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Using participatory action research methods, we co-developed climate risk management approaches with participating farmers as part of a large project in India on climate adaptation to climate change in Asia (ACCA). The key components of this work involved village level meteorological data recording and reporting, formation and development of farmer climate clubs, on-farm participatory research testing a range of sowing and irrigation practices in response to weather patterns, and preparation and dissemination of agro-meteorological advisories. This research catalysed the development of the CLimate Information Centre concept (CLIC), further evolving into the development of an ICT platform of software and hardware that integrated the ACCA project results, biweekly agro-meteorological advisory bulletins and static agronomy information. An evaluation of the CLICs was undertaken based on a survey of 330 farmers in eight CLICs villages in Telangana state in southern India. The evaluation considered aspects such as the frequency of visits to CLICs, farmer perceptions on usefulness of information, any changes in knowledge and practice due to CLICs visits, and satisfaction with the CLICs as a source of information. On average 80 percent of the surveyed farmers had visited CLICs during the period. Farmers highlighted the important contribution of the agronomy videos they watched, access to agro-meteorological bulletins, information on pests, and weather forecast information. These contributed to various types of benefits they derived including an average cost savings of US$ 4 – 64 per hectare/year. While the current version of CLICs has shown promise and relevance for small holders, they need to be further developed into small business centres that function as a knowledge and provision hub for various agriculture inputs and providing climate information as an important service. This will serve as a self-sustaining financial model for CLICs rather than climate information as the only source of information service that is currently the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering perishable crops for use in indoor farms promises to expand the adoption of this high-yielding, efficient means of food production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian dry-land crop producers farm in regions with highly variable climate and soils. Farmers have responded to the pressures of rising costs by pioneering and adapting new technologies to narrow the gap between actual and water-limited yield. With yields reaching a plateau in many of the developed world's cropping areas, it is possible that Australia's leading farmers have similarly closed the exploitable yield gap and require technological breakthroughs to sustainably push the production frontier to new and higher levels. To assess the potential for Australian farmers to continue closing the yield gap, and possibly increase water-limited yield, the long-term farm production records of individual wheat fields of three leading farmers in South East Australia were used to ascertain the applicability of modelling to develop new and innovative practices. The cropping systems simulator APSIM was used to establish the attainable simulated yield based on the farmers' chosen management inputs for wheat crops over a period of 16-20 years. A strong relationship (r²=0.89, RMSD=508 kgha-1) was found between actual and simulated yields. This relationship indicates that yield-reducing factors not simulated by APSIM (weeds, disease etc.) were largely controlled on these farms and confirms APSIM's suitability for this analysis. Over the 16-20 year study period, the average yield gaps on the three farms ranged from 480 to 770kgha-1; representing between 74 and 82% of their water-limited yield potential. For these leading farmers, the yield gap is only small and unlikely to be economically exploitable under current management practices. Consequently, three tactical management innovations with potential to improve farm wheat yield and reduce risk were evaluated. One innovation investigated whether farmers practicing no-till crop establishment, who were able to control weeds prior to sowing, could benefit from sowing current cultivars earlier than present-day practice. It was found that leading farmers are already sowing at the optimum time and sowing earlier would not increase yield because of greater risk of frost damage. Two other innovations were found to have practical application. The first used Yield Prophet® to assist farmers decide when to apply in-crop nitrogen fertiliser based on a more complete understanding of nitrogen and water requirements of crops in variable growing seasons. The second innovation involved sowing slow maturing wheat cultivars earlier than current practice but only in years with adequate stored soil water and early season rainfall. Both innovations were found to increase grain yield and reduce risk of over- or under-application of nitrogen fertiliser. Investigation of strategic and tactical management options to increase yield using simulation modelling for subsequent evaluation in the field has the potential to keep Australian farmers at the forefront of innovations in crop production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring an adequate food supply in systems that protect environmental quality and conserve natural resources requires productive and resource-efficient cropping systems on existing farmland. Meeting this challenge will be difficult without a robust spatial framework that facilitates rapid evaluation and scaling-out of currently available and emerging technologies. Here we develop a global spatial framework to delineate 'technology extrapolation domains' based on key climate and soil factors that govern crop yields and yield stability in rainfed crop production. The proposed framework adequately represents the spatial pattern of crop yields and stability when evaluated over the data-rich US Corn Belt. It also facilitates evaluation of cropping system performance across continents, which can improve efficiency of agricultural research that seeks to intensify production on existing farmland. Populating this biophysical spatial framework with appropriate socio-economic attributes provides the potential to amplify the return on investments in agricultural research and development by improving the effectiveness of research prioritization and impact assessment., (© 2018 The Author(s).)