Climate change has many facets, including changes in long-term trends in temperature and rainfall regimes, increased year-to-year variability, and frequency of extreme events. Agriculture is the most affected, particularly in Sahelian countries, due to a scarcity of productive resources. Transitioning towards more resilient food systems requires the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) interventions.

Food security and livelihoods among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are often constrained by limited farm resource endowment. It can be difficult to improve resource endowment given barriers such as low land availability and the unaffordability of agricultural inputs, so here we ask whether farmers can gain a better return on their resources through optimizing their farm strategy in terms of the composition and/or diversity of crop and livestock species raised.

The role of seed systems in nutrition of smallholder farmers has received little attention. This review mapped evidence of impact on nutrition, identifying themes from 43 studies as direct seed supply, improving seed access, and adoption of improved seed. Results had more positive than mixed/negative impacts on food security, household resilience, dietary quality, and diversity and/or nutrition status. Studies were skewed towards cereals and improved seed compared to other species and traditional/indigenous seed, and geared towards seed rather than the seed system.

In Southeast Asia, access to improved forages remains a challenge for smallholder farmers and limits livestock production. We compared seed exchange networks supporting two contrasting livestock production systems to identify bottlenecks in seed availability and determine the influences of the market, institutions, and cultural context of seed exchange, using interview-based methods for ‘seed tracing’ and network analysis.

Although policies can be critical constraining or enabling factors for aquatic food systems (AqFS) development, scarce evaluation of the impacts of existing policies means that decision-makers have limited understanding of how to improve the design and implementation of effective policies. This paper reviews key policy issues in AqFS and how they have been analyzed and assessed to provide context-tailored policy options and guidance. Our review shows that countries face many policy issues but have little analysis on them.

This report is a contribution to ILRI's RECONCILE project Livestock, Climate and System Resilience (LCSR), a research program that aims to improve participatory rangeland management (PRM) uptake by establishing a stronger technical base. The three-year project builds on the gains and lessons learned in the implementation of PRM in Baringo implemented under similar collaborative arrangements and promoted PRM both as a concept for rangelands management and restoration and as a process that promotes sustainable land use, policy and governance of rangelands and pastoral livelihoods systems.

The dry lowlands of Ethiopia are seasonally affected by long periods of low rainfall and, coinciding with rainfall in the Amhara highlands, flood waters which flow onto the lowlands resulting in damage to landscapes and settlements. In an attempt to convert water from storm generated floods into productive use, this study proposes a methodology using remote sensing data and geographical information system tools to identify potential sites where flood spreading weirs may be installed and farming systems developed which produce food and fodder for poor rural communities.

A presentation on how to improve local adaptive capacities and inclusive scaling mechanisms for climate-smart agriculture in Ethiopia. It was delivered at the inception workshop for the CGIAR Initiative for Livestock and Climate by Birgit Habermann

Enhancing farmers' access to improved seeds is essential to increase productivity and ensure food security in the Global South. However, for many socially marginalized groups, seed access is constrained by the weak institutions governing the input supply chains and the dissemination of information.