Dryland Congress 2026 Adopts Delhi Declaration Calling for South-South Agricultural Cooperation

New Delhi, India – September 13, 2026

The three-day Dryland Congress 2026 concluded Sunday with the adoption of the Delhi Declaration on Drylands, a shared agenda calling for intensified South-South cooperation to transform dryland agriculture across the Global South.

The Congress, jointly organized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), concluded on the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, bringing together 800 global experts from 40 countries to deliberate on building resilient agri-food systems in arid and semi-arid regions.

Why Drylands Matter Now

Dr Himanshu Pathak, Director General of ICRISAT, emphasized that the world's drylands face mounting pressures from climate change, population growth, and resource degradation. With global warming intensifying heatwaves, erratic rainfall, and drought cycles, dryland farmers—the majority of whom are smallholders—face the highest risks.

"The knowledge of what needs to be done already exists in scattered pockets around the world," Dr Pathak said. "What's required is deliberate policy reform, targeted finance, and better information flows to unlock adaptation at scale."

The Congress convened at a critical moment. In recent years, dryland regions have experienced more frequent and severe climate shocks: heatwaves exceeding 45°C in South Asia, monsoon failures in East Africa, and prolonged droughts in Central America's dry corridor. These events have displaced communities, degraded soils, and undermined livelihoods, threatening to reverse decades of agricultural progress.

The Delhi Declaration on Drylands (3D)

The Delhi Declaration, endorsed at the closing plenary by participating governments, research institutions, development partners, and farming communities, sets out a five-point agenda:

1. Strengthen South-South and triangular cooperation to share proven innovations across borders with similar agro-climatic conditions.
2. Build robust data and information systems for dryland agri-food systems, enabling real-time monitoring, early warning, and evidence-based policy.
3. Establish innovation platforms or "living laboratories" that connect research institutions directly with farmer communities for co-development and rapid testing.
4. Mainstream dryland agriculture in national adaptation plans to ensure dedicated funding, policy coherence, and institutional accountability.
5. Scale up adaptation finance tailored to smallholder realities, including climate risk insurance, microcredit, and results-based grants.

"This is not about transferring technology from North to South. It is about connecting South to South—sharing solutions developed under comparable stress conditions by farmers and scientists who understand these environments," said Dr DK Yadava, Deputy Director General (Crop Science) at ICAR, and co-chair of the Congress.

South-South Cooperation in Action

The Congress highlighted several successful models of South-South collaboration already delivering impact:

• Brazil's drought-resistant bean varieties, developed through Embrapa's partnership with African breeding programs, are now being adopted across the Sahel, showing yield stability under heat and moisture stress.
• China's rice-fish co-culture systems, which improve nutrition and income for smallholders, have been transferred to Southeast Asia and East Africa through CGIAR networks.
• India's drought-tolerant pearl millet, bred by ICRISAT and national partners, is now grown in over 2 million hectares across sub-Saharan Africa, providing critical protein and micronutrients in food-insecure regions.

The ISSCA (International Solidarity for South-South Cooperation in Agriculture) platform, launched by ICRISAT in 2022, serves as the coordinating mechanism for these exchanges. As of 2026, ISSCA has facilitated over 120 innovation-sharing partnerships across 34 countries, with 47 technologies currently at scale.

"We are seeing a maturation of South-South cooperation—from knowledge exchange to implementation," said Dr Stanford Blade, Deputy Director General (Research & Innovation) at ICRISAT. "The question is no longer what works, but how to deploy what works faster and more broadly."

Key Outcomes and New Partnerships

Beyond the Declaration, the Congress announced new institutional commitments:

• The Global Crop Diversity Trust signed a partnership to expand the Svalbard Global Seed Vault's dryland crop collections.
• ICRISAT exchanged Memoranda of Understanding with Avior Life Sciences, Wipro Limited, and district administrations in Odisha to establish innovation hubs in arid zones.
• ICAR committed to designate its National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (ICAR-NIAP) as the lead agency for foresight work on dryland agriculture, enabling proactive rather than reactive policy.

The ISSCA Global Awards 2026 recognized innovations with strong scale potential across the Global South:

Transformative Excellence (Mega Award): ICARDA (Lebanon) for Heat-Tolerant Wheat Varieties; CIMMYT (Mexico) for e-Agrology 360; Odisha Livelihoods Mission (India) for Women-Led Sustainable Farming for Nutrition and Rural Resilience.

Crop Improvement & Production: BARI (Bangladesh) for BARI Chinabadam-9; University of Agricultural Sciences Dharwad (India) for GPBD 4; Department of Agricultural Research (Myanmar) for climate-smart early-maturing chickpea and pigeonpea varieties.

Natural Resource Management: Karnataka State Department of Agriculture for Krishi Bhagya; NECTAR (India) for integrated banana pseudo-stem processing; Department of Agriculture (Bihar, India) for rejuvenating Aahar–Pyne landscapes; Sustainable Farming Solutions (Malawi) for digital land-restoration stewardship.

Digital Agriculture: Department of Horticulture (Andhra Pradesh) for the APMIP Digital Ecosystem; Agriculture Department (Gujarat) for Krushi Pragati.

Challenges and the Road Ahead

Despite progress, significant barriers remain. The Congress identified three persistent gaps:

• Funding: Only 4 percent of global climate finance currently reaches smallholder agriculture, despite smallholders producing 30 percent of the world's food.
• Policy fragmentation: Dryland agriculture falls under multiple ministries (agriculture, water, environment, climate), leading to uncoordinated programs and missed synergies.
• Information asymmetry: Climate forecasts, market signals, and best practices rarely reach smallholders in actionable formats.

"We work really hard to make sure that we've got buffer areas so we don't have runoff from our fields," said farmer Chad Gard during a Congress panel on farmer adaptation. "We don't use any synthetic chemicals at all, we're careful not to use excess compost or leave our manure where it would run into the waterways. But extension services, where they exist, rarely deliver climate information in forms that farmers can act upon."

The Declaration calls for a coordinated implementation mechanism through ICAR, ICRISAT, CGIAR, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with annual progress reviews starting in 2027.

Significance

As global temperatures continue to rise and climate variability intensifies, the world's drylands will be at the forefront of agricultural adaptation. The Delhi Declaration on Drylands provides a roadmap for connecting innovation, policy, and finance through South-South cooperation—moving beyond isolated pilot projects to systematic transformation of dryland agri-food systems.

The Congress concluded with a renewed commitment: not just to share knowledge, but to scale it, ensuring that innovations proven under stress in one part of the Global South can reach farmers facing similar challenges in another—faster, better, and at the scale the climate crisis demands.

Sources:

• Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, India – September 13, 2026
• ANI News – September 13, 2026
• DD News – September 13, 2026
• PR Newswire/ICRISAT – September 12, 2026
• Indian Economic Observer – September 13, 2026