Since 2019, the UK FCDO's CASA Programme has partnered with agribusinesses and investors, helping agribusinesses make their business models more inclusive, attract investments, and improve the income and climate resilience of smallholder farmers. CASA demonstrates that investing in climate-resilient agri-food systems with smallholder farmers can be profitable.
CASA’s work in the aquaculture sector is contributing to both carbon mitigation and climate resilience goals:
Carbon mitigation
- CASA supported Viphya Chambo and its smallholder outgrowers to develop an aquaculture contract farming model that integrated crop farming within the mainstay fish production business. The model encouraged planting of fruit trees, bananas, and vegetables around their fishponds, irrigated with nutrient-rich pond water. This approach created triple benefits: protecting pond walls from damage caused by heavy rainfall and floods, providing an environmentally friendly way to use pond wastewater without discharging it downstream, and providing an additional source of income for farmers. Similarly, technical assistance was provided to Viphya Chambo to train smallholder out-growers to plant pine trees on the slopes surrounding their fish farms - to stabilise the soil and pond structures, also resulting in climate-positive impacts from tree planting.
- CASA supported smallholders working with Viphya Chambo, APAC and Palm Capital to construct dykes and overflows using vetiver grass and sugarcane to prevent damage caused by heavy runoff, increasing resilience to flooding which can damage pond structures.
Climate resilience
In response to an observed increase in the length and severity of cold seasons (likely due to climate change), which shortens the breeding window for aquaculture, CASA supported Viphya Chambo in constructing over-the-pond greenhouses. These helped raise the water temperature, extending the breeding window and boosting productivity.
All of the above activities were integrated into CASA’s broader market systems development goals. They contributed to improving the business models of partner agribusinesses within the aquaculture sector and the way in which they generate benefits for their smallholder suppliers.
Through these actions, CASA has demonstrated the efficacy and commercial viability of integrating climate objectives into MSD interventions. This highlights the importance of identifying opportunities to contribute to climate resilience, adaptation and, where possible, mitigation, at the intervention design phase.
In 2022, CASA became fully funded by UK International Climate Finance (ICF), resulting in climate action becoming a core programme goal. How CASA adjusted to focus on climate and what lessons it learned are shared in the paper Adapting agriculture programmes to address climate change.