Projets

CASCAID - Capacitating African Smallholders with Climate Advisories and Insurance Development

Completed
Photo: N. Palmer (CIAT)

Project description

CASCAID-II aims to reduce agricultural investment risk from smallholder farm to whole value chains to improve agricultural productivity and food security together with the profitability of agricultural enterprises, in a context of increasing smallholder integration in urban-driven markets. It builds upon experience acquired during the CASCAID-I project, by rooting the development of climate advisories and agricultural insurance in a value chain approach, hence the expanded focus on actors along the value chain (‘next users’) in addition to smallholders (‘end users’).

Specifically, CASCAID-II will work to (i) improve service relevance through embeddedness in phygital data infrastructures that continuously improve stakeholder performance through user feedback loops; (ii) target climate services and CSA options more efficiently through advanced socio-economic and agro-ecological segmentation; and (iii) enhance stakeholder preparedness and decision making through real-time, multi-scale yield forecasting. Promotion of youth entrepreneurship will constitute a key tenet of these infrastructures. Other elements of gender inclusion will be value-chain specific and focus on strengthening gender collaboration across the production and post-harvest stages, and along the harvest quantity-quality continuum. CASCAID-II will link with regional institutions and industrial stakeholders that have agency to transform production systems through policy and investment, and will sharpen focus on the ‘science of delivery’ by implementing operational data infrastructures that excite and grow, wherever appropriate, latent demand for agricultural risk control and transfer solutions. ICRISAT will provide overall project leadership. Project activities and partner engagement will be coordinated by ICRISAT in West Africa and by CIMMYT in East Africa.

Activities

  • Calibration and evaluation of CCAFS Regional Agricultural Forecast Tool (CRAFT/CAM) and development of IT interfaces
  • Identification of priority value chains and scalable CSA technologies
  • Identification of scaling domains (existing and addressable markets)
  • Discussions with communities and selection of beneficiaries
  • Seasonal to inter-annual (SI) and sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) climate forecasts
  • Farm level agro-advisories
  • Delivery of advisory services to beneficiaries and feedback

Expected outcomes

  • 8 million farm households with improved access to capital, with increased benefits for women (millions)
  • 40 institutions or major initiatives that use CCAFS research outputs for services that support farm households' management of climatic risks
  • New investments by state, national, regional and global agencies, informed by CCAFS science and engagement
  • Policy decisions taken (in part) based on engagement and information dissemination by CCAFS

Gender and youth

Promotion of youth entrepreneurship will constitute a key tenet of the project. Other elements of gender inclusion will be value-chain specific and focus on strengthening gender collaboration across the production and post-harvest stages, and along the harvest quantity-quality continuum.

Partners

More information

For more information, please contact the project leaders:

Funding for this project is provided by: