The UK-CGIAR Centre has added a new project to its portfolio: A Climate-Smart Agronomy Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (AgVACS). The work will focus on climate adaptation preparedness in agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa’s savannah regions.
For the project, the UK-CGIAR Centre has helped create a partnership between Rothamsted Research, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (ABC). The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research–Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR–SARI) in Ghana, and Bayero University Kano (BUK) in Nigeria are the national partners for the project. The other UK partner organisations involved are the University of Nottingham and the University of Warwick.
Christine Kreye, the project lead from IITA, said “the project team has balanced representation from CGIAR, UK, and the local partners. What’s exciting is the expertise, knowledge, and skillsets each of the partners bring to the consortium.”
Smallholdings represent around 80% of the world’s farms and are concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, supplying around half of the world’s food. Smallholder farmers typically experience low and variable yields and profitability due to climate variability, low resource use and efficiencies, and declining soil health. These problems are particularly acute across sub-Saharan Africa, where farmers are contending with increasingly frequent episodes of extreme drought, flooding, pest and disease infestations, and poor soil fertility. Underutilized legume crops, as identified by the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (commonly known as VACS) initiative, could enable greater adaptation to the climate related-challenges smallholder farmers face.
The research teams will investigate the role of climate-smart agronomic practices and cropping systems within the scope of VACS, aligning with CGIAR’s new Sustainable Farming Science Program. The research will prioritise studying crops identified by the VACS initiative, including Bambara groundnut and pigeon pea. The AgVACS team will be working in northern regions of Ghana and Nigeria, where cereal-legume cropping systems are dominant.
The leads of the national research partners agreed that “The research could play a vital role in strengthening the climate resilience of smallholder farming systems in Ghana and Nigeria and improving the wellbeing of poor and vulnerable populations. In the long run, we hope AgVACS will provide a model for wider VACS research.”
The UK-CGIAR Centre is funded by UK International Development from the UK government and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Image credit: CIMMYT/Flickr’.