Nouvelles

In this article, Pramod Aggarwal, CCAFS South Asia Regional Program Leader, points out that sustainable agriculture must build capacity to adapt to climate variability so that farmers can conserve resources during years of good rainfall and harvests to adjust for years with poor production. A good project also involves partnering with local governments, he said, to ensure stability.

“In developing countries, climate variability has always been a challenge and will continue to be,” Aggarwal says. “Climate change has brought more focus to this issue, which is intricately linked to poverty, social tensions, and migration.”

Larger-scale innovation to make staple crops like rice, which is labor- and resource-intensive, and maize more climate-resilient is essential for the future because “not everyone can be growing vegetables—it’s not taking care of food security,” he says.