I think it is too early to think of any direct evidence of research contribution to farmers' adaptation to climate change. My observation in East Africa is that farmers are confused by the weather changes which they have never experienced before. Researchers, on the other hand are not yet seriously engaged in crop research activities that would assist farmers' adaptation to the current climatic changes. The reason has, in my opinion, been because of global involvement in assisting forestry research and development as the best option for, possibly, reducing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Farmers are asked to grow trees in exchange for money depending on how much CO2 they sequestered through biomass production. I feel that research for assisting farmers to adjust to climate change is still insignificant in many parts of the world. This could be an issue for debate so that those who have any evidence of research-related direct assistance to farmers' adaptation to climate change could documented.

I just stumbled upon this research paper that you may find interesting Akwilin: "Are food insecure smallholder households making changes in their farming practices? Evidence from East Africa".

http://bit.ly/10kKluU

Most interesting quotes as far as I'm concerned:

"Some analyses of long-term historical weather data for the region show a drying trend, and others no change in rainfall at all"

"Clearly climate change is only one of several key driving forces behind the changes seen and it is very difficult to disentangle the relative importance of different driving forces."

"Further analysis of the data, looking at specific changes by crop in each site, linked to the reasons why households said they made those changes (e.g. labor, land, market, weather-related) is underway to shed some further light on these issues."

Dear Bastiaan,

I'd like to point out the CCAFS programme to you (http://ccafs.cgiar.org). This large joint effort of all CG-institutes deals with exactly the question that you are asking by strudying Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. I cannot directly answer your question, but within CCAFS there are definitively people that can. If you need some names, I could provide them.

Hi Kasper,

Thanks for your response. I know a few people within CCAFS by name but had not thought about contacting them specifically to ask this question. I would indeed be interested to get some names. If they happen to be members of ResearchGate I will invite them to comment here if they wish to do so.

Then I will probably give you names of people you already know.

I'd certainly ask Andy Jarvis (as Theme Leader of the Adaptation Theme). But the Science officers are perhaps more likely to respond.. Christine Jost and Wiebke Foerch are names that pop to mind. Oh, and perhaps the webpage of the recently held Climate Smart conference can help you (http://climatesmart.ucdavis.edu).

Bastiaan,

I would suggest looking into Phenological records in the U.K. and then linking them to weather data. I am working on this in Germany - where phenologcal data is free to download, as well as a limited number of daily weather data series. The complete set of weather data must be paid for but gives one a tremendous amount of data to work with. I am currently focusing on maize - where technology, especially breeding has resulted in more cold-tolerant varieties that enable earlier planting. But trafficability is a major, and relatively rigid determinant and can be pretty well explained with a few meteorological variables e.g. rainfall and temperature. The trends in temperature, while perhaps clear from a broad persepective, show some surprising nuances. And the facets of risk aversion and learning horizons must be considered. Overall, there is a roughly 0.2 days/year trend toward earlier planting. Look me up at the U. of Giessen if you want - maybe we can work on a paper together.

Dear Bastiaan,

I am a project partner of Phillip and responsible for the behavioral part with respect to risk aversion and risk perception. I hope I can publish my empirical and modeling results very soon. It would be interesting to see what your opinion on this subject is.

My best wishes,

Evelyn

hi Evelyn,

I have not been involved in the collection and analyses of datasets on crop management and associated weather so I really haven't much to base a firm opinion on. The main reason I posted the question was to try and collect a range of different examples to be presented in a lecture. In the end I used a couple of studies listed in the previous IPCC report (see attached, sources included). I guess the relative scarcity of documented evidence suggests that extensive, good quality long-term data is lacking and / or other factors are more important resulting in a poor or absent climate signal. I'm sure there will be other explanations still!

Kind regards, Bastiaan