Identifying pathways to improve food security in southern Africa’s mixed crop livestock systems and develop adaptive management strategies to reduce climate induced risks and to increase systems resilience.
CSAG has been involved in the project ”Crop-livestock intensification in the face of climate change: exploring opportunities to reduce risk and increase resilience in Southern Africa using an integrated multi-modeling approach” since May 2012. The project is lead by ICRISAT Bulawayo – International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and has been funded by AgMIP – The Agricultural Model Inter-comparison and improvement Project.
Teams of crop, economic, and climate scientists in southeastern Africa are exploring opportunities to reduce risk and increase resilience in southern Africa using an integrated multi-modeling approach. The project characterizes selected mixed farming systems in southern Africa in terms of biophysical and socio-economic characteristics, develops and evaluates crop-livestock management and climate change adaptation strategies that increase food production, agro-diversity and economic returns, and explores the interactions and synergies of increased diversity and integration and their contribution to reduce risk and increase system resilience.The AgMIP southeastern Africa Project is led and coordinated by Dr. P. Masikati of ICRISAT Bulawayo, with assistance from Dr. O. Crespo of the Climate System Analysis Group, and S. Walker of University of Free State.
The project will increase understanding of challenges and opportunities in the current mixed farming systems of southern Africa for better targeting of interventions to increase systems resilience and reduce climate-induced risk. It will also improve understanding of the interactions and synergies of production system components, such as which combinations bring about profitable production systems and how to use these to facilitate development along sustainable pathways.