Development of a method to study farmer’s social and cultural barriers to improve their adaptive capacity based on farmers exchanges between climatic analogues locations
The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is a strategic ten-year partnership emerging from a new collaboration between the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). Through this union, CCAFS brings together strategic research in agricultural science, development research, climate science, and Earth System science, to overcome the threats that a changing climate poses to food security, rural livelihoods and the environment.
CCAFS has issued a call for proposals from all types of organizations, or individuals, and strong preference is to be given to research groups with proven track record in sociology or anthropology and rural development. The objective of this project is to work with the analogue tool that CCAFS has developed for examining both spatial and temporal analogues based on multiple climate projections. This project will address the following working hypothesis: by identifying and connecting analogue sites, research can: 1) enable farmers to better envision how their site-specific agricultural future might look, and 2) permit targeted on-the-ground testing of cropping systems’/technologies’ climate resilience. In sum, the project hopes to learn the potential for the climate analogues tool/methodology to improve farmers’ adaptive capacities and preparedness for eventual transformation adaptation. CCAFS will provide the validated climate analogue tool and help identify the specific locations to be studied.
Specific objectives of the “Farms of the Future” project:
– To devise, test and validate the “Farms of the Future” approach built on farmer-to-farmer exchanges to analogue sites as a valuabe option to improve adaptive capacity and support knowledge transfer.
– To improve understanding of local practices and available tools for enabling change, as well as cultural, economic, or institutional obstacles to such adaptive change.
Geographic targets: East Africa, West Africa and Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP).
Expected outputs:
– Development of the Farms of the Future methodology to facilitate farmer-to-farmer exchanges, which includes social and gender differentiation and innovative approaches that promote knowledge sharing among farmer communities, and which can be applied to different geographical regions with significant cultural/agricultural differences.
– Identification of innovative adaptation and mitigation options and their scope of application.
– Selected written material organized into a peer-reviewable journal article on the farms of the future experience and methodologies.
– Synthesis report of findings from a farmer exchanges including: a) analysis on the approach and recommendations for further up scaling and implementation, b) documentation of the effects of socio-cultural characteristics on the learning process, use and potential adoption of new mitigation and adaptation practices.
Budget
Up to US$ 100,000 available for this call (CCAFS will provide additional direct support in the regional logistics for the farmer exchanges to the sum of US$ 30k per region)
Duration of Study
1 August 2011 – 1 June 2012 (11 months)
Deadline for submitting the proposal is July 15, 2011
For further details and information, please visit this link.
