Protocol on evaluating the impact of GLDC-based farming systems on natural resources health

Abstract

With locally adapted crop, tree and livestock solutions this flagship aims to contribute to restoring degraded lands and efficient use of scarce water resources for sustainable and productive agro-ecosystems. However, the challenge remains how to assess the impacts of GLDC-based farming systems on natural resources sustainability. We anticipate that participatory social and ecological analysis on the relevance of the integrated portfolios of GLDC and crop-tree-livestock-based management options will help understand to which extent farmers, development actors and policy makers are less averse to changing farm production systems and components. Therefore, the system performance will go here beyond yield to include how better the land is managed and maintained (Tittonel et al. 2010; Vanlauwe et al. 2014; Rockström et al. 2017). The present activity is about evaluating the impact of development that promoted integrated farming at plot, farm and landscape levels by assessing ecosystem services delivery and flow across spatial and temporal scales. This will also include trade-off analyses to identify optimum strategies for complementarities and conflicts at both household and landscape levels.