在新的敌对气候，耐旱作物中

Last year, droughts devastated staple food crops across the developing world, cutting production by about half in some countries. A stream of reports from Central America, Eastern and Southern Africa as well as the Asia-Pacific region painted a grim picture of suffering and upheaval.

Poor harvests subjected tens of millions to chronic hunger, prompting various governments to declare states of emergency. InCentral America, survey results，包括美国政府的一些人认为气候引起的粮食短缺是从干旱地区移民的主要原因。

极端的天气带来令人震惊的后果，需要做出非凡的反应。加倍的努力必须集中于建立发展中国家的主要粮食系统的韧性。

Fortunately, agricultural science has already provided a wide range of solutions and continues to generate more.

Conservation agriculture and drought-tolerant crops

新的technologies from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (cimmyt) suggest how developing countries can work toward a better future.

耐旱谷物有望帮助稳定玉米和小麦的生产。在多年的常规植物育种中，研究人员为撒哈拉以南非洲的160多种玉米品种开发了比在正常降雨下至少等于农民的标准品种高出25-30％的玉米品种。

根据津巴布韦的一项研究，农民种植耐旱玉米在干旱年中，每公顷谷物多达600公斤，足以养活六口之家，持续9个月。改善的品种已经在250万公顷中增长，受益于5400万人。研究人员还准备开发耐旱和热量耐受性的小麦线，并通过尖端的协作科学确定了这些特征的基因。

“Extreme weather, with its appalling consequences, demands an extraordinary response. Fortunately, agricultural science has already provided a wide range of solutions and continues to generate more.”

国际玉米和小麦改善中心总干事马丁·克罗普夫（Martin Kropff）

To provide maximum benefits, drought-tolerant crop varieties need to form part of smart farming systems that capture and conserve moisture. One such system – conservation agriculture – combines diverse crops with reduced or no ploughing, and the practice of leaving stalks and other crop residues on the ground after harvest. Already widely applied in South America´s Southern Cone, this system has also made inroads in the predominant rice-wheat system of South Asia´s Indo-Gangetic Plain, a major breadbasket for the region. Conservation agriculture is being widely promoted in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Mexico and elsewhere.

Globally, around 80 per cent of food production depends on increasingly erratic rainfall. To ensure better water supplies, many farmers have purchased their own small pumps for irrigation, often using water from aquifers underground. One drawback to this practice is that it can lead to groundwater depletion, which is already a serious problem in Northwest India, for example. Insearching for solutions, researchers there have recently shown how farmers can grow just as much rice and wheat using only about half the water normally needed, through conservation agriculture combined with the use of a drip irrigation system that delivers just the right amount of water, plus fertiliser to crop roots through underground pipes.

Scaling-up drought solutions

The challenge now is to mainstream the growing portfolio of drought solutions – a task demanding not only technical acumen, but institutional vision.
例如，私人种子公司与公共作物育种计划之间的伙伴关系在将耐旱玉米纳入农民领域中起着至关重要的作用。但是，今天从这项创新中受益的人们仍然仅占饮食依赖玉米的3亿非洲人中的一小部分。显然，必须扩大此类伙伴关系。

创新platforms are rapidly becoming the tool of choice for refining and scaling out more complicated innovations, such as conservation agriculture. Transitioning to new production practices can be a daunting experience for farmers, especially smallholders. By bringing together networks of farmers, extension specialists, researchers, private companies and policymakers, innovation platforms offer the knowledge, services and products needed for change.

In order for improved technologies to have the desired effect, government and partner organisations must get their policies and decisions right. Recent孟加拉国的研究例如,确定新的政策措施for enhancing the efficiency of irrigation services. In addition, organisations must base their decisions and planning before and during droughts on information from new systems that use remote sensing and climate data analysis fordrought monitoring and early warning。

以科学为基础的气候预测tell us that drought will become even worse in the decades ahead. Only by implementing drought solutions on an unprecedented scale, will countries be able to avoid a future that leaves millions of people at the mercy of a hostile climate.