Cecilia's blog

Staying one step ahead of South Asia's climate challenge

Submitted by Cecilia on 10th May 2013
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Workshop in Bagladesh covered how to manage future issues within agriculture

By guest blogger S. Gopikrishna Warrier

What can be done today to protect South Asia’s agriculture from climate change impacts occurring in 2020?

To find crafty and viable solutions to this question, experts from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka joined forces with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) South Asia, in Dhaka, Bangladesh in late February of this year. Read more »

Smart made even smarter: Gender addressed in new brief on climate smart agriculture

Submitted by Cecilia on 8th May 2013
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by Kristi Foster

Livelihood- and climate focused agricultural practices help farmers to sustainably increase their farm productivity and build resilience to climate change, while contributing to mitigation. But how does this type of farming — commonly known as climate-smart agriculture or CSA — interact with gender in real-life communities?

In the newly released policy brief, Addressing Gender in Climate-Smart Smallholder Agriculture researchers from CARE International, the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) share their insights on gender. The brief highlights the importance of a flexible learning approach in advancing gender equity goals and improving outcomes for farmers and projects.

The Sustainable Agriculture in a Changing Climate (SACC) project, on which the policy brief is based, has gleaned several important insights into gender and CSA: Read more »

If understood properly, crop insurance a viable solution for farmers

Submitted by Cecilia on 2nd May 2013
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Crop insurance for farmers can be a viable solution to ensure income stability

by Hilde Zevenbergen

Tamil Nadu is a state in Southern India that sets itself apart from other agriculture-dependent regions, as it has historically performed rather well when it comes to agricultural production. One reason is that here, farmers are relatively more responsive and receptive to changing technologies and market forces.

To learn more about these farmers' adaptability to new technologies and potential experiences with crop insurance, especially from community-based crop insurance structures, researchers ventured out into Vellore, a Tamil Nadu district. The objective was to find out if climate insurance schemes could be a viable instrument to help farmers manage ongoing weather related risks, and how it has been used up to now in this area via community-based insurance activities.

The initial findings from the field study show that even if insurance schemes could be a solution to decrease vulnerability and ensure income stability, farmers’ awareness of the product and its functions need to be strengthened in order to make sure it is used efficiently. Read more »

Unfolding results: CCAFS research put into action

Submitted by Cecilia on 29th April 2013
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The 2012 Annual Report of CCAFS shows how research is turning into action

by Bruce Campbell

Last year was an exciting time for us, as our targeted research unfolded into actions on the ground. Successful outcomes, as well as outcomes-in-the-making, can now be reviewed in our newly released 2012 Annual Report: Unfolding results: CCAFS Research into Action.

For the last two years, CCAFS has had the opportunity to operate as a CGIAR Research Program. During this time, we have made sure to actively build partnerships and capacity, engage with all the other CGIAR Programs, and ensure that activities across all of our research sites have been targeted.

These strategic measurements have ensured that conducted research is not only assisting smallholder farmers, extension workers and agriculture organizations with climate change adaptation and mitigation, but our research has also been fed into high-level policy deliberations on agriculture and climate change worldwide.

CCAFS science inform policies Read more »

Innovation matchmaking links climate innovators

Submitted by Cecilia on 25th April 2013
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Farmers got to know each other at the Dublin conference

by Shauna Monkman

Sharing knowledge and best practices across different levels of an agricultural system promotes health and resilience. The art, however, is not in connecting different people, but in finding ways to facilitate discussions so that voices can be heard and understood outside of individual comfort zones. 

A Hunger, Nutrition and Climate Justice Dialogue in Dublin last week answered this challenge by aiming to improve food security through cross system dialogues.  The conference brought farmers, policy makers, civil servants, scientists and select business leaders together to share knowledge and to highlight examples of how science and policy makers are successfully working with local populations - especially farmers.  Read more »

Is gender being considered within climate services?

Submitted by Cecilia on 24th April 2013
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Gender matters when it comes to farmers accessing climate information

by Sarah McKune and Chesney McOmber

In a world that is rapidly becoming more connected through the internet, mobile phones and other Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), climate information has a new potential to reach farmers in rural communities worldwide and make a significant difference in their ability to successfully adapt to their changing environment.

However, despite the great potential of emerging communication technologies, the question remains whether those farmers who are most vulnerable to environmental shocks are able to access and utilize the tools to effectively manage the associated risk.   Read more »

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