International Institutional Awards Tranche 2 Rothamsted
Lead Research Organisation:
Rothamsted Research
Department Name: Sustainable Soils and Crops
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
| Description | UK-CGIAR Proposal Development |
| Organisation | International Institute of Tropical Agriculture |
| Country | Nigeria |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Development of a bid in the area of Climate Smart Agronomy, with funding provisionally approved by UK-CGIAR Centre to begin in April 2025. Project Title: A Climate-Smart Agronomy Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (AgVACS). Supporting smallholder farmer decision making through participatory experimental-modeling networks in West Africa |
| Collaborator Contribution | We used funds to support large project development activities: AgVACS Project Summary: The principal development challenge addressed by our project is the poor climate adaptation preparedness in agricultural systems in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) of SSA. The AgVACS project will contribute to achieving more resilient and equitable food systems in Ghana and Nigeria, by responding to key questions identified by the Sustainable Farming Program and Vision for Adapted Crops & Soils (VACS), i.e., where and what to plant, what crop management system to adopt, and how to apply these management systems to diverse crops. Our primary research question is: 'How can VACS crops be integrated into climate-smart agronomy to improve productivity, resilience and sustainability of smallholder farming systems?'. Crops identified by the VACS program will be prioritized, including Bambara groundnut and pigeon pea, and selected for testing with partner farmers represented by a range of typologies across variable soil conditions. This project will be guided by (i) co-design principles to embed a comprehensive set of equity and system metrics, (ii) statistical design principles to optimize experiments, (iii) reuse of legacy soil and cropping system information, and (iv) modeling principles which include stakeholder preferences, to test and scale interventions across a range of conditions including under climate change. The recruitment of new partners, knowledge dissemination, and an information management framework will be embedded. Project findings may inform decision making from field, to farm, to landscape, to sub-national/national and global scales. Project outcomes will support the transition to more diverse and sustainable food systems suited to local contexts, including consumer and market demands. The project will co-create participatory experimental-modeling networks that support in-depth assessment of agronomic practices and varieties aligned to VACS, across dimensions of productivity, equity, and environmental sustainability. These networks and approaches will have wider applicability across different problems, interventions and settings. The project will work in synergy with Agronomy Science and Scaling Acceleration Platforms (ASSAPs) in Ghana and Nigeria, to maximise the relevance and scaling potential of project outcomes. ASSAPs are multi-stakeholder partnerships, brought together based on prioritized geographies, farming systems or agronomic challenges in these target areas. These partnerships enable the bundling of (i) component technologies, required to resolve a particular set of problems, e.g., the combination of seed, fertilizer, and knowledge, and (ii) specific services, required to take those technology/innovation bundles to scale, including access to finance and insurance and engagement of agro-dealer networks and empowered extension agents. The ASSAP networks will be used to implement prioritized activities developed with active involvement of delivery and scaling partners, who will facilitate the direct engagement of farming communities. The ASSAP networks will thus have immediate access to the solutions generated by the project and integrate these into their respective portfolios of solutions of relevance for the target areas and farming systems covered by the ASSAPs. |
| Impact | Not yet |
| Start Year | 2024 |