Q1: On systems analysis (for intensification) component: how do you plan to address the risk that you note on this component producing great and useful results and information, but less clarity on how to take it to scale? What should the team in LSE working on this component do to enable others including decision makers best use their information and take it to scale?

Comment: I very much share the passion for drylands too Polly! I will follow with Crane and other LSE colleagues on put ideas together, especially pertaining rangeland management and coming up with ideas on innovation methods/schemes (including market based and land tenure related) to address issues of land degradation and bush encroachment.

Another key entry point is to leverage pastoral production systems as a means to conservation, as by and large the two are often quite compatible.

I would add that as the science of drylands has progressed in recent decades, the perspective of bi-laterals and NGOs seems to slowly be changing. One key change is that linear thinking and an a priori assumption of over-stocking being the primary cause of degradation in dryland grazing areas are being re-thought, and this gives us an entry point to show new ways forward, with governance playing a key role.

This is another example of how we need systems approaches including modeling and scenarios and other kinds of foresight analysis to consider interactions across sectors, scales of analysis, different production components, etc. I hope systems approaches can be strengthened in the next round of CRPs.

Indeed we try (more than before) to link up to indicators for example NGOs use to make their decisions in terms of prioritization of options and roll out technologies. We try to come up with a transparent process of prioritization to assess what the potential outreach is of interventions, and how much we can achieve for different groups of farmers. If we can change /diversify a bit the options some of the big ngos (e.g. worldvision, crs) in a rather standard fashion turn to and role out we already have a major impact I think

Thank you very much.

Perhaps an early step would be a quick scan of possible gains to be had by improvement of animal genetic resources for drylands together with some back-of-the-envelope calculations to get a sense of what potential Polly’s item no. 3 above holds. I look forward to such discussions.

excellent point Augustine… especially since productivity is the entry point.

Thanks Vish. Yes this is totally grounds for a focus group. We are doing some work with FSZ (watch Hung tomorrow) on PestForecast and also have been collaborating with Bernard on the RVF work…. but we need solutions to accompany this analytical and predictive work.. people need to have action options if a new disease is emerging or re-emerging…