A scoping review of research funding for small-scale farmers in water scarce regions

Vincent Ricciardi,Ellen Mccullough,Meha Jain,Divya Solomon,Zia Mehrabi,Cecile Godde,Jaron Porciello,Balsher Singh Sidhu,Florian Diekmann,Nicola Randall,Abdrahmane Wane

doi:10.1038/s41893-020-00623-0

Abstract

Water scarcity is a global issue that disproportionately affects small-scale farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Through geospatial analysis, we estimated that less than 37% of small-scale farms probably have irrigation in water scarce regions across LMICs, compared with 42% of non-small-scale farms. Through a literature synthesis assisted by machine learning, we then systematically mapped the existing research for on-farm interventions that improve the incomes or yields of small-scale farmers in water scarce regions. We mapped over 888 on-farm interventions used to combat water scarcity from 560 publications and showed a research bias towards yields rather than livelihoods. We found gaps in evidence for many commonly proposed solutions, including livestock management, digital technology and solutions to protect natural resources at the farm-level, such as buffer strips. Our findings can be used to set a funding agenda for research on the geographies that are most at risk of water scarcity and the interventions that most lack evidence.

Highlights

The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have motivated the development community to focus on improving the livelihoods and climate resilience of small-scale farms
We focused on studies that tested the effects of on-farm interventions on small-scale farmers’ incomes or yields in water scarce regions across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)
We found that 76.7% of small-scale farms and 72.4% of small-scale farm area across all LMICs were probably located in water scarce regions

Summary

Introduction

The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have motivated the development community to focus on improving the livelihoods and climate resilience of small-scale farms. Many interventions (such as water harvesting, soil improvement strategies, drought-resistant crops and livestock breed selection) are heterogeneous and their impacts can vary across physical, social and political dimensions[12] This creates a challenge for donors seeking to focus their investments around the goals of increasing food production, improving livelihoods and reducing climate vulnerability for small-scale farmers. The evidence base addressing interventions to improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in water scarce regions is limited Structured evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews and meta-analyses do exist[13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20], as do more traditional literature reviews[21,22], but all tend to focus on subtopics such as conservation agriculture, irrigation or policy frameworks. Our research identifies countries that have limited research for adaptation solutions, yet Nature Sustainability | VOL 3 | October 2020 | 836–844 | www.nature.com/natsustain

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