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

与厄尔尼诺现象有关的干旱使数百万南部非洲小农面临饥饿，与此同时，东非部分地区的降雨量高于平均水平。极端事件对农民的不同影响，这些农民已经调整了他们的土地管理做法，变得更加“气候智能”，但人们对这些影响的理解和量化程度很低。评估保护性农业(CA)对小农耕作系统气候适应能力的影响是由一个经验丰富的跨学科小组领导的这一比较英亩项目的重点。将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链接，使研究的时间部分成为可能。这些新数据的更广泛意义将通过对过去CA研究的全大陆元分析来实现，该分析将为全球合作组织提供一个易于访问的数据库和特定气候的土地管理建议，以提供与气候智能农业实践相关的指导。这将为发展非政府组织和政府机构强调发展非政府组织和政府机构都强调迫切需要的农场主决策的社会和性别因素提供重要的见解。目前的厄尔尼诺事件提供了在肯尼亚案例中重复研究作物病虫害问题的机会，特别是考虑到公认的与1997/98年事件(NOAA，2015)的相似之处。该项目还将能够与马拉维的研究进行比较，马拉维正在进行的研究方案正在探索不同土地管理做法下的CA决策、气候服务信息的使用和作物病虫害的监测。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病虫害调查方法。有关作物病虫害和土地管理决策的新证据将通过参与式方法获得农民对作物病虫害/疾病的观察而提供，并将通过对两个研究地区的粮仓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的一致性，将使人们能够更好地了解在土地管理做法方面是什么在提高对极端气候变化的复原力方面起作用。项目产出将能够在不同地点吸取教训，并根据需要以情景方式更好地了解CA的能力和局限性，以告知扩展信息并指导未来的CA项目规划和机构支助结构。该项目源于两个研究国家整个项目团队领导的一系列多方利益攸关方研究规划活动。这种联合生产或研究优先事项将使我们能够确保英亩产量符合主要捐助者(如世界银行、非洲开发银行、英国国际开发署)、政府部门、非政府组织(基督教援助组织、国际关爱组织、全球关注组织、全面土地关爱组织)和私营部门公司(如马拉维南部的Ilovo Sugar)的需求。这些多个利益攸关方的联系(在各种治理级别)将确保分享调查结果和农地管理经验教训，而不限于作为研究重点的小农。

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.