A wider upscaling of the "Farms of the Future" approach in the Sahel

Dansira Dembele(CCAFS West Africa)

The "Farms of the Future" approach is generating a lot of interest for other projects within West Africa

The "Farms of the Future" approach is an innovative approach developed by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) in 2013 to accelerate the adaptation of vulnerable communities to climate change. In West Africa, agricultural systems are dependent on climatic conditions and the threat on food insecurity hangs steadily. To achieve the goal of adaptation, the approach uses the Climate Analogue tool that links localities to similar climates at given times. In doing so, users of the Climate Analogue tool are looking for a location presenting a current climate to the likely future climate of their locality. This is a very good opportunity for these vulnerable communities to plan for their future climate and agricultural system, and thus make the best decisions about their livelihoods. Following this, the inhabitants of one locality may be inspired by the best practices from another thereby improving their adaptive capacity.

In Ghana, exchange visits between Doggoh and Bompari (in Jirapa Districts) provided an opportunity for farmers to learn about the practices and technologies that other farmers from Leo, Biéha, Gouiaro (in Burkina Faso) use as they are likely to face the same climatic reality as these Burkinabe localities.Similarly, the approach has been implemented in all five CCAFS West Africa priority countries: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Senegal. In each of the countries, exchange visits had been organized. For example a south-south exchange visit between Colombia/Honduras and Senegal in September 2013 led to mutual learning of climate change adaptation strategies in the agricultural sector.

The approach has generated a lot of interest for other projects within West Africa. For instance RIC4REC (a project implemented by the International Relief and Development) organized exchange visits among Malian villages experiencing same climatic conditions for mutual learning of climate-smart agriculture practices.

Further reading on Farms of the Future project: