With the lingering food crisis, stagnating yield growth of food crops and burgeoning poverty, the need for improved information for targeting and prioritization of agricultural research has never been greater. To generate information to support existing projects and to identify areas for future investment, the Generation Challenge Program (GCP) funded a study of production constraints and opportunities to address them for important food crops in priority farming systems with high degrees of poverty. The study focused on wheat, rice, sorghum and cassava (which are important diet stunted children in developing countries), drought incidence and large production areas of food crops. These systems were located in South Asia, East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa and account for between 45% (for wheat and cassava) and 86% (for nice) of the harvested areas of these food crops in developing regions. Information was sought for 45 important crop x farming systems combinations. Applying modified Delphi method, three rounds of interactive surveys were conducted from April 2008 to March 2009. The expert knowledge of over 670 panelists familiar with the crop and system was obtained, including information from plant breeders, agronomists, socio-economists and other researchers; extension and training specialists, input suppliers and farmer organizations. These represented government institutions, international organizations, NGOs and the private sector. Sufficient returns were obtained from 38 of the crop x system combinations to be able to summarize results. Panelists identified important abiotic, management and socio-economic constraints that contribute to the smallholder farm yield gap (defined as Best (highest) achieved yield on farm - Average yield on farm) and estimated the yield losses associated with these constraints. The estimated grain (root for cassava) yield loos was used to rank the constraints by severity. Panelists provided additional information on interactions between the constraints, their effects on broader systems and secondary effects on household income. Respondents also proposed opportunities for solutions to the most serious constraints. The information on constraints and solutions may be used by the GCP and others to guide their investments.

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