ACRES - Agricultural Climate Resilience to El-Nino in sub-Saharan Africa

与厄尔尼诺Niño有关的干旱使数百万南部非洲小农面临饥饿，与此同时，东非部分地区正在经历高于平均水平的降雨。极端事件对那些调整土地管理方式以变得更加“气候智能型”的农民的不同影响的了解和量化都很差。评估保护性农业（CA）对小农农业系统气候适应能力的影响是这个由经验丰富的跨学科团队领导的比较英亩项目的重点。通过与肯尼亚东南部和马拉维南部过去和正在进行的研究的联系，将使研究的时间组成部分成为可能。这些新数据的更广泛意义将通过对过去CA研究的全大陆荟萃分析来确定，这将提供一个易于访问的数据库，并为全球伙伴组织确定气候特定的土地管理建议，以提供与气候智能型农业实践相关的指导。这将为我们提供重要的见解，了解气候变化评估对提高农业生计的气候适应能力的贡献，并明确考虑农民决策中的社会和性别因素，而这些因素一直是非政府发展组织和政府机构所强调的迫切需求。目前的厄尔尼诺Niño事件为肯尼亚的作物有害生物问题提供了重复研究的机会，特别是考虑到与1997/98年事件的公认相似性（NOAA， 2015年）。这个项目还将与马拉维的研究进行比较，在马拉维，一个正在进行的研究项目正在探索在不同的土地管理做法下，农业部门的决策、气候服务信息的使用和作物病虫害的监测。这两个案例研究区域将采用直接可比的综合参与性和环境作物有害生物调查方法。关于作物病虫害和土地管理决策的新证据将通过参与性方法获得农民对作物病虫害的观察提供，并将通过对两个研究地区的粮仓进行病虫害抽样进行交叉验证。比较案例研究方法及其与更广泛的荟萃分析研究相结合，将使人们更好地了解在土地管理实践方面，哪些措施能够增强对极端气候变化的抵御能力。项目产出将使跨地区的经验学习成为可能，并根据需要以情境化的方式提高对CA能力和局限性的理解，从而为扩展信息提供信息，并指导未来的CA项目规划和机构支持结构。该项目源于两个研究国家的整个项目团队领导的一系列多方利益相关者研究计划活动。这种合作生产或研究重点将使我们能够确保ACRES的产出符合主要捐助者（如世界银行、非洲开发银行、英国国际发展部）、政府部门、非政府组织（基督教援助、国际关怀、全球关怀、全面土地关怀）和私营部门公司（如马拉维南部的Ilovo Sugar）的需求。这些多方利益相关者之间的联系（在治理层面的范围内）将确保研究结果和农业土地管理经验在作为研究重点的小农之外得到分享。

El Niño related droughts are leaving many millions of southern African smallholder farmers facing hunger, whilst at the same time above average rains are being experienced in parts of East Africa. The differential impacts of extreme events on farmers who have adapted their land management practices to become more "climate-smart" are poorly understood and quantified. Assessing the impacts of Conservation Agriculture (CA) on climate resilience of smallholder farming systems is the focus of this comparative ACRES project led by an experienced cross-disciplinary team. A temporal component to studies will be enabled by links to past and ongoing studies in SE Kenya and southern Malawi. The wider significance of such new data will be contextualised through a continent wide meta-analysis of past CA studies that will provide an easily accessible database and identification of climate specific land management advice to global partner organisations to provide context-relevant guidance on Climate Smart Agriculture practices. This will provide vital insights on the contributions of CA to enhancing climate resilience of agricultural livelihoods and explicit consideration of societal and gendered components of farmer decision-making which have been stressed as urgent needs by development NGOs and Government agencies alike. The current El Niño event offers an opportunity for repeat study of crop pest issues in the Kenya case, especially given the recognised similarity to the 1997/98 event (NOAA, 2015). This project will also enable comparison with Malawi studies where an ongoing research programme is exploring CA decision-making, use of climate service information and monitoring of crop pests under different land management practices.Directly comparable integrated participatory and environmental crop pest survey approaches will be adopted in both case study regions. New evidence on crop pests, diseases and land management decisions will be provided by participatory approaches gaining farmers' observations about crop pests / diseases and will be cross-validated by sampling of grain stores for pests and diseases in both study areas. The comparative case study approach, and its alignment to the wider meta-analysis study, will allow for improved understanding of what works in terms of land management practices enhancing resilience to extreme climate variability. The project outputs will enable lesson learning across locations with improved understanding of the capabilities and limitations of CA in a contextualised way as required to inform extension messages and to guide future CA project planning and institutional support structures. The project stems from a series of multi-stakeholder research planning events led from across the project team in both study countries. This co-production or research priorities will enable us to ensure that ACRES outputs are tailored to the needs of major donors (e.g. World Bank, African Development Bank, DFID), Government Departments, NGOs (Christian Aid, Care International, Concern Worldwide, Total Land Care) and to private sector companies (e.g. Ilovo Sugar in southern Malawi). These multiple stakeholder links (at range of governance levels) will ensure that findings and agricultural land management lessons are shared beyond the smallholder farmers who are the focus of the study.