CIAT will focus its dryland systems activities in 2013 and beyond on six work packages: 1) landscape and soil health assessment, 2) characterization of representative household typologies, 3) cataloguing and evaluating existing technologies, 4) agronomic surveys of farmers' fields, 5) ex-ante analysis of intervention impacts, and 6) agronomic and technology response trials. Depending on collaborations, CIAT may expand its work to the Western Africa Sahel, Dryland Savanna, Senegal peanut basin, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and the Chinyanja triangle region of South and Eastern Africa which faces issues of soil erosion, nutrient depletion, and deforestation. CIAT will contribute its work to

1. www.ciat.cgiar.org
Summary report and planned activities for
2013 and Beyond
Dryland Systems (CRP1.1)
Fred Kizito (CIAT)

2. Adapted after: Carberry et al., 2011
Frontier trajectories

3. Planned activities
 Work Package 1: Landscape and soil health assessment through farm-plot
characterization
o Biophysical assessments in target sites
o Mapping and classification
 Work Package 2: Characterization of representative household typologies
o Detailed socio-economic survey
o Classify farm/household typologies: technology suitability
o An essential step during up- and out-scaling of technologies
 Work Package 3: Catalogue, characterize and evaluate existing
technologies/interventions
o Identification of the existing technologies and characterizing their
history and evaluating their status can provide information for the
reasons why some technologies have not been adopted or dis-adopted

4. Planned activities
 Work Package 4: Conduct agronomic survey of selected, representative
farmers’ fields
o Provides production estimates under given conditions
o Estimates the effect of improved management on reducing yield gap
between farmer observed and attainable/potential yield
o Design, test and demonstrate best-fit production options: socially
acceptable, economically feasible to address soil, water and crop
management constraints.
 Work Package 5: Conduct ex-ante analysis to evaluate the potential impacts
of interventions (includes Cost-Benefit analysis)
o Entails tradeoffs assessments for ESS, biodiversity and productivity
o Provides broader idea of scenarios under different locations
o Defines 'constraining envelopes' and ‘bounding situations/enabling
environments’
 Work Package 6: Perform agronomic and ‘technology’ response trials
o Supplemental field trials to test the performances
o Classify areas into different ‘potential and constraint envelopes’

5. Next Steps
 CIAT will focus implementing its activities in the 3
action areas:
 Depending on collaborations with other CGs and
CRPs, possibility to expand our activities to the
Western Africa Sahel and Dryland Savanna
Is there a possibility to exploit other areas?
 South and Eastern Africa: the Chinyanja triangle
 Senegal peanut basin: Semi-arid landscapes
 One two ‘satellite sites’ in Ethiopia or Tanzania
Contribute to various SRTs:
SRT3: Sustainable intensification
SRT4: Out-scaling and tradeoff analysis
SRT2: Reducing vulnerability and managing risk
SRT1: Innovation systems

6. The Chinyanja triangle
Key issues:
Soil erosion, nutrient mining and
deforestation