To advance the goals of the Resilient Central America (ResCA) program, we have achieved the following results in the April 2020 to September 2020 semester reporting period. Regarding climate change adaptation, this semester we trained a total of 1141

Global biodiversity hotspots are areas containing high levels of species richness, endemism
and threat. Similarly, regions of agriculturally relevant diversity have been identified where many
domesticated plants and animals originated, and co-occurred with their wild ancestors and relatives.
The agro-biodiversity in these regions has, likewise, often been considered threatened. Biodiversity
and agro-biodiversity hotspots partly overlap, but their geographic intricacies have rarely been

In early 2018, Action Aid Haiti (AAH) approached the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), to collaborate in a project that in the context of climate change, would promote the production of environmentally sustainable crops, and reduce the vulnerability of persons particularly women in rural communities. CTA, based on its mandate and strategic plan for the Caribbean region, agreed to this collaboration.

Fonio (Digitaria exilis(Kippist)Stapf) and Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea(L.)Verdc.) are native crops grown at a small scale in Mali that have potential to support agricultural productivity under climate change. A community biodiversity management approach was explored in this study as a means to reinforce the cultivation of these crops by increasing farmers’ access to intraspecific diversity and developing capacities of community institutions for their management. The research involved six communities in Ségou and Sikasso regions.

Seed systems for vegetatively propagated crops (VPCs) are frequently governed by a regulatory blueprint designed for major cereal crops. This approach tends to disregard the distinct biological characteristics of VPCs, in turn limiting farmers’ access to high-quality planting material and increasing the risk of pest and disease transmission. In this paper, we ask what type of regulatory framework is appropriate for improving farmers’ access to quality VPC planting material, and what the costs, benefits, risks, and unintended consequences are of alternative regulations.

Some of the largest impacts of climate change are expected in the environmentally heterogeneous and species rich high mountain ecosystems. Among those, the Neotropical alpine grassland above the tree line (c. 2,800 m), known as Páramo, is the fastest evolving biodiversity hotspot on earth, and one of the most threatened. Yet, predicting climate responses of typically slow-growing, long-lived plant linages in this unique high mountain ecosystem remains challenging.

Maize remains one of the most important cereal crops grown in small-holder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)(Cairns et al., 2013). Its cultivation is generally characterized by limited input use and low yields. The low yields are often associated with low soil fertility, pest, and diseases, weeds, low and inappropriate use of inputs such as fertilizers (Sanchez, 2002).

To advance the goals of the Resilient Central America (ResCA) program, we have achieved the following results in the October 2019 to March 2020 semester reporting period. Regarding climate change adaptation, this semester we trained a total of 711

One of the main problems for Ethiopian smallholder farmers is a general lack of reliable weather and climate forecasts. The lack of climate forecasting information becomes more and more challenging for smallholder farmers as the variability in weather increases, which results in an unpredictable and highly variable agricultural yield. To address this challenge, the first phase of the platform is to generate and provide relatively better-quality local weather forecasts.

The Building a Sustainable, Integrated Seed System for Cassava in Nigeria (BASICS) was a five-year
(2016-2020) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that worked to strengthen all
components of the cassava seed value chain. The project was led and implemented by the CGIAR
program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas in partnership with International Institute of Tropical
Agriculture (IITA), National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), National Root Crops Research Institute

This book chapter tackles the management and economics of east coast fever. At about the time of ILRAD's establishment in 1973, a vaccination procedure was being developed at the East African Veterinary Research Organization (EAVRO) at Muguga, Kenya. The infection-and-treatment method (ITM) is an immunization procedure against ECF. It involves inoculation of live sporozoites of T. parva, usually in the form of a semi-purified homogenate of T. parva-infected ticks, combined with simultaneous treatment with a dose of a long-acting formulation of the antibiotic oxytetracycline.

The report gives a summary of a policy workshop that was held in December 2019 to discuss the complex issues related to access to and use of genetic resources for climate change adaptation. In particular, the workshop focussed on policies to support the further use in research and breeding, or possible ‘direct use in cultivation’ of materials that performed well in participatory trials supported by these projects.