Climate change is an unprecedented global threat to fundamental life-supporting systems and people's livelihoods and is expected to aggravate development challenges. Subsistence-oriented smallholder farmers of developing regions, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, are highly vulnerable to these changes given their lower adaptive capacity. In this context, building a climate-resilient agricultural society is an essential requirement to protect livelihoods. Hence, there is a need for spreading the climate-resilient sustainable agricultural (CRSA) practices by replicating the proven ones to larger areas (scaling-up). Fostering widespread adoption of such practices needs consideration of their social, ecological, economic, and institutional appropriateness in target areas. This article reports the application of a tool ''ScalA'' that generates information on a multitude of aspects and assesses the local suitability of CRSA practices among sub-Saharan smallholders. It also briefly presents other state-of-the-art tools that can be used for similar purposes. In the first case study, the tool is used to assess appropriateness of agroforestry, biochar application, and rainwater harvesting in Fulwe village of Morogoro, Tanzania, for enhancing resilience capacity. In another case study, the potential of fertilizer management is assessed for two different villages, i.e., Fulwe and Mlali. Analytically, appropriateness of interventions is assessed by the deviation of the actual factor constellation of the scaling-up process with an optimal constellation that will foster the wider adoption of the given practice.

There is uncertainty on how generally applicable near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) calibrations are across genotypes and environments, and this study tests how well a single calibration performs across a wide range of conditions. We also address the optimization of NIRS to perform the analysis of crude protein (CP) content in a variety of cowpea accessions (n = 561) representing genotypic variation as well as grown in a wide range of environmental conditions in Tanzania and Uganda. The samples were submitted to NIRS analysis and a predictive calibration model developed. A modified partial least-squares regression with cross-validation was used to evaluate the models and identify possible spectral outliers. Calibration statistics for CP suggests that NIRS can predict this parameter in a wide range of cowpea leaves from different agro-ecological zones of eastern Africa with high accuracy (R2cal = 0.93; standard error of cross-validation = 0.74). NIRS analysis improved when a calibration set was developed from samples selected to represent the range of spectral variability. We conclude from the present results that this technique is a good alternative to chemical analysis for the determination of CP contents in leaf samples from cowpea in the African context, as one of the main advantages of NIRS is the large number of compounds that can be measured at once in the same sample, thus substantially reducing the cost per analysis. The current model is applicable in predicting the CP content of young cowpea leaves for human nutrition from different agro-ecological zones and genetic materials, as cowpea leaves are one of the popular vegetables in the region.

In the high Andes, environmental and socio-economic drivers are transforming agriculture and presumably affecting the in situ conservation of potato (Solanum spp.). To monitor the use and conservation of intraspecific diversity, systematic and comparative studies across agricultural land-use systems are needed. We investigated the spatial-temporal dynamics of potato in two landscapes of Peru’s central Andes: A highland plateau (Huancavelica) compared to an eastern slope (Pasco). We examined household-level areal allocations, altitudinal distribution, sectoral fallowing practices, and the conservation status for three main cultivar groups: (i) Bred varieties, (ii) floury landraces, and (iii) bitter landraces. Mixed methods were used to survey 323 households and the 1101 potato fields they managed in 2012–2013. We compared the contemporary altitudinal distribution of landraces with 1975–1985 altimeter data from the International Potato Center. Intensification is occurring in each landscape while maintaining high intraspecific diversity. Access to land and production for sale compared to consumption significantly affected smallholder management and differentiated landscapes. Most landraces were scarce across households: 45.4% in Huancavelica and 61.7% in Pasco. Potato cultivation has moved upward by an average of 306 m since 1975. Landrace diversity is versatile but unevenly distributed across landscapes. This requires adaptive ways to incentivize in situ conservation.

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