The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sorghum and Millet (SMIL), based at Kansas State University, and the West African Regional Center of Excellence on Improving Adaptation to Drought of the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research (ISRA/CERAAS) recently released the open access book, “Crop Adaptation and Improvement for Drought-Prone Environments.” Published by New Prairie Press at Kansas State University, the book is an interdisciplinary effort to identify strategic constraints and opportunities to improve the sorghum, pearl millet, cowpea, groundnut and fonio value chains in the West African Sahel region.

The unique publication originated from the need to confront economic, social and environmental constraints limiting dryland food systems in West Africa, along with a desire to provide a new publication outlet for early-career scientists working on groundbreaking research. The book is published as open access and can be read and downloaded by anyone in the world, free of charge.

“This book highlights some of the fantastic results of research carried out in West Africa by senior and early-career scientists. It is one of the first books to be written for and by researchers from national agricultural research systems in West Africa to serve as a banner for very relevant research about improving food security in the Sahel region,” said Daniel Foncéka, geneticist for the Agricultural Research Center for International Development (CIRAD), ISRA/CERAAS and book editor.

“This book allows us to share key results and technologies that extend the opportunity to collaborate on crop improvement with various international communities,” Ndjido Kane, former CERAAS director and book editor, said. “This research demonstrates progress West Africa has made toward the development of climate-smart technologies and crop adaptation.”

In addition to highlighting findings from crop adaptation research, the book examines economic and information constraints that hinder food system performance and the value of international partnerships in conducting strategic and applied research in the Sahel.

Timothy Dalton, SMIL director and book editor, said, “This book presents state-of-the-art research to improve the dryland food systems in West Africa. It provides a blueprint for additive research to continue improving regional food security that is accessible to students, scientists and development experts.”

Please scan the Quick Response (QR) code to obtain the open access book on a mobile device. Download the information document with QR codes for each chapter. The open access book is also available at https://bit.ly/crop-adaptation-book. For more information about the open access book, please visit https://smil.k-state.edu/crop-adaptation-book.