Problem Statement:
Invasive weeds are a major challenge to agricultural productivity, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience across Africa. They reduce crop yields, increase production costs, and disrupt local food systems while contributing to soil degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. Despite their ecological and economic impact, there is limited scientific evidence on their distribution, ecology, and interactions with crops and herbivores in African contexts. Moreover, sustainable, climate-smart strategies for managing invasive weeds remain underdeveloped, poorly validated in the field, and rarely integrated into farmer-centred practices.
Gaps:
- Monitoring and Early Detection: Africa lacks comprehensive, region-specific systems for early detection and monitoring of invasive weeds. Most interventions are reactive rather than proactive.
- Sustainable Management Solutions: Few locally adapted, science-based technologies (e.g., biological control, biochar, circular-economy valorisation) have been developed, validated, or scaled for smallholder farmers.
- Knowledge and Capacity Gaps: Farmers, extension officers, and policymakers often lack access to practical guidance and evidence-based strategies for integrated, sustainable weed management.
- Integration of Circular-Economy Approaches: Opportunities to transform invasive weeds into value-added products (feed, bioproducts, biochar) remain underexplored, limiting both ecological and economic benefits.
CWISA’s Approach to Filling These Gaps:
CWISA addresses these gaps by:
- Developing Monitoring and Mapping Systems: Establishing early detection and mapping systems in pilot regions to generate actionable, evidence-based insights for management.
- Innovating Sustainable Weed Management Technologies: Creating and field-validating biological control, biochar production, and other circular-use approaches in collaboration with smallholder farmers.
- Building Stakeholder Capacity: Training over 1,000 stakeholders—including farmers, extension officers, researchers, and policymakers—through practical guidelines, knowledge-translation tools, and farmer-centred innovation workshops.
- Promoting Circular-Economy Valorisation: Transforming invasive weeds from a production constraint into opportunities for food security, ecosystem health, and climate resilience by converting them into bio-products, feed, and soil amendments.
Through this integrated, science-based, and farmer-inclusive approach, CWISA seeks to provide practical, resilient, and scalable solutions to invasive weed challenges while creating value for communities, ecosystems, and agricultural systems across Africa.
Contact: info@cwisa.org