 The Tradeoff Analysis Project is collaborating with a number of institutions in Kenya to train scientific teams to use TOA in their own projects. These activities were initiated in 2003-2005 in conjunction with the ISNAR-administered Ecoregional Fund to Support Methodological Initiatives.
Tradeoff Analysis Workshop. September 6-10, 2004, the Tradeoff Analysis project held a workshop for collaborating scientists and institutional representatives at the ILRI campus in Nairobi.
(To view the course and workshop material, go to http://www.tradeoffs.nl, click on "Courses," then "Practical course for Kenya.")
Sustainability of the Machakos Production System. The Tradeoff Analysis project and the Ecoregional Fund project are collaborating with the Nutrient Monitoring program based at Wageningen University and the Agricultural Economics Institute of the Netherlands to assess the sustainability of the production system in the Machakos district. In this work an interface with the Nutrient Monitoring model and data was developed for the Tradeoff Analysis system. This development will facilitate application of the Tradeoff Analysis system wherever Nutrient Monitoring studies have been done. An Ecoregional Fund workshop was held in June 2005 in Nairobi which presented results for the Machakos analysis. Further publications, including analysis of climate change impacts on the region, are in progress.
Agro-Environmental Services in the Lake Victoria Watershed. The Tradeoffs Project will collaborate with a team of scientists at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) to apply TOA methods and models to a set of sites in the Lake Victoria Watershed that are being investigated as part of a project funded by the United Nations Global Environmental Facility. The focus of this activity will be on assessing potential for carbon sequestration in the system, the design of mechanisms to reward farmers for adoption practices that enhance environmental services (such as carbon sequestration), and methods to scale-up analysis from the farm to regional scale.
Njoro Watershed Study. The Tradeoff Analysis project is providing training and technical support for an interdisciplinary study of the Njoro watershed. This project is funded by the Global Livestock CRSP and Pond Dynamics CRSP and is being carried out in collaboration with Egerton University and the University of Wyoming.
Natural Resource Management in East Africa. The TOA team is collaborating with the Natural Resources Management Program of the International Potato Center (CIP) to develop a quantitative policy analysis capability for the region based on TOA. A post-doctoral scientist, a national scientist, and graduate students at Montana State University and Wageningen University are working with CIP scientists to support this activity. The goal is to utilize Nutrient Monitoring data sets and other available data sets to construct TOA-based models for a network of case study sites in the region. Topics to be addressed include: impacts of technologies and policies on nutrient depletion and carbon sequestration and their relation to sustainability and poverty; the potential for adoption of the dual-purpose sweet potato, and its impacts on sustainability and poverty; and impacts of climate change on agriculture in the region.
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