Can Field Phenotyping improve the livelihood of millions of households?

Dr. Jana Kholova describes her reseach at ICRISAT and how we established a unique Field Phenotyping platform together to support the research on crops for the semi-arid tropics. Why the semi-arid tropics should get more research attention... Within the scope of climate change projections the already harsh conditions for agricultural productions in semi-arid tropics (SAT) would most probably severe. These changes will affect millions of the most vulnerable households living already deeply below the poverty line. One viable option to reverse the inevitable pessimistic future of SAT farming systems is the enhancement of its production and resilience. However, there has been only a marginal progress in this task since last decades because SAT farming systems are characteristic with the most harshest environmental constrains (mainly drought) followed by very low crop production. Maybe for these reasons SAT agro-ecosystems received only limited scientific attention and negligible investments from public-private sector.