Bacon receives multi-year NSF grant to study food and water security in Nicaragua
Chris Bacon and his colleagues have received a $300,000 mult-year National Science Foundation research grant to study food and water security under climate change for smallholders in Nicaragua.
Small-scale farmers in developing regions must regularly navigate crop pathogens, hurricanes, commodity price fluctuations, El Niño events, and drought, all of which threaten household food and water security. In fact, rural smallholder families in the Global South comprise more than 50% of the global food-insecure population, although they are key to conserving agro-biodiversity and producing food for a substantial segment of the population.
Such is also the case in Central America, where the recent convergence of hazards, such as a coffee leaf rust outbreak (“La roya”), high prices for several staple foods, and a drought have greatly aggravated the situation.
