Priority regions for research on dryland cereals and legumes

Glenn Hyman,Jorge Cardona,Silvia Elena Castano,Herlin Espinosa,Shoba Sivasankar,Murali Krishna Gumma,Edward Guevara,John Dixon,Chandrashekhar Biradar,Tunrayo Alabi,Elizabeth Barona,Steve Beebe,Ovidio Rivera

doi:10.12688/f1000research.8657.1

Abstract

Dryland cereals and legumes are important crops in farming systems across the world. Yet they are frequently neglected among the priorities for international agricultural research and development, often due to lack of information on their magnitude and extent. Given what we know about the global distribution of dryland cereals and legumes, what regions should be high priority for research and development to improve livelihoods and food security? This research evaluated the geographic dimensions of these crops and the farming systems where they are found worldwide. The study employed geographic information science and data to assess the key farming systems and regions for these crops. Dryland cereal and legume crops should be given high priority in 18 farming systems worldwide, where their cultivated area comprises more than 160 million ha. These regions include the dryer areas of South Asia, West and East Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central America and other parts of Asia. These regions are prone to drought and heat stress, have limiting soil constraints, make up half of the global population and account for 60 percent of the global poor and malnourished. The dryland cereal and legume crops and farming systems merit more research and development attention to improve productivity and address development problems. This project developed an open access dataset and information resource that provides the basis for future analysis of the geographic dimensions of dryland cereals and legumes.

Highlights

International agricultural research and development programs usually consider the geographic dimensions of crop improvement and farming systems in their efforts to prioritize activities (Hyman et al, 2013)
How can Dryland Cereals and Legumes Agri-Food Systems (DCL) technologies be geographically targeted for achieving the objective of reducing poverty and malnutrition in dryland systems? The present analysis is based on a diverse array of geographic information, and includes new assessments of poverty, drought, heat and other information related to crop improvement and management
The DCL crops are concentrated in 18 farming systems where more than 160 million ha of these crops are cultivated, where more than 60% of the world’s poor live and where the DCL commodity programs have selected target countries based on their fit with dryland systems (Figure 1; Table 1 & Table 7; DCL, 2015; DESA, 2009)

Summary

Introduction

International agricultural research and development programs usually consider the geographic dimensions of crop improvement and farming systems in their efforts to prioritize activities (Hyman et al, 2013). The present analysis is based on a diverse array of geographic information, and includes new assessments of poverty, drought, heat and other information related to crop improvement and management In this way, the study examines the spatial extents of key constraints to DCL crop production, using the most recent spatial data available. The analysis and resulting database provides the first global farming systems information resource for evaluating priorities for DCL crop improvement and management. Tabular data from this analysis is open access and has been published in a data repository (Barona et al, 2016a). The geospatial data used this study can be accessed through a new online digital atlas for dryland cereals and grain legumes (see http://www.eatlasdcl.cgiar.org/)

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