The agricultural sector is particularly heterogeneous with strong variations in vulnerability to climate change. Farmers will therefore require adaptation pathways tailored to their context, for example, dependent on the ecosystem they live in, the resources they have, the production systems they employ and other key socio-economic differences such as gender, age, and education. The session will share and review examples of innovation systems that can take into account the diversity of needs and issues facing farmers, notably marginalized farmers, women, youth and indigenous people across contexts. Understanding, addressing and quantifying this complexity using innovative tools is key to the design and scaling of adaptation pathways.

 The event will present approaches that combine participatory approaches, empowerment of farmers to plan, record and analyse their practices with innovative digital technologies to enable farmers themselves to experiment and document various climate adaptation pathway and identify what works best for them.. Results will show that community driven knowledge, mutual learning and experimentations appear key for successful and inclusive adoption of climate adaptation measures. The session will then discuss how to scale such approaches through cost-effective grassroot institutions and last mile extension systems, network and knowledge platforms and partnership. The session will also discuss how covid and digitalization can further support the scaling of such approaches.