Farmers in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region face several interrelated challenges including natural resource depletion, low crop productivity, and food and nutrition insecurity. To address some of these challenges, governments are considering different incentives to increase crop production. However, incentives often entail trade-offs and may have diverging effects on economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

This Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is designed for Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Use Case teams with an interest in developing gender- and youth-responsive agronomic solutions. The SOP is a guide to help Use Case teams move from each step in their workflows when designing, validating, and piloting their Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to ensure they can develop gender- and youth-responsive agronomic solutions by the end of their Use Case.

The AICCRA project, led by IITA recently introduced some climate smart Agricultural Innovations and Climate information services to help improve upon the farming activities and livelihoods of farmers in some selected communities in Ghana. Innovations such as the use of improved seeds, proper soil and nutrient management practices and integration of climatic data into decision making were introduced to farmers in five agro-ecological zones cutting across six regions in Ghana.

This research examined how the Smart-Valleys approach for water control was disseminated, its impact on rice yield, farmers' income, and food consumption score, as well as the farmers' perception of its advantages in Mali. In total, 469 farmers, including 68% women and 35% youth, adopted the Smart-Valleys approach across 10 sites, covering an area of 61.9 hectares. The primary dissemination methods included on-farm demonstrations, farmers exchange days, capacity building for extension agents and young service providers, along with continuous support to farmers during implementation.

This research assessed the dissemination methods of RiceAdvice, the factors influencing farmers' decisions to use, and its impacts on rice yield, farmers' income, food consumption score, and estimated greenhouse gas emissions in Mali. A total of 95,749 farmers, including 34,470 women (36%), benefited from RiceAdvice recommendations and were assisted by 120 young service providers in implementing these recommendations on their fields. Farmers' decisions to use RiceAdvice recommendations were influenced by formal education, farm size, and membership in farmers' organizations.

Farmer-led crop budgeting can be a valuable tool for examining how individuals or groups of farmers utilize and generate resources during agricultural operations. Budgeting exercises enable the quantification and analysis of resource inputs and outputs for a particular operation, resource, or the entire farming enterprise. They can be particularly useful when comparing between alterative suites of diverse crops and cropping systems.

Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) has degraded soils, epitomized by decades of loss of valuable topsoil caused by continuous cultivation, monocropping, excessive run-off, and the absence of effective conservation-based farming practices. Conservation Agriculture (CA) offers several opportunities to restore land and arrest soil degradation in smallholder farming systems of SSA. This study assessed labor productivity and farm returns associated with CA in Malawi and Zambia using household survey data collected from 500 and 616 farmers in Zambia and Malawi, respectively.

About 85% of Bangladesh's land is plain land where the mixed farming system (MFS) is practiced in which crops and livestock, as major enterprises are integrated. The objectives of this study were to characterize Bangladesh's MFSs and identify their potential and problems at two representative locations in the country's north and south. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and field visits were used in the study. The results showed that the current MFSs were characterized by a mixture of subsistence and commercial farming and intensive and small-scale land ownership.

This research examined the dissemination mechanisms of climate smart rice varieties, its impact on rice yield, farmers' income, and food consumption score, as well as the farmers' perception of their advantages in Mali. In total, 35,280 farmers adopted the climate smart rice varieties promoted by the AICCRA project on a total area of 19,404 ha. The primary dissemination methods included on-farm demonstrations, farmers field days and capacity building of seed producing companies.

The Supply Chain Risk Assessment and Management Toolkit, developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT in collaboration with FMO and Mercon Coffee Group, has the objective of helping companies assess the risks of engaging with or endorsing unlawful/unethical practices in their agricultural supply chains, and defining adequate measures to prevent, minimize and mitigate their impacts. The toolkit groups risks in three major Areas: Labor, Human Rights, and Environment, which are further disaggregated in Sub-Areas and Components.

The overall purpose of this background paper is to provide a review of current knowledge on the local dairy value chain in the Hauts-Bassins region (Bobo-Dioulasso) in relation to the principles of agroecology. The study involved a review of available literature, followed by interviews with managers of Bobo-Dioulasso's dairy platform, as well as managers of Dairy Processing Units (DPUs), Milk Collection Centres (MCCs) and farmers' cooperatives.

Agricultural extension work is crucial for rural development to guarantee technology dissemination and productivity, especially for small farmers. However, small farmers' requirements are context-specific, and characterization of these requirements is necessary to ensure a successful extension effort. This study encompasses a typological analysis of small farmers from a potato-based system in the Northern Andes of Peru. The agronomic data log of 608 potato farmers from the e-Agrology platform was analyzed for the period of April 2021 to June 2022.