**2.1 Drought-tolerant maize varieties**

Recently released maize varieties allow acceptable grain yields under short-term and moderate drought (**Figure 1**). This technology mitigates adverse climate and lessens the risk of crop failure across many zones of Sub-Saharan Africa [13, 14]. Insufficient rainfall is a widespread reason for lost maize yield across Sub-Saharan

Africa, as 90% of the land is rainfed rather than irrigated. As a result, maize yields are highly sensitive to seasonal rainfall [15]. Improved lines offered through the market include drought tolerant maize (DTMA) with an ability to withstand periods of acute soil drying and water efficient maize (WEMA) adapted to season-long reduced supply of soil moisture.

Timely access to weather and market information and local climate adaptation measures provides a means for sound decision-making regarding when and where to invest in drought-tolerant maize. These same technologies allow maize to be produced in semi-arid regions with less irrigation water, allowing growers and national development planners to utilize less-traditional growing areas better. More than 200 lines of DTMA have been released in 13 African countries, and over 120 hybrids of WEMA released in seven countries. DTMA includes hybrid varieties that require parent seed and licensing [16] and numerous open-pollinated varieties (OPVs). These latter varieties permit royalty-free purchase and multiplication through farmers' and community-based seed production.

These drought-tolerant varieties are introduced to farmers through on-farm demonstrations with broader coverage. This allows farmers to see the varieties in action and learn about their benefits firsthand. The main barriers to adopting DroughtTEGO® varieties are a lack of information about their productivity, unavailability of seed when needed, and the high cost compared to other locally available varieties [17, 18]. Oniang'o et al. [18] found that well-thought-out strategies to influence awareness and adoption of drought-tolerant maize include strengthening extension services, providing credit to small-scale farmers, investigating cases of discontinued use, improving access to seed through agro-dealerships, targeting age and gender, and specific agro-ecological zones.
