What is known about the likely impacts of climate change on resource-poor livestock keepers in the developing world? Relatively little, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) are working to improve this knowledge. This Brief outlines how a group of scientists at ILRI reviewed some elements of the complex relationship between livestock and climate change in developing countries with a forward-looking approach.

JRC, CCAFS jointly sponsored the workshop on June 13-14, 2012, at the JRC in Ispra, Italy, to identify avenues for exploiting remote sensing information to improving crop forecasting in smallholder farming environments. The workshop’s objectives were:

Transitioning to climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in the African context requires a transformational architecture — a systematic shift away from business as usual and a comprehensive programme for building the adaptive capacity of physical, socio-economic, human and institutional dimensions of farming systems. Manyewu Mutamba of the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) and Mainza Mugoya of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF) argue that African agriculture is long overdue for a radical transformation to increase productivity sustainably.

The debate around the role that agriculture should play in mitigating climate change and sequestering greenhouse gases is politically complex and technically complicated. In many countries, and particularly in developing countries with a large smallholder population, the agricultural sector faces competing priorities, such as national food security goals, poverty alleviation, addressing natural resource degradation and adapting to the already visible effects of climate change.

Decentralized governance of natural resources is considered one of the key strategies for promoting sustainable management of natural resources at local level. Effective decentralized natural resource management requires strong local natural resource institutions. Therefore, strengthening local institutions governing the management of natural resources is one of the core principles of decentralization reforms in Francophone West Africa countries.

Commune Agroecosystems Analysis (CAEA) is a participatory analysis methodology used by the Department of Agricultural Extension to identify and prioritize agricultural development needs at the commune level. This manual provides a step-by-step procedure to implement CAEA