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This review paper addresses the importance of increasing agrobiodiversity to cope with climate change and, at the same time, providing a sufficient amount of healthy food. This is in agreement with the messages from ecology and medicine indicating the advantages of biodiversity in general and agrobiodiversity in particular for the planet and for our health. Plant breeding is considered to be one of the causes of the decline in agrobiodiversity, and therefore, this paper illustrates alternatives to the commonly used approach based on centralized selection. The first alternative is decentralized participatory breeding, which adapts crops to both different agronomic environments and client preferences, representing an "option by context" model of research. The second alternative is evolutionary breeding, which is a more dynamic strategy than participatory plant breeding because it merges the advantages of decentralization with the ability of dynamic mixtures and evolutionary populations to cope with biotic and abiotic stresses and evolve, thus adapting to climate change and to the associated changes in the spectrum of pests. A crop capable of evolving as the environment around it evolves appears to be the most ideal way of responding to climate change and increasing agricultural biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interconnectedness between climate change and development has generated an increasing interest amongst development organisations to integrate adaptation into government rural development plans in a way that effectively increases resilience at a local level. However, the nature of climate change resilience is widely debated in the literature, and there is a knowledge gap regarding the best way to address adaptation at the interface with development objectives as part of mainstreaming. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap via a case study of a community-based, Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) project in Vietnam. A case study approach was applied with fieldwork at one project site, complemented by semi-structured interviews with government stakeholders, key experts, and project leaders of related projects. The analysis identifies five key factors that enhance rural resilience in a smallholder agricultural context: (i) engaging local governments as partners, (ii) considering broader landscape issues such as markets, (iii) providing farmers with support to facilitate adoption of CSA practices, (iv) fostering community capacity building, and (v) promoting adaptive management and scenario planning to deal with uncertainty. The paper concludes that resilience is multidimensional and not solely in line with any one of the approaches dominant in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) represents a substantial area of the terrestrial landmass encompassing several countries and ecosystems. This area is generally drier and warmer compared to the rest of the world, and has extreme resource limitations that are highly vulnerable to a changing climate, geopolitical instability and land degradation. This paper will first identify the nature of climate change in the region by analyzing a downscaled climate data and identifying the hotspots of climate change in MENA. It was found that the climate vulnerability is quite high, with the mean annual temperature increasing by as much as 4–6 degrees towards the end of the century. The nature precipitation under climate change is quite speculative, with the Maghreb region showing the highest vulnerability. Based on these results, five action points are postulated that may be implemented to rapidly progress our understanding of climate vulnerability and enhance the climate change preparedness in MENA's agri-food sector, to take necessary actions to adapt to a changing climate with a systemic resilience perspective. These include working towards: (1) enhancing the sustainability of the rainfed-desert transitional belt (Rangelands) in the MENA; (2) enhancing the sustainability of agri-food systems in the food baskets of MENA and (3) working towards fostering a collective intelligence to support climate change research in the MENA. (4) The need for foresight advice on resilient food systems under climate change and (5) the need for transformative policies for stabilization and reconstruction under climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]