.
8. 14 innovations developed which included husk stove prototype, Super burner, Bio-effective microbes, Vermicompost, Vermi-juice, Urea Deep Placement, biochar gasification, biochar fortification and Black Soldier Fly Frass, Agricultural waged worker model, paddling services using hydro power tillers for small scale farmers, Motorized rice weeding services, Combined harvesting services for rice, and Mapping rice farmer fields and helping them know their actual areas in terms of acreages.  
9. 32 business linkages made that are serving 8,554 farmers.
10. 8,554 (5121 males, 3,433 females of which 1,132 are youth) farmers were trained on Sustainable Rice production Practices and Good Agricultural Practices.
11. 5,000 rice farmers profiled for the digital e-extension.
12. 307 youth investing in business because of this project.