Disentangling Challenges to Scaling Alternate Wetting and Drying Technology for Rice Cultivation: Distilling Lessons From 20 Years of Experience in the Philippines

• DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.675818
• Publication Date: 2021-06-21T08:15:59Z
• Authors: Yuji Enriquez; Sudhir Yadav; Gio Karlo Evangel...; Donald Villanueva; Mary Ann Burac; Valerien Pede
• Keywords: Scarcity; Water security

Alternate wetting and drying (AWD) is a low-cost innovation that enables farmers to adapt increasingly water scarcity conditions (such as drought), increase overall farm production efficiency, mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It seen pathway for transforming agri-food systems into more resilient, productive, biologically diverse, equitable forms, ensuring our commitments the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper uses scaling up uncertainty frameworks review success challenges of AWD's 20-year trajectory in Philippines explain key factors have influenced its outcomes. The framework adapted this study also used examine fitness between context requirements, organizational mission, corresponding capabilities. Findings show platform vertically integrated actors locally AWD has helped foster essential breakthroughs creating an enabling environment took national policy adoption Philippines. However, dominant focus on technology transfer, product focus, preference controlled environments practice neglected many important contextual factors, allowing mismatches incentives, institutions, scale diminish impacts gravity-based systems. Our findings suggest rethinking re-envisioning ways which impact can be scaled irrigation rice using critical sustaining food security making agriculture sector resilient climate change.