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Innovative Pilot Scheme Would Match Seeds to the Needs of Women Farmers
Winner
2009-3959
Bioversity International
Ethiopia
200000
Climate Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management
Environment
2010
In Ethiopia, climate change is behind crop failures, posing a threat to food security. A DM grant will enable Bioversity International to protect the livelihoods of some 200 vulnerable women farmers, by providing access to seeds for locally-adapted varieties of crops. The project draws from gene banks, indigenous know ledge and farmer know-how, as well as traditional ways of adapting to climate variability.
Objectives:
To develop an innovative, low-cost strategy for managing risks to agricultural systems posed by the adverse effects of climate change through the use of locally adapted crop varieties in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of at least 200 vulnerable women farmers at two target sites. The project seeks to impact development by ensuring vulnerable farmers access to better-adapted varieties of vital food crops to mitigate climate-change risks to food security.
Rationale:
Women farmers in Ethiopia are the primary seed custodians who must confront significant climate uncertainty every year and who regularly face food shortages as crops fail. Farmers employ locally available and indigenous varieties to hedge their bets. While this constitutes a valid adaptive strategy to confront climate variability, locally available varieties may no longer be sufficient. Communities need to look further than their neighbors’ fields for the best-adapt
Innovation / Expected Results:
This project provides a unique framework for combining an improved understanding of climate change scenarios in Ethiopia and available crop-diversity information from a range of sources (including genebanks) with farmers’ own experience, indigenous knowledge, and traditional adaptation strategies.