Building a research-for-development partnership for thriving drylands in a changing climate
1. International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
icarda.org cgiar.org
A CGIAR Research Center
Building a research-for-development partnership for
thriving drylands in a changing climate
Vinay Nangia
Global Team Lead – Soil, Water,
and Agronomy
ICARDA
December 6, 2019
3. • Adverse effects of climate change are
more pronounced in the drylands
• Leads to vulnerable, unsustainable
and unpredictable farming
• Variability and evolution of climate,
diet and demography caused by
changing edapho-climatic factors
Climate change and increasing needs
30%
50%
70%
Food
Energy
Water
2019 2050
9BILLION
4. 4
ICARDA is a decentralized R4D international institute focusing on
dryland agriculture that combines component and systems research
Staff: 400
Scientists: 80
5. ICARDA’s Mission
• Reduce poverty, enhance food and
nutritional insecurity, protect natural
resources through science,
partnership and capacity building
• Demand-driven research, addressing
the challenges of smallholder
farmers, women, youth
• Our strategy is aligned with
• Sustainable Development Goals
• National development priorities
• CGIAR’s Strategic Results
Framework 2016-2030
8. High unemployment,
unrest and migration
Food and nutrition insecurity
Demographic changes, gender
inequality
Land degradation and desertification
Loss of agrobiodiversity
High water scarcity and low efficiently
Double impact of climate change; increasing
temperature and reducing precipitation
Urbanization and heat islands
The Perfect Storm
Conflicts and Fragility
Malnutrition
High Population
Land Degradation
Loss of Biodiversity
Water Scarcity
Climate change
9. We need to move faster
Only 10 harvests before 2030
13. Module 1. Combine knowledge of proven
technologies to design systemic innovations
14. Out-scale and upscale
Apply research
Systemic Innovation
Policies
Co-Innovation
Guide research
Module 2. Accelerate scaling-up of impact-targeted
innovations
Ex-ante and ex post assessment
IntegrateCo/re-design Co-learning Improve Implement
Share
knowledge
Adaptationtoclimatechange
Sustainabledevelopment
Non-tropical dry areas cover over 40% of the world’s land surface and span 100 developing countries, with a growing population of more than 2.5 billion people. These people grow 44% of the world’s food and keep half of the world’s livestock, yet almost one-fifth live in chronic poverty.
Dry areas also face major challenges, including insufficient rainfall, climate variability and change, land degradation, desertification, recurring droughts, temperature extremes, high population growth, widespread poverty, and unemployment.
Additionally, dry areas are home to many fragile and post-conflict states that rely on heavily agrarian economies.
Introduction
Climate change is a reality and its adverse effects are more pronounced in drylands, leading to vulnerable, unsustainable and unpredictable farming due to a range of changed edapho-climatic factors arising from variability and evolution of climate, diet and demography. Drylands, delineated into rainfed, irrigated, agro-pastoral and desert farming, cover more than one third of planet’s land and are home to more than one-third of the population. Without access to information and technology, farming in these lands can greatly suffer during dry seasons and face catastrophic losses during periodic droughts. Over the decades and centuries, the farming techniques have changed from traditional, where most of farm operations used to be done manually, to modern farming more productive in term of land and labour but more dependent on industrial and financial inputs. However, by 2050, we expect a population of 9 billion that will cause a "perfect storm" of food, energy and water shortages as demand for fresh water, food and energy will climb by 30%, 70% and 100%, respectively. Therefore, a paradigm shift is needed to produce more nutritious food from less land, water, and inputs without further pressure on the declining natural resources. ICARDA and its national and international partners aim to develop this new paradigm for the drylands with a smart combination of traditional knowledge and new technologies, using multicriteria and multiscale systems methodologies to build resilient and sustainable agroecosystems.