Building Resilience into Agricultural Research.

In much of Africa, seasonal rainfall predictions are often generalized, limiting their usefulness in practically guiding responsive management on the farms, including choice of appropriate cropping regimes that best-fit expected rainfall quality. Soils are often degraded, limiting rainfall infiltration. Farmers are, therefore, exposed to climatic risk in environments with high inter- and intra-season rainfall variability, making fertilizer investments unattractive under sub-optimal soil moisture. Simple approaches that use ecological provisions of legumes to increase soil organic matter and soil water storage/intake must be applied at scale to buffer farmers against soil moisture stresses. This is a key link towards improved resource use efficiencies on the farms. This session will include description and discussion of how best to address risk reduction and resilience in agriculture and food systems research programs. Case studies from Sub-Saharan Africa in which multiple private and public sector partners have developed innovative approaches to reduce risk and increase resilience will be highlighted.