NRI's Professor of Development Anthropology, John Morton, recently participated in the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an event attended by over 5000 scientists and science educators from around the world.
At this year's meeting, held in San Diego, John presented a paper on "Strengthening Local Agricultural Innovation in the Face of Climate Change", drawing on his own research, explaining the complex, diverse and locally-specific potential impacts of climate change on smallholder agriculture. Helping farmers adapt to these impacts will require a decentralised, participatory and multi-stakeholder approach that incorporates capacity-building for farmers, extensionists and researchers. The presentation also drew on an ongoing project, led by the Institute of Resource Assessment, University of Dar es Salaam, in partnership with Richard Lamboll, Tanya Stathers and others from NRI. This project, "Strengthening Local Agricultural Innovation Systems in Tanzania and Malawi to Adapt to Climate Change", is working with farmer learning groups and regional learning platforms, identifying and testing promising interventions, raising awareness of climate change and promoting a new culture of learning and sharing.