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In Cameroon, as in other countries of the Congo basin region, policy processes and activities related to climate change have been hitherto geared mostly towards mitigation and related questions, with limited concern about adaptation issues. However, the increasing vulnerability of Cameroon to climate variability and change makes adaptation significant to its national climate-change policy. Nonetheless, it remains a challenge to make both adaptation and mitigation occupy the same policy space in Cameroon. This paper builds partly on studies carried out in two community forest carbon initiatives in the southern rainforest of Cameroon. It also argues, supported by existing literature on adaptation and mitigation, that mitigation activities have the potential to produce adaptation outcomes; a situation which avoids duplication of efforts and waste of financial and technical resources, if synergetic options are anticipated and planned. However, whether such integrated approaches succeed and are subsequently reflected in national-level climate policy depends on how actors across different sectors and at different levels engage and carry out their roles. The paper discusses these roles and how they can support each other in pursuing integrated initiatives – a context which is vital for Cameroon.

There is limited attention to impacts of climate change on pigs in Uganda by stakeholders, despite the potential vulnerability of pigs to climate change. Pigs are sensitive to heat-stress, as they do not have functioning sweat glands as other livestock species do, and have small lungs which reduces their ability to disseminate heat by panting. The objectives of the study were to i) determine the heat-stress status in pigs, ii) analyze factors influencing heat-stress, and iii) explore the heat-stress adaptation options in Lira District, Uganda. Lira was selected because of presence of both rural & urban areas and expected heat stress throughout the year in the district. The data including household demographics, management systems, age, color, breeds, body/skin temperature, rectal temperature and others were collected from 104 households and 259 pigs during the hot months in Ojwina and Barr sub-counties- Lira district. We collected data on adaptation options during the four gender disaggregated focus group discussions. Weather data was collected during the time of administering the questionnaire, and it was complemented with data from Ngetta Meteorological Station, Lira. STATA, 14

Coupling technological advances with sociocultural and policy changes can transform agri-food systems to address pressing climate, economic, environmental, health and social challenges. An international expert panel reports on options to induce contextualized combinations of innovations that can balance multiple goals.

Asseng, S. et al. Crop models are essential tools for assessing the threat of climate change to local and global food production1. Present models used to predict wheat grain yield are highly uncertain when simulating how crops respond to temperature2. Here we systematically tested 30 different wheat crop models of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project against field experiments in which growing season mean temperatures ranged from 15 °C to 32 °C, including experiments with artificial heating. Many models simulated yields well, but were less accurate at higher temperatures. The model ensemble median was consistently more accurate in simulating the crop temperature response than any single model, regardless of the input information used. Extrapolating the model ensemble temperature response indicates that warming is already slowing yield gains at a majority of wheat-growing locations. Global wheat production is estimated to fall by 6% for each °C of further temperature increase and become more variable over space and time. We thank the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project and its leaders C. Rosenzweig from NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University (USA), J. Jones from University of Florida (USA), J. Hatfield from United States Department of Agriculture (USA) and J. Antle from Oregon State University (USA) for support. We also thank M. Lopez from CIMMYT (Turkey), M. Usman Bashir from University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (Pakistan), S. Soufizadeh from Shahid Beheshti University (Iran), and J. Lorgeou and J-C. Deswarte from ARVALIS—Institut du Végétal (France) for assistance with selecting key locations and quantifying regional crop cultivars, anthesis and maturity dates and R. Raymundo for assistance with GIS. S.A. and D.C. received financial support from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). C.S. was funded through USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture award 32011-68002-30191. C.M. received financial support from the KULUNDA project (01LL0905L) and the FACCE MACSUR project (031A103B) funded through the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). F.E. received support from the FACCE MACSUR project (031A103B) funded through the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (2812ERA115) and E.E.R. was funded through the German Science Foundation (project EW 119/5-1). M.J. and J.E.O. were funded through the FACCE MACSUR project by the Danish Strategic Research Council. K.C.K. and C.N. were funded by the FACCE MACSUR project through the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). F.T., T.P. and R.P.R. received financial support from FACCE MACSUR project funded through the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MMM); F.T. was also funded through National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41071030). C.B. was funded through the Helmholtz project ‘REKLIM—Regional Climate Change: Causes and Effects’ Topic 9: ‘Climate Change and Air Quality’. M.P.R. and P.D.A. received funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS). G.O’L. was funded through the Australian Grains Research and Development Corporation and the Department of Environment and Primary Industries Victoria, Australia. R.C.I. was funded by Texas AgriLife Research, Texas A&M University. E.W. and Z.Z. were funded by CSIRO and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) through the research project ‘Advancing crop yield while reducing the use of water and nitrogen’ and by the CSIRO-MoE PhD Research Program. Peer reviewed

AbstractThis Analysis presents a recently developed food system indicator framework and holistic monitoring architecture to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience. Each theme is divided into three to five indicator domains, and indicators were selected to reflect each domain through a consultative process. In total, 50 indicators were selected, with at least one indicator available for every domain. Harmonized data of these 50 indicators provide a baseline assessment of the world’s food systems. We show that every country can claim positive outcomes in some parts of food systems, but none are among the highest ranked across all domains. Furthermore, some indicators are independent of national income, and each highlights a specific aspiration for healthy, sustainable and just food systems. The Food Systems Countdown Initiative will track food systems annually to 2030, amending the framework as new indicators or better data emerge.

This is the first book to examine explicitly the non-timber goods and services provided by plantation forests, including soil, water and biodiversity conservation, as well as carbon sequestration and the provision of local livelihoods. The authors show that, if we require a higher provision of ecosystem goods and services from both temperate and tropical plantations, new approaches to their management are required. These include policies, methods for valuing the services, the practices of small landholders, landscape approaches to optimise delivery of goods and services, and technical issues about how to achieve suitable solutions at the scale of forest stands. While providing original theoretical insights, the book also gives guidance for plantation managers, policy-makers, conservation practitioners and community advocates, who seek to promote or strengthen the multiple-use of forest plantations for improved benefits for society.

Diversification of production to strengthen resilience is a key tenet of climate-smart agriculture (CSA), which can help to address the complex vulnerabilities of agriculture-dependent rural communities. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the promotion of different CSA practices across four climate-smart villages (CSVs) in Myanmar. To determine the impact of the CSA practices on livelihoods and health, survey data were collected from agricultural households (n = 527) over three years. Within the time period studied, the results indicate that some the CSA practices and technologies adopted were significantly associated with changes in household dietary diversity scores (HDDS), but, in the short-term, these were not associated with improvements in the households’ food insecurity scores (HFIAS). Based on the survey responses, we examined how pathways of CSA practice adoption tailored to different contexts of Myanmar’s four agroecologies could contribute to the observed changes, including possible resulting trade-offs. We highlight that understanding the impacts of CSA adoption on household food security in CSVs will require longer-term monitoring, as most CSA options are medium- to long-cycle interventions. Our further analysis of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAPs) amongst the households indicated a poor understanding of the household knowledge, attitudes and practices in relation to nutrition, food choices, food preparation, sanitation and hygiene. Our KAP findings indicate that current nutrition education interventions in the Myanmar CSVs are inadequate and will need further improvement for health and nutrition outcomes from the portfolio of CSA interventions.

West and East Africa experience high vari- ability of rainfall that is expected to increase with climate change. This results in fluctuations in water availability for food production and other socioeconomic activities. Water harvesting and storage can mitigate the adverse effects of rainfall variability. But past studies have shown that when investments in water storage are not guided by environ- mental health considerations, the increased availability of open water surface may increase the transmission of water- related diseases. This is demonstrated for schistosomiasis associated with small reservoirs in Burkina Faso, and for malaria in Ethiopia around large dams, small dams, and water harvesting ponds. The concern is that the rush to develop water harvesting and storage for climate change adaptation may increase the risk for already vulnerable people, in some cases more than canceling out the benefits of greater water availability. Taking health issues into account in a participatory approach to planning, design, and management of rainwater harvesting and water storage, as well as considering the full range of water storage options would enable better opportunities for enhancing resilience against climate change in vulnerable populations in sub-Saharan Africa.