Strengthening cultivar diversity of barley and durum wheat to manage climate related risks and foster productivity in marginal areas of Ethiopia

Barley [Hordeum vulgare L.] and durum wheat [Triticum turgidum var. durum] are staple food crops for smallholders living in the Ethiopian highlands. In the face of climate change and variability, the proposed project will improve productivity of smallholders’ fields under marginal conditions (low and irregular rainfall, acid soils) in the low-agricultural potential areas of Tigray, Oromiya and Amhara regions. Working with women and men farmers, the project will enable farmers to benefit from a more targeted use of available barley and durum wheat diversity, participatory breeding strategies for marginal conditions and strengthened community-based, local seed systems that can flexibly and continuously adapt to changing climatic conditions. We hypothesize that farmers on marginal lands need a diversity of varieties specifically adapted to their needs and conditions, and that there are ways to make this diversity available in a cost-effective manner. Participatory identification of such adapted varieties using a crowdsourcing (“citizen science”) approach will create ownership (see text box page 6). Farmer-based seed production will be strengthened to become a credible component of the seed sector and produce quality seed in the targeted marginal areas. The approach will lead to enhanced uptake of a diversity of well-charac­terized, specifically adapted barley and durum wheat cultivars developed from robust and nutritionally superior landraces, in comparison with the varieties in use. Such uptake is expected in turn to sustainably increase yields and production stability under unfavorable conditions in the target regions. Five interconnected outputs will be delivered: (1) Representative sets of Ethiopian barley and durum wheat germplasm characterized for genetic diversity, agro-morphological, diseases reaction and grain nutrient density traits (2) Participatory breeding strategies developed involving women and men for barley and durum wheat adaptation to variable climate conditions and acid soils (3) Women and men farmers’ access to barley and durum wheat cultivar diversity enhanced and cultivars with specific adaptation to farmers’ contexts identified  and released (4) Role and capacity of local farmer- and community-based seed production schemes reinforced  at target sites (5) Capacity of Ethiopian women and men scientists in participatory breeding and seed systems work strengthened.