Upscaling the "Farms of the Future"

The most promising soil and water management practices will be scaled up. Photo: N. Palmer (CIAT)

ccafs.cgiar.org - by Mathieu Ouedraogo, Sibiri Jean Ouedraogo, Sekou Toure, Maimouna Fane - August 11, 2015

A collaboration among regional research institutes and National Agricultural Research Systems establishes strong partnership for upscaling the “farms of the future” approach.

In West Africa, climate change brings new challenges to agriculture. Among other things, it is straining the livelihoods of the rural population, given their high dependence on the climate.

Because these challenges cannot be addressed by one research institution alone, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) tackles the problem through an intervention approach based on a worldwide strategic collaboration between CGIAR and Future Earth.

At the regional level, this strategy is based on an expanded partnership between regional CCAFS programmes and national agricultural research systems (NARS), sub-regional and regional institutions, NGOs and regional farmer umbrella organisations. These structures, which act as next user set, constitute a key pillar for the dissemination of approaches, techniques and options for adaptation to climate change developed by CCAFS.

It is within this context that a group of institutions realised the project for "Enhancing the Resilience and Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change of farmers in semi-arid West Africa (ENRACCA-WA)”. The project was implemented by the Sahel Institute (INSAH), a specialised institution of the Permanent Inter-State Committee on Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), in partnership with CCAFS.

Further partners include the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (WECARD) and the national agricultural research institutes of Ghana (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research), Mali (Institute of Rural Economy) and Senegal (Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research).

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