Questions to be addressed include:(a) How do agroecology, enabling conditions, market opportunities and farming systems determine options for natural resource management that will result in more resilient, profitable and nutritiously secure livelihoods? (b) What patterns of land use optimize productivity while conserving natural resources? (c) Which low-cost farm-mechanization options improve productivity, labor-use efficiency and reduce drudgery, particularly for women and youth? (d) What modalities can be used to promote adoption of research outputs, including the role of the private sector, rural entrepreneurs, farmers’ organizations and policies, and how can this be scaled out?
Outputs:(a) Suitable synergistic systems in rotation for crop intensification and diversification with intra- and intercrops/sequential crops based on the length of the growing period assessed; (b) Suitable dual-purpose and disease-resistant cultivars to improve systems productivity and fodder identified and made available; (c) Inclusion of annual legumes and diverse locally adapted crops into dryland systems that enhance ecosystem services assessed; (d) Gender and age-sensitive small-farm mechanization options to conserve scarce natural resources and labor-efficient crop management options for enhanced productivity and profitability under dryland systems assessed; and (e) Collective arrangements and business models to enhance access to technologies including low-cost farm mechanization developed.
