Rockefeller Supports Research on Farming Adaptations to Combat Climate Change
As the globe continues to spin toward a future with higher temperatures, crop yields will likely decrease if farmers do not adapt to new management or technology practices. Establishing new strategies is particularly difficult for sorghum farmers in West Africa where seed varieties and fertilizer are scarce, while drought and unpredictable rainfall are prevalent.
“Climate change will impact both natural and agricultural ecosystems on the planet. The difference is that farmers can do things to adapt to the changing climate, and hopefully alleviate the impacts on their crops,” says Kaiyu Guan, an environmental scientist at the University of Illinois.
Guan and his colleagues conducted a research project modeling practices farmers could adopt, weighing them against climate change scenarios.
The work was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the US National Science Foundation, the NERC/DFID Future Climate for Africa Programme, and the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies...