| Drought is endemic to southern Africa. In Zimbabwe farmers have been experiencing drought once every two to three years. Relief agencies have traditionally responded to drought by providing farmers with enough seed and fertilizer to enable them to re-establish their cropping enterprises. But, in the absence of these interventions there are limited sustainable options for farmers to maintain higher productivity levels. ICRISAT has been working with government, NGOs and the donor community to test more sustainable farming strategies that will increase food production levels even under drought conditions. For years, ICRISAT sought to develop more drought-tolerant varieties of sorghum, pearl millet and groundnut. But these offered only limited gains in... |
