MP1drylands

= **MP 1: Agricultural Systems for the Poor and Vulnerable** = = **Component 1: Integrated agricultural production systems for dry areas** =



This Mega-program (MP1.1) targets the poor and highly vulnerable populations of the dry areas and will develop technology, policy and institutional innovations to improve livelihoods using a systems approach. Two and a half billion people live in these dry areas. They have limited natural resources, are already facing serious environmental constraints and predictions are that rural communities will bear the brunt of climate change.

Agricultural production systems in dry areas are already over-stretched. Enhancing productivity and managing risk through the diversification and sustainable intensification of these systems, using an integrated approach, is therefore critical for ensuring the future livelihoods of farming communities. Experience clearly shows that such an approach has to involve natural resource management, crop and livestock improvement, an enabling policy environment and institutional support to ensure impact in addressing challenges facing farming communities in these areas. Farmers need to understand their soils, manage their water, be crop specialists, understand livestock husbandry, grow trees, add value to their products and blend all into a family business to improve their livelihood, while coping with climatic variability from season to season and the implications of climate change. Agro-ecosystems in dry areas use a mixture of diverse and important staple and other food crops, fodder crops, fiber, rangeland and pasture species, fruit trees, livestock and fish for their livelihoods. Traditional and improved crops and indigenous knowledge combined with improved technologies and information dissemination are important for large scale impact. Knowledge of any one system component in isolation from other components is unlikely to result in major improvements in livelihoods. In order to reduce poverty, and enhance food security and sustain the natural resource base, research with direct participation of local communities is essential to study the complex interactions and find solutions to production constraints within the agro-ecosystems in dry areas.

By definition MP1.1 will work closely with all other MPs and many partners beyond, and add value to the outputs of the MPs to help the poor and vulnerable rural communities. It will also provide information to other MPs on how their bio-physical products, be it water-harvesting approaches and water management, soil management, crop varieties, livestock breeds, fruit tree, conservation agriculture equipment, or policy advise all can interact synergistically to contribute to a resilient production system in dry areas.

The overarching challenge for MP1.1 is to show how it will succeed in delivering benefits to the poor and vulnerable, especially women, in dry area systems. MP1.1 will focus within target areas/systems identified using two criteria: (i) those with the deepest endemic poverty and most vulnerable people often associated with natural resource degradation and environmental variability, and (ii) those with the greatest potential to impact on the poor in the short to medium term.

It prioritizes key agricultural systems for impact, identifies key researchable issues within target systems, increases the efficiency of natural resource use to sustain target systems and develops more resilient agricultural systems that manage risk and variability, promotes ex situ and in situ conservation and sustainable use of dryland agro-biodiversity, improves the productivity and profitability of agricultural systems through sustainable intensification, diversification, added-value product and market linkages and develops new partnerships and models of working together.

Partnerships in MP1.1 will include all major players: farming communities, national research and extension programs, policy makers, international and regional organizations, advanced research institutes (ARIs), civil society organizations (CSOs), NGOs, the private sector, and development agencies are paramount to build on and complement the expertise available, to address the challenges and ensure rapid impact in the fragile and complex agro-ecosystems of dry areas. In many ways MP1.1 brings people and institutions together in the expertise needed in all the phases of the research for development continuum. At the same time the research aims to identify IPGs that can be out-scaled rapidly to other areas with similar agro-ecologies and system properties, so the research findings would spread rapidly and are adopted most widely.