Innovation Network for Rural Development of the Great American Chaco in the Context of Climate Change

The Gran Chaco covers an area of approximately 1,014,000 km2 and represents the second largest forested region in Latin America after the Amazon rainforest. The impact caused by the increase in extreme weather events affects families, whose subsistence largely depends on resources from the native forest. The objective of The Innovation Network for a Climate-Resilient Gran Chaco is to coordinate the regional programs REDLAC (INTA - INIAF - IPTA) and Gran Chaco PROADAPT (groups the NGO) as an innovation network for the development of family agriculture in the Gran Chaco in the context of climate change. Based on participatory planning workshops, the project's Trinational Committee coordinated its three components Innovation, Coordination, Management and Monitoring, and GCyC, and in particular the activities of the Beekeeping teams, Minor Ruminants - mainly goats, Silkworm, and Meteorology.

Focused on the generation of “Climate-Smart Systems”, one of the tools that yields results are the Demonstration Units. These aim to initiate a continuous process of adjusting the technological path to the territory and to be an innovation tool, where organizations and their producers, based on a large R & D & I team, achieve the “collective way of innovating”. With a total of 19 Beekeeping Demonstration Units, 4 Minor Ruminant Modules, 1 Silkworm Demonstration Unit, and 6 Technological Validation Pilot Sites, it contributes to the adjustment of the technological path as a tool for socialization and development. Using these tools, we manage to revalue local knowledge, based on R + D + i knowledge.