New publication: Climate-smart technologies in Rakai Uganda

The role of networks in diffusion and uptake of climate-smart technologies in Rakai, Uganda. Report of project initiation workshops, 5-9 May 2014.

The role of networks in diffusion and uptake of climate-smart technologies in Rakai, Uganda. Report of project initiation workshops, 5-9 May 2014.

This report summarizes the first steps of a project to analyze the role of networks in the diffusion and uptake of climate-smart technologies in Rakai, Uganda. The activity is part of the Policy Action for Climate Change Adaptation (PACCA) project funded by Climate Change for Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). We held two workshops. The first was a participatory assessment with farmers in Rakai to understand their perceptions of climate change and resilience of their landscapes, using “indicators of resilience in socio-ecological production landscapes (SEPLs)”. The second was a workshop to develop the project work plan and tools, including a forthcoming smallholder farmers survey on networks, technologies and practices to better understand how farmers in Rakai communicate and exchange knowledge about farming practices.

The publication is now available from Bioversity International.  Presentations made at the planning meeting are available here: Caroline Mwongera Trade Off Analysis; Edidah Ampaire CCAFS PACCA_Policy Initiative; Eliezer Moses CCAFS in Tanzanzia; Michael Halewood PACCA Policy Network Survey; Geoffrey Lubinga State of the environment in Rakai district

Adapting to climate change: training workshop for teams of Bhutan and Nepal

By Pashupati Chaudhary, LI-BIRD, Nepal

Agrobiodiversity plays a pivotal role in securing food and nutrition and enhancing resilience of agriculture to climate change. As the climate is becoming more erratic and unpredictable than in the past, it has become increasingly difficult to properly manage agrobiodiversity to sustainably produce food. One of the challenges is the lack of scientific knowledge to predict climate dynamics in particular regions. Another challenge is to develop and deploy crop varieties that are adapted to changing climatic conditions. Climate Analogue Tool (CAT), a recently developed tool by partners of the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) programme is a remarkable breakthrough in tackling this problem. CAT can identify a) future climate conditions of a particular location and sites that currently resemble these conditions (b) locations that currently have or in the future will have similar climate conditions, and c) locations that in the future will have current climate conditions of a particular place. Based on careful analyses done using the Climate Analogue Tool and supported by data from actual conditions in farmers’ fields, scientists can identify possible appropriate plant genetic resources, deploy suitable varieties, and develop new varieties for specific locations of interest.

Recently, the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative 2 project, led by Bioversity International, organized a three-day long training workshop on Climate Analogue Tools in order to enhance skills of Nepal and Bhutan project staff in analyzing, interpreting and presenting climate data. 18 scientists, managers, and development professionals representing government organizations, national research programs, gene banks and non-governmental organizations of both countries participated in the training that was facilitated by Bioversity International scientists. 

National kick-off workshop in Guatemala

A market in Guatemala. Photo credit: J Fanzo/Bioversity

by Gea Galluzzi and Isabel Lapeña

The national kick-off workshop for the GRPI2 project “strengthening national capacities to implement the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture” in Guatemala, took place in Guatemala city, 21-22 March 2013. Participants included the Guatemalan team, national authorities from agriculture, environment, biodiversity, trade and IP and staff from Bioversity International and CCAFS. 

Science Seminar: Who has a right to climate change adaptation? Social differentiation in promoting climate resilience

On 18 February, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is organising a seminar (in Copenhagen and streamed live through the CCAFS website) which will explore the social dimensions of climate change: how development programming needs to embrace resilience, the transformative cornerstones of social science research for climate change, and gender and social differentiation in building agricultural climate resilience.  Read more.

CGIAR centres and climate change; new CCAFS working paper

There’s one optimistic conclusion for agriculture under climate change: modelling the future suggests that for many places, the climate they face in 20 or 30 years is already present somewhere on Earth. Farmers and plant scientists can prepare for the future by using something like the Climate Analogues Tool to suggest places to look for crop and varieties that might to some extent be pre-adapted to predicted conditions [http://gismap.ciat.cgiar.org/analogues/].

The next problem, of course, is to access that genetic diversity.

The free movement of the genetic resources themselves and information about them is thus a crucial element in efforts to adapt agriculture to climate change.

A new study of how plant genetic resources move into and out of the CGIAR, carried out for the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program by researchers at Bioversity International and partners, reveals the invisible flows of material and identifies some of the blockages. CGIAR genebanks keep data on the countries accessions come from and the countries that request accessions, and those data are publically available through the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The study reveals that countries are hugely interdependent on one another, and that the multilateral access and benefit-sharing system of the Treaty is enhancing the availability of genetic resources. Some genebanks have sent material to more than 150 countries. And individual countries have received accessions from a similar number of other countries. But there is also troubling evidence that blockages to the flow are becoming more frequent and harder to get around.

CGIAR centres are themselves adapting in response to climate change. Among these changes are closer direct interactions with farmers, national extension services, NGOs and aid agencies and closer cooperation with the private sector. The details of these broader operational strategies, along with the information on flows, can be found in a working paper based on the new study: Flows under stress: availaibility of plant genetic resources in times of climate and policy change, by Isabel López-Noriega, Gea Galluzzi, Michael Halewood, Ronnie Vernooy, Enrico Bertacchini, Devendra Gauchan and Eric Welch. Link to the paper: http://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/21225

The main findings of the paper will be summarized in three forthcoming CCAFS blogs which will be posted on September 14, 21, and 28 [http://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog]. The authors welcome comments and observations which can be posted directly on the CCAFS blog. Or alternatively, send them to Ronnie Vernooy, r.vernooy@cgiar.org

National kick-off workshop in Rwanda

Story by Léontine Crisson and Jean R. Gapusi

On 17 and 18 July 2012 in Kigali, Rwanda, the national kick-off workshop for the project  “Strengthening national capacities to implement the ITPGRFA” took place hosted by the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB). RAB is the coordinating institution of the project and responsible for the implementation of the ITPGRFA. Participants came from various RAB research programmes, delegates from universities, the farmer cooperatives confederation and Bioversity International. Jean Gapusi (RAB), the national focal point for both the ITPGRFA and the Nagoya Protocol (CBD), introduced the project background. He explained that within RAB a taskforce on genetic resources has been set up to work on issues of access and benefit-sharing. He mentioned that Rwanda is in the process of developing regulations on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and of drafting of a bioprospecting policy. Michael Halewood from Bioversity International clarified the steps to operationalize the multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing, first of all the confirmation which of the plant genetic resources from Rwanda  are automatically under the multilateral system (MLS), and which are voluntarily included, followed by the sharing of this information publicly, including through notifying this to the ITPGRFA Secretariat. The crops that are automatically included are those Annex 1 crops and forages that are under the management and control of the national government and in the public domain. He stressed the importance of having the legal space to implement the multilateral system, including knowing who would be authorized to provide materials through use of the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA). Participants then discussed the five research themes of the project.

The second day was dedicated to training. Various more in depth presentations were made. Carlo Fadda from Bioversity International’s regional office in Nairobi introduced concept of ‘climate analogues’ – identifying parts of the world that have a climate that is similar now to the way the climate will be in reference sites in the future. He also introduced the ‘climate analogues tool’ which has been developed by CIAT and the CCAFS (Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security research program of the CGIAR) to assist in such analysis. Through use of the tool, Rwandan research teams will attempt to identify potentially useful germplasm from analogue sites that they can access through the multilateral system. Léontine Crisson, seconded from the Dutch Ministry of Economic affairs, Agriculture and Innovation to Bioversity International, and working with the Rwandese team for three months, introduced the need-to-know about the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing of the CBD, and its relations to the ITPGRFA.

The workshop resulted in participants gaining more knowledge about the project, the International Treaty and its Multilateral system of benefit-sharing, and about relations with the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing under the Biodiversity Convention.