The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) organised the ‘Innovations to Transform Drylands Conference’ – an international gathering of the world’s foremost dryland agrifood system experts to share new innovations to improve the lives of the poorest of the poor at ICRISAT headquarters, Hyderabad from 21-23 February 2023. The conference was supported by The Alliance, New Delhi as part of the UN Environment implemented GEF project being implemented in four agro eco regions of India. Jai Rana, National Project coordinator and Sonal Dsouza, Senior Officer-Project Management participated in the conference, which was also attended by Prof Lindiwe Sibanda, Chair, CGIAR System Board.
The conference was organised to promote the latest advancements in agriculture, technology, and policy that can be scaled and utilized by policymakers to transform drylands into sustainable and productive ecosystems. With almost 40% of the world's land area classified as drylands, which are home to approximately 2 billion people, these regions face deep challenges from climate change, drought, and other environmental stressors.
The inaugural session of the conference was graced by Mr S Niranjan Reddy, Hon'ble Agriculture Minister of the Government of Telangana, India, and Prof Ramesh Chand, Member of NITI Aayog, Government of India. The conference received over 500 participants and the key highlights were 20 plenary speakers, 8 keynote speakers, 96 experts who gave lead presentations in various themes. There were also 126 poster presentations and 60+ exhibitors in the conference.
Technical sessions were held around eight conference themes. Jai Rana made a lead presentation on ‘Mainstreaming the agrobiodiversity of drylands for climate resilience and nutrition’ as part of the Theme – Regenerative/Natural Farming systems for Drylands.
